Talking Airplanes!

One of the most spectacular-looking airplanes to have graced the skies!

I remember as a child being on an isolated beach on the Isle of Skye with my parents and brother. The beach had a relatively steep grassy slope leading away from the beach. It was lovely and quiet but there was this noise that we could hear. Next thing this Vulcan bomber appears from behind the slope and I remember it being REALLY low.

I have recollections of seeing the pilot in the cockpit - but I'm not sure that would have been possible as I don't know how low the plane actually was. But I do remember it being really big and so impressive that I still remember it today.

Shit!

It would seem highly unlikely?

More importantly, did the crew survive?

Indeed as Antony says its unmanned so no one was hurt, and the video would be sent back to base.

Interestingly the georgians say it was shot down by a mig-29 while russia and their sponsored rebels say it was a rebel L39!!

Having seen the video, the russians are clearly lying

LOL. It's clearly a MIG. I knew that before I even saw the picture! Aah, silly Russians...

Hopefully Georgia will nuke something for this (not that I hold anything against Russia though).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7372457.stm

I would not like to be a piece of cargo in that.

Pfft, if I were a stowaway, I'd have ductaped myself to the roof.

Apparantly someone stowed away in a plane and forgot about the temperature drop. I believe they were still frozen to the plane when it landed and emergency services had to get them free.

I wouldn't say that. I actually know what 'caused the big fat problem in the first place Remind me to post a link of the accident report summary tomorrow. Someone got VERY FIRED.

Yeah, what happenned? They didn't put the landing gear down? A small child was flying?

Funny, but sadly true!

On WHAT HAPPENED above:

"The approach was uneventful until, at approximately one mile from the runway threshold, the autopilot was momentarily disconnected and re-engaged. The aircraft then went above the glide-slope before developing a high rate of descent. At the same time, it deviated to the left of the centre-line. A go-around was initiated but the aircraft touched down heavily on the grass area to the left of the runway threshold. The right main landing gear broke off, causing damage to the right inboard flap,wing/body fairing and rear freight hold door and resulting in the loss of hydraulic System ‘A’. The aircraft continued for a short distance with the right engine, right outboard flap track fairing and right wing tip in contact with the ground before lifting off again. A Mayday was declared and the crew diverted to Birmingham (BHX) where weather conditions were good. An emergency landing was carried out on runway 33 at 05:02. During the subsequent ground roll, the right engine sustained further damage but the aircraft came to rest on the runway supported by the left main landing gear and right engine."

As always with aviation accidents, WHY THAT HAPPENED was a chain of errors:

ATC (control tower) inappropriately transmitted a company message when the aircraft was at a late stage of a CAT III automatic approach (CAT III means fully automatic, electronically guided auto-land) then the commander inadvertently disconnected the autopilots (who were - at this point, bringing the plane in for a full auto-land) in attempting to respond to the message he heard. The crew did not make a decision to go-around, when it was required, after the disconnection of both autopilots below 500 ft during a CAT III approach so the commander lost situational awareness in the latter stages of the approach, following his inadvertent disconnection of the autopilots. Also, the co-pilot did not call ‘go-around’ until after the aircraft had contacted the ground and as it seemed the training of the co-pilot was ineffective in respect of his understanding that he could call for a go-around during an approach.

*ouch*

I would have SO loved it if someone filmed the first landing

Yeap, this was the second landing, after they screwed the first one and wrecked the poor plane