I've just been in a plane crash!

[stender]

I had a half hour flight bought for me a few years back and You won't catch me in a light aircraft again. Before the flight I thought it was all hi-tech but now i know otherwise.
I was flying over the qe2 bridge in what I can only call a lawnmower with wings!
Before takeoff the instructor bent the tail rudder with his hands saying that it looked a bit bent, then it was pulling to one side when in the air, then when coming in to land I was expecting all the drop to X feet and circle, but no it was the instructor asking me to look out the right window to make sure nothing was coming!
That's the first and last time I fly in the equivalent of a mk2 cortina!

 

[Whois-Search]

Reminds me of the UKIP guy's crash.....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ele...l-Farage-of-Ukip-plane-crash-in-pictures.html

Anyone fancy flying me over Nominet towers ? ;-)

 

[binny]

Reminds me of the UKIP guy's crash.....

that was out of order, he'd just been a crash and they're taking photos of him lying in the wreckage rather than helping him

 

[doodlebug]

that was out of order, he'd just been a crash and they're taking photos of him lying in the wreckage rather than helping him

Fully agreed mate, you would think that human instincts would kick in, what I don't get is how that photographer was there in the first place, did they guess where he would crash or something

Glad to hear you're ok Alex you seem like a nice guy, hope your dad is ok and hope your Grandad had a good birthday, I nearly died recently when I was crossing a main road near a roundabout and a traffic police car came off the roundabout at about 80mph, they swerved and I ran like a Greyhound and the vehicle literally missed me by about 2 inches max, I have no doubt that I wouldn't have survived.

It does make you think about life, I guess your situation was worse then mine and must have shook you up a lot.

As for flying I much prefer commercial jets, thorough pre-flight inspections, radars, auto pilot and warnings from the control tower regarding cross winds.

I went on a 46 seater twin propelled plane once and that was scary enough.

 

[retired_member12]

...you would think that human instincts would kick in, what I don't get is how that photographer was there in the first place, did they guess where he would crash or something...

The press photographer was on site anyway covering the event, his natural instinct kicked in, and he made a butty by all accounts. Just doing his job I suppose!

...As for flying I much prefer commercial jets, thorough pre-flight inspections, radars, auto pilot and warnings from the control tower regarding cross winds.

I'm with you on that one doodle. Not side tracking too much, but picking up on what you are saying, did anyone see the 'how to build' program last night? It focussed on Rolls Royce aero engines. Impressive yes, but the bit that really got me was their monitoring 'command centre'. Basically, every engine that is sold with their service contract is monitored via a live sat-link system, 24/7, everywhere in the world. If a fault occurs of any kind, say in flight, Rolls Royce can contact the pilot, and recommend what to do to remedy the fault. Up the Brits!

About 10 years ago, i took an internal flight on a 16 seater between Boston and NY to make a connection, the weather was like i'd never seen before, the plane was all over the place. I kid you not, there were business men and women on that plane crying like babies, everyone, myself included, were shitting ourselves. Even the stewardess was ashen. Give me 39,000 feet any day on the week!

 

[JMOT]

sell your story to the sun or someone.... pocket a few quid!

 

[alex]

that was out of order, he'd just been a crash and they're taking photos of him lying in the wreckage rather than helping him

I agree, he was obviously injured and struggling yet they took photos first and helped (if they did) later.

Glad to hear you're ok Alex you seem like a nice guy, hope your dad is ok and hope your Grandad had a good birthday, I nearly died recently when I was crossing a main road near a roundabout and a traffic police car came off the roundabout at about 80mph, they swerved and I ran like a Greyhound and the vehicle literally missed me by about 2 inches max, I have no doubt that I wouldn't have survived.

It does make you think about life, I guess your situation was worse then mine and must have shook you up a lot.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you weren't hit, that sounds terrible. I don't think my situation was worse, after all we had the protection of the plane where as you didn't have any. I feel fine now the initial shock has gone, it's my Dad who seems to be feeling it, he's been very down since it happened.

As already said I'd go up again, I believe you're safer in a plane than in a car and it is much faster and cheaper than getting the train (comparing buying fuel and tickets).You’ve obviously had a bad experience Stender, but we always perform safety checks before taking off. To be honest I’d be the same given what you’ve said, but my experiences have always been of solid aircraft (just not as solid as a hedge ).

sell your story to the sun or someone.... pocket a few quid!

An interesting idea, maybe if it was a little more dramatic with a fire ball, but I doubt it would be a good story.

Dad says he’s been talking to the air crash investigators who are annoyed we moved it, but that’s not really the sort of thing we were thinking about at the time.

