military.com — The U.S. has an astounding record of one fatal crash in the past five years of 30,000 daily flights. How did flying get so reliable? In part, because of accidents that triggered crucial safety improvements. Here are eight crashes and two emergency landings whose influence is felt -- for the good -- each time you step on a plane.
Oct 14, 2007 View in Crawl 4
asdfffOct 15, 2007
We do what we mustbecause we can.For the good of all of us.Except the ones who are dead.But there's no sense crying over every mistake.You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.And the science gets done.And you make a neat gun.For the people who are still alive.
nsmikeOct 15, 2007
427 happened a few miles from my house. They say "Pittsburgh" because that's where the plane was landing, but they were making a wide turn for a final approach that took them about 10 miles out from the airport itself. And anyone who has been to the Pittsburgh airport knows its about 15 miles out from Pittsburgh to begin with. The plane actually crashed in Aliquippa, PA. I was out riding my bike in the neighborhood at the time, heard the boom and could see the column of smoke. A pretty creepy experience. I was only 12 at the time.
sadatoniOct 15, 2007
At least two othe 737's went down before the rudder problem was discovered. One was at Colorado Springs, CO, where a 737 was on approach to land when it hit a wind shear. At first it was thought the wind shear was what cause the crash, but later, comparing it with the USAir Pittsburgh crash the rudder problem was found in it.From a Seattle Times 1996 article:Pilots have reported troubling, inadvertent movements of the 737 rudders since the plane entered service in the late 1960s, but the plane's rudder-control system didn't come under intense scrutiny until a 1991 crash in Colorado that investigators suspected was caused by an extreme uncommanded rudder movement, which engineers call a hardover.United Airlines Flight 585 was at about 1,000 feet approaching landing in Colorado Springs when it suddenly flipped into a dive and crashed in March 1991, killing 25 people. A USAir flight was descending on approach to Pittsburgh when it crashed nose-first into a ravine in September 1994, killing 132.The full article is at <a class="user" href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/737/re">http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/737/re</a> ...
error601Oct 15, 2007
They definitely should have listed that DC-10 crash. The interesting part is that the engine falling off should not have caused a crash. This is the sequence from memory: Engine falls off taking out the power on pilot's side of the c**kpit and the hydraulics to the slats. This puts the co-pilot in control. The co-pilot sets air speed by procedure but isn't aware the slats are retracting from the hydraulic failure. The procedural air speed is below the stall speed of the wing without slats extended. There was a number of warning devices that should have let the pilots know what was happening, but they were all connected to the pilot's side of the c**kpit which had no power. The backup power switch was not quickly accessible and no one had time to hit it. By the time they figured out the one wing was stalled, it was too late. So, all they had to do was increase air speed and the plane could have landed safely. It spawned changes in emergency procedure and instrument redundancy along with the more well known maintenance issues.