Bus crash between Barcelona and Tordera injures dozens after vehicle crashes
(They mention it crashing at the exit of the tunnel, but to me it looks like it crashed as it was entering the tunnel- drifted off the righthand side of the road & then slid up and across the concrete of the tunnel).

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Grant
Darwin NT

It's pretty rough when you miss the hole.

I wonder what their partner has to say on that matter.

Cheers.

Drunk passengers cause mayhem on flight after bringing own booze

Unruly passengers wreaked havoc on a Wizz Air flight after allegedly getting drunk on their own alcohol, as seen in a viral video taking off online.

“The individuals initially resisted cooperation with staff who were doing their job to protect the health and safety of other passengers,” a spokesperson for the Hungarian budget carrier told Caters News Agency of the wild incident.

Justice served in spades.
A Utah driver is the first person to face enhanced felony charge under a new road rage law.

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I wonder if she still has a job. :-O

A flight was cancelled after a flight attendant lost it at a passenger who reportedly made a very simple request.

A flight was cancelled after a flight attendant lost it at a passenger who reportedly requested a blanket.

Air Canada has apologised over the incident and said it “deeply regrets” that passengers’ experiences fell far short of what they have come to expect from the airline.

Flight AC73 was heading to Montreal from Morocco when an incident erupted between a cabin crew staffer and a passenger on Friday.....

A job is the least of the problems. Will this person have to change job careers?

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Plane crash in Brazil kills all 62 passengers onboard, local officials say.

A turboprop plane carrying 62 people has crashed near Sao Paulo in Brazil, killing all on board, local officials near the crash site said.

Video shared on social media showed what appeared to be the ATR-made plane spinning out of control as it plunged behind a cluster of trees near houses, followed by a large plume of black smoke.

City officials at Valinhos, near Vinhedo, said there were no survivors and only one home in the local condominium complex had been damaged while none of the residents were hurt.....

I will be very interested in the result of this investigation.
The plane appeared to be in a flat spin, which is meant to be a significant risk for light aircraft, but almost impossible for larger aircraft to succumb to.
And even so, while one of the most difficult problems to recover from, with plenty of altitude (which this aircraft had) it can be done as long as the crew follows the standard recovery procedure.

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Grant
Darwin NT

How the !@#$%^&*() does a pilot of a commercial airliner enter a stall spin? Don't know how old that air-frame was or how updated its avionics were. Recent ones have software to prevent the pilot from even intentionally doing that.

The CVR, FDR, ATC and ADSB tapes will be very interesting.

And obviously stall spin not a VMC roll over.

face palm

You can stall at any airspeed but only one critical angle of attack.
Stall plus yaw = spin.

Apparently icing of control services are being looked at as it flew through some pretty bad weather.

Apparently icing of control services are being looked at as it flew through some pretty bad weather.

Icing may have contributed to the crash, but it won't have (shouldn't have!) been the cause.

An aerodynamic stall due to ice doesn't lead to a flat spin.
The aircraft may stall start to fall out of the sky with it's nose up (pitch up), a wing could drop (roll) and then the plane turns and heads for the ground. Both are recoverable, although if there is still ice on the wing(s) significant control issues will still remain.
But to go into a flat spin (as Gary Charpentier posted stall + yaw)? For a commercial aircraft, it's just not something that happens (and if it does happen, given the altitude of the aircraft when it occurred, only an overload behind the aircraft's CG (Centre of Gravity) would make it pretty much impossible to recover from).
I know it's way too early, but unless there was some particularly odd mechanical/control issue i honestly think the pilots experience, training and evaluations are going to end up being the main centre of the investigation and the ultimate cause of the crash.

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Grant
Darwin NT

i honestly think the pilots experience, training and evaluations

And add to that- the airline's SOP for icing conditions.
Those ATRs are well known for handling icing poorly, and being very susceptible to icing conditions.

There was a NOTAM in effect for severe icing in the area they were flying , at the altitude they were flying. Why didn't they fly at a lower altitude? Were they flying at the recommended speed for such conditions (which apparently is a minimum of 30 knots above the minimum speed to avoid a stall under non-ice conditions). Did they attempt to bank at a higher than recommended angle when turning (under icing conditions it's half or less of the maximum angle for non-icing conditions).
And even they all of that wrong- how did they end up in a flat spin- Using the rudder to turn, with no banking, at a high AOA resulting in a stall???


