This index has been created for the things that can't happen, but do.
Most of them are from the AERONEWS service.
On 3 December 1999, the owner of a house in Mansfield, near Nottingham, reported that a large metal object, some 1.5 metres by 0.5 metres in size and weighing some 25 lb, had fallen on his house and 'smashed' his back door.
Two days later, during a ramp inspection of a Boeing 757-236, G-BIKJ, at London Heathrow Airport, one of the operator's engineers noticed that the strut-to-aft fairing seal assembly was missing from an engine pylon and this was then reported to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the Civil Aviation Authority.
An analysis by the airline concerned revealed that the seal had fallen from that aircraft as it had passed overhead Mansfield on a flight from London Heathrow Airport to Glasgow. The crew had been completely unaware that the seal had detached.
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Boeing's Loose Nuts "In Pretty Good Shape"
Of 333 modern-build Boeing 737s inspected to date, 10 had loose nuts, Boeing spokeswoman Shannon Myers said Monday. "We really feel like the fleet has been inspected, and we think our fleet's in pretty good shape," she said.
Reports are unclear whether the other 149 of those jetliners already in service have been checked.
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That "Thump" Tuesday? Part of a DC-10
Jim Peters, FAA spokesman, has determined that a three-foot-long piece of metal was indeed an engine cover from a Belgium-bound Continental DC-10 with 225 passengers and 10 crew that landed at Newark after experiencing engine trouble last Tuesday.
The Quest Diagnostics Building, right next to Teterboro (NJ) Airport, was hit, but sustained no major damage; but a lot of folks inside were "alerted" by the thump.
Interesting fact: the engine cover fell from one of the good engines, not the one that was the cause of the turnaround.
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Don't Fly in T-Storms, Tornadoes, Volcanoes -- Volcanoes?
Mount Etna, on the Italian island of Sicily, blows her stack every so often; she had a big one in 1992, but every few months, the old girl lets people know that she still has a temper.
Last Wednesday, she let go a pretty bad sneeze, and just about knocked an Airbus 320 out of the sky.
The Air Europe flight, from the Sicilian airport at Catania and bound for Milan, flew into the path of a minor Mt. Etna eruption, sustaining only a cracked side cockpit window and a return to Catania for the trauma.
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"Get That Fokker Out of My Way! oops..."
Driver Makes Wrong Turn
An SAS Fokker-50 took off early at the Bodoe airport near Oslo, Norway, to avoid hitting a car driven by an 80-year-old Norwegian last week.
He missed the car by just a few yards, according to witnesses. [Actually, they said, "meters," but we figure the conversion is close enough. --ed.]
The plane had 26 POB; no one was hurt, but it was close. Apparently, the man drove through an open (but normally locked) gate, then drove past a hangar and onto the runway, where he froze like a deer in the headlights when he spotted the plane.
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Northbridge residents must have thought the sky was falling, when a piece of an
airplane part landed on a residential street Wednesday morning.
Police got a call from a neighbor who heard the noise, went outside, and
recognized the object as a piece of an aircraft.
Police Chief Thomas Melia tells WBZ NEWS RADIO, luckily the part fell in the
middle of Jefferson Avenue, or someone could have been hurt.
Melia says the police contacted Worcester Airport, which contacted Boston and
the F.A.A. The three foot by six foot part turned out to be a piece of a landing
gear door from a 727 aircraft.
The door was tracked to a Delta plane enroute from Boston to New York's
LaGuardia airport.
Melia says he's not sure if the pilot knew anything was wrong, but says the
plane landed safely.
F.A.A. investigators are on their way to Northbridge to pick up the door and
figure out just what happened.
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A chartered Airbus 310 ran out of fuel with 150 People on
board Over Austria on Wednesday and crash-landed at Vienna's Schwechat
airport. No one was killed; and reports say 26 people
were "slightly" injured, although we have also heard that ten of
the 26 were hospitalized.
No details were given as to whether the injuries occurred on
evacuation down the slides, or on the "landing," itself. There was
no fire. (There was no fuel) The flight was bound from Crete to Hannover, in
Germany.
No one is publicly speculating as to how this kind of
mistake could have happened. For the WHOLE story, www.aero-news.net
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