Diary of a Private Pilot

Well, not quite but he did help…. Stephen Brown of Albuquerque volunteered to help with cockpit duties after the captain of a Continental 757 collapsed at the yoke. The first officer took over the plane but the Cessna 182 pilot did radios and other tasks that allowed the FO to concentrate on landing the plane. See some articles here and here.

Sounds like quite the adventure, glad it all worked out well but too bad the Cessna driver doesn’t get to log any 757 time in his book.

I’m flying to England for a week and a bit tomorrow so its a slow work day today. Whilst reading about rumours of a Virgin 747 gliding into JFK this week with all 4 engines out (as you guessed, its not true) I was reminded of probably the most famous of the few 4-engine out incidents - British Airways Flight 9.

Hopefully on my (two-engine) flight across the pond tomorrow I will not be hearing the infamous words: Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress

Looks like someone didn’t do a W&B analysis of where to put the cargo….

A Varig airlines cargo plane from Brazil sits parked at the Mexico City airport with its nose up in the air after the cargo was unevenly distributed on Wednesday April 12, 2006.

I’m pleased to see that the A380 had its first flight this morning, always an exciting time when a new design gets its first take-off. Not sure I particularly want to fly in such a huge beast, with 800 of my closest friends, but it’s an interesting aircraft.