It's looking like icing may have been the initiator of this crash (no ice, no crash), but even with the ice, avoiding the crash should have been possible.
Or did everything go wrong at once, resulting in sensory overload for the crew, resulting in inappropriate responses to the situation?

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Grant
Darwin NT

Juan Browne - blancolireo - has done a good video already. I'm going to take a stab at what likely will be found. They hit top of decent and reduced power to begin the descent, didn't pitch down immediately to maintain speed. May have also been at a way point for a turn, hence aileron and rudder inputs. Enough ice on the wings to stall with even a small reduction in speed. Spin entry happens very quick. Yaw dampener may have been fairly out of trim. (Possible asymmetric ice formation.) Not expecting it the pilot flying didn't instantly go wings level, full nose down, full opposite rudder, throttles to idle. Of course in IMC you don't have ground reference to see WTF is going on. By the time the first rotation was done it may not have been recoverable. Most twin engine prop (including turboprop) airplanes have very bad or no recovery from a spin. Their rudder simply isn't big enough to counter the rotational momentum of the weight of the engines out on the wings. However continued flight in those icing conditions should have never happened. Declare the emergency and descend to warmer and more dense air.
This is going to weigh heavily on pilot training, procedures and experience.
One thing we will never know is if a large chunk of ice departed one side resulting in asymmetry enough to cause a spin. Perhaps a control input broke it off?

Link to Blancolirio's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozinSmylTmQ

Hard - Yes.
Impossible - No.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

FDR (Flight Data Recorder) & CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) have been recovered (hopefully both were fully functional).

Also there's some more info on the flight from Flightradar24- the ADS-B ground speed data for that flight was unreliable (to put it mildly), but they do have the reported barometric altitude & vertical rate and the Reported true airspeed as graphs.

It's very much looking like ice, and the aircraft with the autopilot on (which apparently is against the aircraft manufacturers requirements for operating in icing conditions).
The air speed was gradually dropping, with no change in altitude. Eventually there was a drop in altitude, then a slight increase, some larger increases, and then it started falling out of the sky.

89 seconds from the first signs of trouble, to the last received data.
Extremely tragic.
;-(
'

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Grant
Darwin NT

Goodness knows what was in his head at the time and we'll likely never know as he died.

Up to 400 people have been evacuated from a hotel in Far North Queensland after a helicopter crashed into the roof just after 2am, sparking a massive fireball.

A helicopter has crashed into the roof of a Cairns hotel, sparking a massive fireball and the evacuation of up to 400 people.

Emergency services were called to the Double Tree Hotel by Hilton about 1.50am to reports of an aviation incident.

A bystander said the helicopter was going incredibly fast before it crashed into the hotel.

“It looked like it was being driven like a racing car at full speed or like a dive bomber... Small helicopter,” they wrote on social media.......

Thankfully no one else was seriously injured.

An update on that chopper crash.

Stolen helicopter on 'unauthorised' flight crashes into roof of Cairns DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in Far North Queensland.

A helicopter that crashed into a Far North Queensland hotel roof was stolen before being taken on an "unauthorised flight", the aviation company it belonged to has confirmed.

The pilot, who has not yet been identified, was alone in the helicopter and died at the scene.

Investigations are continuing into who was flying the aircraft, but Nautilus Aviation CEO Aaron Finn confirmed to the ABC that all its pilots had been accounted for......

Apparently icing of control services are being looked at as it flew through some pretty bad weather.

Icing may have contributed to the crash, but it won't have (shouldn't have!) been the cause.

An aerodynamic stall due to ice doesn't lead to a flat spin...

If the autopilot is left on right up until the bitter end right into an iced-up coffin corner, then anything is possible when that autopilot finally gives up eventually too long after all good sense and hope, when already into a deep stall, with all controls already maxed out.

Any minor asymmetry can then trigger a spin.

And sleepy startled pilots may well take far too long to relearn their training...


In my opinion, all autopilots/autothrottles should give a loud warning a useful many seconds BEFORE they approach this-is-impossible-to-fly limits... Even better, give a visual display of how hard the auto-controls are having to work so as to alert well beforehand of any anomalous conditions developing...


Fly safe?
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

In my opinion, all autopilots/autothrottles should give a loud warning a useful many seconds BEFORE they approach this-is-impossible-to-fly limits.

As i mentioned in a later post- The Auto Pilot is not meant to be used in icing conditions on that aircraft type, so the Pilot Flying can be aware there are issues building up, before they reach the point of no return.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Partying before flight?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62r7lpx421o

Drugs?, alcohol? and flying a helicopter are not a good combination :-(

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?