The Sikorsky S-76 that crashed in California nearly two weeks ago, killing Kobe Bryant and eight others flew into clouds then hit the side of a hill near Calabasas north of Los Angeles, according to a preliminary report on the accident released Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board. The investigators relied on multiple photos from people in the area at the time and at least one security camera. A low, thick cloud layer blanketed the hills as the helicopter disappeared into the clouds. Ara Zobayan, the 50-year old pilot for Island Express Helicopters, the charter company hired by Bryant, had received proficiency training for… Read More…
Much of the evidence so far in the crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 seems to suggest a missile brought down the airliner on Wednesday. A surprisingly illuminating video posted by The New York Times shows a pin of light ascending, then intersecting with what is presumably the plane, followed by a large explosion. The plane continued in some sort of flight before crashing. Whether it turned back to the airport purposefully, is difficult to discern from the available information. Twelve seconds after the intersection of the purported missile with the airliner, the camera records the sound of the explosion. (Someone better at math… Read More…
They might not have thought it possible for the situation to get worse, but the decision of the Ethiopians to send the black boxes from Flight 302 in Paris may give Boeing yet another thing to worry about; the possibility that the planemaker could become the subject of a criminal investigation by the French. In a number of countries, air accident investigations pursue a dual track; both air safety and criminal liability. This is the case in France. Following the fatal crash of Air France’s Concorde in Paris in July 2000, the government prosecuted Continental Airlines (now United) and two airline employees charging them with… Read More…
Most children are happy when their homework assignment gets them a good grade, but after writing a report about David Warren, the Australian who invented the black box, 11-year old Eve Cogan of Sydney, Australia, set her sights on convincing the executives of her country’s capital city airport in Canberra to name the airport after him. For her assignment to research a famous Australian, Eve could have studied Peter Blamey, of Bionic Ear fame. But having spent many an evening watching air crash documentaries with her dad, the child found the late David Warren a more interesting choice. “I’ve seen a lot of episodes of air crash investigation and a lot of the time it’s the… Read More…
