Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Two scary aviation incidents


No, I don't mean the missing Air France flight from Brazil, which is a major tragedy. Our prayers and heartfelt sympathy go out to all those who lost loved ones. These incidents were on a rather smaller scale.

First, from a flight school at Beverley, Massachusetts, comes the story of other flying things interfering with one of their aircraft.

You've heard of snakes on a plane, but on Sunday there were about 10,000 bees on a plane at Beverly Airport.

A swarm of honeybees landed on the wing of a plane used for flight school training, parked on the tarmac of the airport's west side off Burley Street.

It was the type of landing the owner of Beverly Flight Center, Arne Nordeide, had never witnessed.

"I never saw anything like it," Nordeide said.

Nordeide called Danvers police, who put him in touch with a local bee removal expert, Al Wilkins of Middleton.

Wilkins arrived and used a specially designed vacuum to suck the bees off the wing and from the ground below the plane. Wilkins has relocated the bees to hives where they will produce honey.

"I thought they were crash-landed in the airport," said Wilkins, who has been removing bees from houses and structures since 1978.

Nordeide said the bees were spotted buzzing around the wing of the Piper Warrior aircraft around 11 a.m. This plane does not sit around much — it flies five to six hours a day.

"The plane had already flown around 8 a.m.," Nordeide said, "and all of a sudden, they (the bees) decided to land."

At first, the bees swarmed over the left side of the aircraft, then landed on top of the left wing. The weather was hot, Nordeide said, so that may be why they went under the wing.


There's more at the link.

That must have been interesting for the next student scheduled to fly in that plane! If it were me, I'd want to make absolutely sure that there wasn't a stray bee or two hanging around in the cockpit!

The second incident is shown in a video clip below. A light twin-engined aircraft is coming in for a landing at an unidentified airport - from the vegetation and the color of the water, I suspect somewhere in the Caribbean. The pilot makes a monumental hash of it, as you'll see.





I think the occupants are very lucky to have walked away from that one unscathed! Why the pilot didn't go around again, I guess we'll never know - but I bet he will next time!





Peter

8 comments:

Old NFO said...

Bees are a problem! That bad landing was just plain bad... If you're halfway down a short runway and STILL not on the ground, you go around... sigh...

Jerry said...

Three things that are useless:

1) Altitude above you.

2) Fuel left on the ground.

3) Runway behind you.

Crucis said...

That runway looked awfully short.

On a hot day, especially with low -wing aircraft, heat can create an air bubble under the wings causing a plane to float much longer that usual. It's happened to me a number of times but I was landing on long runways.

NFO is right, if no touchdown and you're halfway down the runway, apply power and go around. You can use that bubble to gain speed and then climb out.

Shane said...

Crucis is right, the pilot must not have realized how a hot runway can create a strong "Wing-in-Ground Effect". Add in other factors like a healthy head wind, and you gotta push the aircraft down to get it to land.

deadstick said...

That runway is 2000 feet -- moderately tight, but a lot longer than it looks in the perspective of the video. Trouble is, it has terrain at the approach end that slopes down at almost the glide angle of the airplane. That puts the airplane very close to the ground while it's still a quarter mile out, and that creates a powerful subjective impression of being too high, which in turn can sucker you into adding a little power.

St. Bart's requires a special checkout for using its airport; that pilot either didn't get it, or didn't learn much from it. In the still shot, with his shadow on the numbers, he already has no chance of getting the airplane stopped and should be going around.

BTW, Shane, if you think having a headwind will increase your landing distance, try landing the other way sometime. Make sure someone gets video.

Shane said...

Sorry, I wasn't clear, a headwind can strengthen the WIG bubble. I know that the idea is to land into a headwind in order to be able to keep your airspeed up while reducing your ground speed for landing. I have done a few landings.

pdb said...

Ground effect is a bitch.

On a Wing and a Whim said...

ALL approaches to an airport should be go-arounds, some pleasantly interrupted by a landing. Looking at the steepness of the ground on approach path, 2100 feet of asphalt on a hot humid day, if I couldn't plant the plane where I wanted it, I'm going around until I can, or I decide to go elsewhere.

Jerry, you forgot the fourth:

4.) A tenth of a second ago.