 

[doodlebug]

Screw the AAIB, you did what you thought was best after a serious incedent, can't they figure things out from the floor markings created by the plane ?

And you're right ashame there wasn't a fireball although I am pretty sure it wouldn't be you selling the story and the last thing we need is another Acorn member RIP thread.

Keep up the good spirit

 

[Lucky Luke]

. Not side tracking too much, but picking up on what you are saying, did anyone see the 'how to build' program last night? It focussed on Rolls Royce aero engines. Impressive yes, but the bit that really got me was their monitoring 'command centre'. Basically, every engine that is sold with their service contract is monitored via a live sat-link system, 24/7, everywhere in the world. If a fault occurs of any kind, say in flight, Rolls Royce can contact the pilot, and recommend what to do to remedy the fault. Up the Brits!

I live in a biggish village just north of Derby where a lot of Rolls-Royce engineers live too. It's really good to be in/near a city with engineering as a key employer (railways are here too) and those RR guys/girls are pretty sharp cookies.

One aero engineer (non RR but a related company) I know well will only fly in the biggest planes of the biggest UK airlines. His reasons are that the biggest planes are newer, they are serviced/monitored better and the airline's best pilots fly them. He won't fly on any non-UK airline.

Food for thought.

Luke

 

[doodlebug]

I will not fly on a Boeing 737, not a good history of flight, lots of crashes over the last 10 years have been 737s, they are popular and there's tons of them about so higher risk ratio but I have watched loads of programmes about plane crashes and this model pops up in lots of them :-?

 

[alex]

Screw the AAIB, you did what you thought was best after a serious incedent, can't they figure things out from the floor markings created by the plane

Haha, well that and the 15 metres of hedge we removed. To be honest I just think they're complicating things. It was a private farm strip, no technical fault and no one was hurt so they're not going to gain anything by investigating, but they have to do it.

did anyone see the 'how to build' program last night? It focussed on Rolls Royce aero engines. Impressive yes, but the bit that really got me was their monitoring 'command centre'. Basically, every engine that is sold with their service contract is monitored via a live sat-link system, 24/7, everywhere in the world. If a fault occurs of any kind, say in flight, Rolls Royce can contact the pilot, and recommend what to do to remedy the fault. Up the Brits!

I missed it, but it looked interesting. That's really good that they keep track of things, I never knew they did it. I'm sorry about your bad experiences - I'd be more scared if it was happening in a smaller commercial plane like you were in because you have no control and it is small. I'm more comfortable in 2 and 4 seaters because you have control and can see everything. If it looks bad you can generally avoid it. That's just my experiences though.

 

[Lucky Luke]

Fascinating reading: http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

I think there is one statistic about private flying in there somewhere.

 

[alex]

Fascinating reading: http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

I think there is one statistic about private flying in there somewhere.

Thanks for the info, it is an interesting read, but not one for people scared of flying. I guess the point is there are fatalities, but very few relative to use.

 

[Lucky Luke]

Hi Alex,

I've been reading about the stats this evening. There is a site crashstuff.com that compares flying to driving using publically available statistics. The light plane brigade in the US have worse stats than the airlines by a long chalk.

What is interesting is how safe scheduled airline flights are. The site owner does some stats but fails to compare like with like. If passenger miles for scheduled airlines are studied, then the casualty rate per whatever is miniscule.

So the first site I referred you to does just pick out crashes from millions and millions of flights. Cut out asia & africa, focus on European flights and the stats look very favourable.

At any one time, there are about 500 planes above the North & South Atlantic oceans & Greenland. That's a lot of passenger miles!

 

[doodlebug]

Fascinating reading: http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

I think there is one statistic about private flying in there somewhere.

Thanks mate, a very good site indeed

 

[alex]

did anyone see the 'how to build' program last night? It focussed on Rolls Royce aero engines. Impressive yes, but the bit that really got me was their monitoring 'command centre'. Basically, every engine that is sold with their service contract is monitored via a live sat-link system, 24/7, everywhere in the world. If a fault occurs of any kind, say in flight, Rolls Royce can contact the pilot, and recommend what to do to remedy the fault.

The repeat has just started on Channel 2

 

[alex]

I've been reading about the stats this evening. There is a site crashstuff.com that compares flying to driving using publically available statistics. The light plane brigade in the US have worse stats than the airlines by a long chalk.

Thanks for the info, it's quite interesting to look through. I'd be interested to see some UK private stats, but in reality a lot of private flying is what it is and i'm sure there aren't the figures. Some planes don't even need radios.