A Delta Airline plane loading for departure A major air disaster at JFK Airport avoided by the captain on Friday the 13! There are many emergency-drills a pilot practices in the flight simulator in anticipation of a real one in his flying career one day. Indeed, on Friday the 13, January 2023, the captain of …
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How Some Unruly Passengers Behave in Flight… On a recent flight from New York to Delhi, an unruly male passenger urinated on a woman in the plane. This person appeared to be drunk on the flight. The victim demanded for the immediate arrest of the culprit upon landing but against her wishes, the crew brought …
Photo: Benny Zheng Scoot’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner What if unruly air passengers refuse to buckle up? Recently, it was reported that a group of unruly passengers on a Scoot flight refused to fasten their seat belts as the plane was making a descent to land. Well, the captain is ultimately called upon by the purser …
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Photo: 123RF An Airbus A350 Can an airplane complete a full flight on auto pilot? There is some confusion on what constitutes a full flight. If we define it as from the departure gate, say from Kuala Lumpur to the London Heathrow arrival gate, then we cannot say that the auto pilot is capable of …
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Image Credit: Mentour Pilot Lining up on a Runway under Construction Get-there-itis – a potential pilot killer Pilots often face tremendous pressures. As such, safety at times takes a backseat to getting there on time. Get-there-itis or get-home-itis means the determination of a pilot to reach a destination even when the conditions for flying are …
Photo: 123RF A Boeing 737 Cockpit Is it possible for someone who has never flown before to successfully land an airliner? For that someone who has never flown, the chances of successfully bringing the plane down safely are almost nil. But, if that passenger is a general aviation enthusiast, a computer geek on the Microsoft …
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AmIGoingDown? App What is the probability that a plane will crash? The probability of a fatal plane crash is extremely low. A cursory search shows that the risk of your plane going down is around 1 in 5.4 million and the risk of being killed in a plane crash for the average American is about …
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Image credit: Allec Joshua Ibay An Air India Express Boeing 737-800 Why does the plane suddenly go around? A go-around occurs when the pilot makes a decision not to continue a landing. It is also called a missed approach, wave-off, rejected or aborted landing. Whatever one chooses to call it, the captain is definitely not …
Image: Bull Bosphorus A United Airlines Boeing 777 engine on Fire What is the best way for a pilot to deal with an engine fire? Engine fire is a very rare occurrence in modern planes today. Nevertheless, it did happen on a Boeing 777 in Denver last year. The best way for a pilot to …
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Photo: 123RF A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737 What happens if a pilot falls asleep on a long flight? On 15 August 2022, two Ethiopian Airlines pilots flying a Boeing 737 missed landing after reportedly falling asleep. They could not be contacted by the air traffic controller but were awakened by an on-board alarm. They were …
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Photo: 123RF An AirAsia Airbus A320 What are the consequences of a pilot making a mistake? After having retired from flying, I was involved in safety audits, observing how airline pilots operate their flights. Our team identified threats and errors to aviation safety and highlighted them so that all airline pilots in the company could …
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Image: Wikipedia A Russian Ilyushin Il-76 Do planes ever really crash into each other in the air? On 12 November 1996, a Saudia Boeing 747 from Delhi to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and a Kazakhstan Airline Ilyushin Il-76 from Shymkent, Kazakhstan to Delhi collided over Charkhi Dadri around 100 km west of Delhi. It was the world’s deadliest mid-air collision which killed all 349 …
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Photo: 123RF A pilot can opt to go around anytime during a landing What do pilots do if they get scared while landing? Pilots are trained to handle all sorts of difficult situations but that doesn’t mean they don’t get scared sometimes. Landing is not something a professional pilot is fearful of unless there is …
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United Airlines history-making sustainability flight Concerned Flyer: Should I be worried about climate change? Careen wrote to me asking numerous questions about winds, heavy rain, extreme weather, tornadoes and clear air turbulence. She was baffled and wondered whether climate change could affect the safety of air travel. Firstly, climate change defines the increasing changes of …
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British Airways Boeing 747 flying into a volcanic ash cloud What does a pilot say when he thinks he is going to crash? On 24 June 1982, a British Airways Boeing 747, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Perth encountered volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. It caused all the 4 engines …
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Oxygen mask be correctly worn over the mouth and nose You have only 30 seconds left before losing consciousness! Yes, this will be further reduced to 15 seconds if you are a senior citizen or moving around a lot when a plane is fully depressurized at 35,000 feet. This answers Asmiati Utari’s question on “What …
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Photo: 123 RF Paying Attention to Safety Briefing Why people don’t listen to inflight briefing? Last weekend, I was on a flight to see the world’s tallest tropical timber tree at the Tawau Hills Park in Sabah, Malaysia. This was my first flight after more than 2 years of the Covid-19 pandemic. I was looking …
Photo: Travel3Sixty Fear of Flying Help me! I am scared of flying! Careen Loo wrote to me by forwarding this Instagram video with screaming passengers https://tinyurl.com/27y52tcs She asked me 3 questions: 1: Whether the turbulence was considered moderate or severe. Well, I would classify this as severe turbulence. Turbulence is categorized into: Light – just …
Ditching – An Emergency Water Landing Is it safer to crash a plane on land or water? What are the chances of surviving a water landing? These 2 questions come from Praveen Upadhyay. Whether it would be safer to crash on land or water would depend on the choices available. If the misfortune happens near …
Photo: 123RF Flying without Fear Why is flying on an airplane so nerve-racking? For more than 2 years after restrictions and lockdowns due to Covid-19, people are rushing back to fly again. As the urge to fly to places where international borders are opening up, air ticket bookings are reported to be fast picking up. …