Kalinin K-7 (Russian: Калинин К-7) was a heavy experimental aircraft designed and tested in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. K-7 was of unusual configuration with twin booms and large underwing pods housing fixed landing gear and machine gun turrets. In the passenger version, seats were arranged inside the 2.3 meter (7 ft 7 in) thick wings. The airframe was welded from KhMA chrome-molybdenum steel. The original design called for six engines in the wing leading edge but when the projected loaded weight 2 more engines were added.  The only prototype crashed during a test flight.

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de Havilland Beaver Plane Crash

January 10, 1964, started out as a typical day for the flight test group at Boeing's Wichita plant.  Pilot Chuck Fisher took off in a B-52H with a three-man Boeing crew, flying a low-level profile to obtain structural data. 

Over Colorado , cruising 500 feet above the mountainous terrain, the B-52 encountered some turbulence. Fisher climbed to 14,300 feet looking for smoother air. At this point the typical day ended. The bomber flew into clear-air turbulence. It felt as if the plane had been placed in a giant high-speed elevator, shoved up and down, and hit by a heavy blow on its right side.  

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Continental and two former employees are on trial for involuntary manslaughter, for having allowed a piece of titanium known as a wear strip to drop off one of the airline's DC-10 planes as it taxied down the runway two aircraft ahead of the fateful Air France Concorde, on a hot July afternoon in 2000. Five minutes later, the Concorde, according to the charges, rolled over the debris, which pierced one of its tires, sending pieces of rubber flying. One piece of rubber apparently penetrated the Concorde's full fuel tank, which exploded in fire. As traffic controllers screamed "You have flames! You have flames!" to the pilots, the blazing Concorde plummeted into a hotel, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.

...Investigators have also raised other concerns: the doomed Concorde appeared to be overloaded with luggage from its planeload of German tourists, who were flying to meet their cruise liner in New York City; one of two routine daily runway sweeps at Charles de Gaulle Airport had reportedly been cancelled that day; and Concorde workers had allegedly neglected to replace a crucial tire spacer on the aircraft in maintenance work four days before the crash. Continental is the only company charged, along with the firm's former welder John Taylor, who fixed the titanium strip to the Continental DC-10, and his supervisor Stanley Ford. The French are also going after their own. In the same trial, Concorde's former head of testing Henri Perrier and former chief engineer Jacques Herubel as well as France's retired civil aviation chief Claude Frantzen are also charged with involuntary manslaughter for having failed to detect and fix faults in the aircraft that investigators believe contributed to the crash. If found guilty, the individuals may face prison terms of up to three years plus fines of about $71,000 each. Continental faces a fine of as much as $520,000.

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At about 10 p.m. local time on May 8, 2006, a 7th Bomb Wing B-1B Lancer based at Dyess AFB, Texas , made a wheels-up belly landing on runway 31 at Diego Garcia, skidding 7,500 feet down the runway. 

The aircraft was landing at the end of an 11 hour   ferry mission that started at Andersen AFB , Guam .  During the landing, the B-1B caught fire and emergency crews extinguished the flames.  The four-person aircrew escaped from the plane through the overhead escape hatch.  The aircraft was finally removed from the runway 4 days later.
The Air Force Accident Investigation concluded the pilots forgot to lower the landing gear.  The USAF estimated the damage to the B-1B at $7.9 million, and the damage to the runway at $14,025.

Computers definitely have an advantage in responding to situations when given the proper inputs.  But I'd be far more comfortable in an aircraft the allows the pilot to override the flight systems in an emergency.

But while most reports are focusing on why the sensors gave incorrect information (icing, an electrical fire. etc.), the more substantive issue is that the pilots of Flight 447 never had a fighting chance because their airplane's controls were never in their hands -- they were in the hands of the on-board computers made by the likes of Northrup Grumman, Litton and Honeywell.

Flight 447 was an Airbus, which uses so-called "fly-by-wire" technology that relies entirely on electronic rather than hydraulic and manual systems. Boeing jets also use fly-by-wire, but allow pilots to override computers in an emergency -- whereas Airbus systems don't.

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Amazing 45 second sequence... You may have to Re-play to see the bird that entered the engine. Go to large screen if you can. This is footage from the cockpit of an F-16. Cool reaction and professionalism of the two pilots, including cockpit transmission with video.

F-16 engine ingests bird after takeoff @ Tyndall AFB Panama City , FL. Think you might find it interesting to see a crash from the cockpit of an airplane? It is an instructor pilot in the rear and a student in the front seat of an F-16.

A 'Bird Strike,' as seen through the Heads Up Display (HUD). You can see the bird flash by just prior to impacting the engine. You can hear the aircraft voice warning system telling them they have a problem and referring to the 'D-6 NL' which means there is no engine RPM. They made 2 attempts to relight the jet engine, but evidently there was too much damage from the bird strike and they had to eject. These guys were very cool; note the heavy breathing.

They certainly flew longer than one would expect before ejecting. Airspeed can be observed on the HUD's upper left corner. It goes down to the low 120's as they struggle to get the engine going again, but as the plane noses over and dives to earth it increases to at least 175 just before impact.

It just goes to show how quickly your day can go to pieces - 45 seconds from strike to ejection. All and all, not bad. They ran the Emergency Checklist, made two relight attempts, and picked out a plowed field for impact before ejecting.

You can follow the audio attached to it and hear the conversation between the pilot and instructor pilot and then the tower. Including the pilot saying they were punching out. The tower didn't seem to completely understand it all, and missed the significance of the last transmission.

The towers last radio call, he's talking to an empty aircraft. The video continues until impact, even after they both eject. A classic 'buying the farm' as you can see the plow rows get bigger. A real nice job from the aircrew by keeping their cool and turning the aircraft away from populated areas. No one hurt and no one killed, but the  bird did cost the Taxpayers a 'few' million dollars!

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Wilbert D. Pearson
Brigadier General, USAF
HQ AFMC Director of Operations

The A-6 making emergency landing

Lieutenant Keith Gallagher's Account:

Murphy's Law says, "Whatever can go wrong, will, and when you least expect it." (And, of course, we all know that Murphy was an aviator.) Murphy was correct beyond his wildest dreams in my case. Fortunately for me, however, he failed to follow through. On my 26th birthday I was blindsided by a piece of bad luck the size of Texas that should have killed me. Luckily, it was followed immediately by a whole slew of miracles that allowed me to be around for my 27th. Not even Murphy could have conceived of such a bizarre accident (many people still find it hard to believe), and the fact that I am here to write about it makes it that much more bizarre.

We were the overhead tanker, one third of the way through cruise, making circles in the sky. Although the tanker pattern can be pretty boring midway through the cycle, we were alert and maintaining a good lookout doctrine because our airwing had a midair less than a week before, and we did not want to repeat. We felt we were ready for "any" emergency: fire lights, hydraulic failures and fuel transfer problems. Bring 'em on! We were ready for them. After all, how much trouble can two JO's get in overhead the ship?

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