Posted on 10/02/2006 11:34:51 PM PDT by HAL9000
Excerpt -
SÃO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil, Oct. 1 — It had been an uneventful, comfortable flight.With the window shade drawn, I was relaxing in my leather seat aboard a $25 million corporate jet that was flying 37,000 feet above the vast Amazon rainforest. The 7 of us on board the 13-passenger jet were keeping to ourselves.
Without warning, I felt a terrific jolt and heard a loud bang, followed by an eerie silence, save for the hum of the engines.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I can't see that small amount of damage to the smaller of the two aircraft in the collision being responsible for bringing down the larger plane.
Wow! What a read.
Thanks for the post.
The article mentions that the 737 took a drastic evasion maneuver to avoid hitting the Embraer jet. I suspect that it was mostly the aftermath of this action, in addition to minor wing damage, that caused the 737 to spiral in. Remember when the Concordski crashed in Paris, it was due to a rapid evasion maneuver to avoid the French fighter plane photographing it.
That's just my hunch, anyways. A good article. And a very sad story.
It's possible that the evasive maneuver was forced before the autopilot could be turned off. If so, then it is possible that the autopilot fought with the human pilot...potentially fatal.
As a fellow pilot, been there, done that...lived to tell about it.
Huh?
Maybe the Rule of the Golden BB is in play here.
Why did I — the closest passenger to the impact — hear no sound, no roar of a big 737?...[snip]...Mr. Prust took out a calculator and tapped away, figuring the time that would be available to hear the roar of a jet coming at another jet, each flying at over 500 miles an hour in opposite directions. He showed me the numbers. “It’s far less than a split second,” he said. We both looked at the pilots slouched on couches across the room...
Interesting.
BTW, this article is first-rate journalism. And the NYTimes has this guy freelance writing for the Travel section???
Sounds like a need to invent a device that would kick in and go to auto-pilot to avoid a collision.
as far as i recall there is now a manadated collision detection system for most new jets...(well i think it is mandated)...
When the 1973 Paris Airshow came around, the Communists of course had to show off their latest theft, er, "achievement". So they sent a Tu-144 to do a demonstration. The French, though, wanted a closer look at the one major change to their design done by the Soviets - those canards. So they assigned a Mirage jet the job of getting good photographs of the canards in action.
During the demonstration flight, the fighter jet got too close. The Concordski pilot had to take an emergency evasive action to avoid hitting it - and indeed, no collision occurred. However, all 4 engines stalled. To restart them, the pilot put the plane into a dive - apparently the jet engines had some kind of airstart propeller system installed.
Apparently, this worked as well - great piloting at work. The only problem was that by the time he got a restart, he was too low - after all, this was a flight to demonstrate the plane to people on the ground. When rapidly pulling out of the steep dive, the plane broke up, killing all aboard, as well as people in a village next to the airport.
At the time of the crash none of this was known - everyone thought it was just a case that the Concordeski was crap. The full story only came out years later. It was another case of French perfidy in action - even if it was to the detriment of Soviet a-holes.
Human error caused plane crash in Brazil: report
Rio de Janeiro - A lack of dialogue between two control towers was likely to blame for Brazil's worst ever plane crash last week in which 155 people died, the Brazilian daily O Globo reported Monday.
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The two control towers did not speak to each other about the planes entering the same airspace and offered similar flight altitudes to their respective planes, thereby causing the crash, according to the report.
~ snip ~
Air traffic control in Manaus allegedly suggested the Boeing maintain a flight altitude of between 35,000 and 39,000 feet, while the tower in Brasilia recommended an altitude of 37,000 feet for the Embraer Legacy flying in the opposite direction.
~ snip ~
Thanks. This is one great read.
I could be wrong, but my understanding is that both jets were new.
Thanks, I do remember the air show crash now. Had not known anything about the photo op aspect.
Of course, we had our own photo op crash of the XB-70.
(7983KB).
Don't tell anyone, but I'm still on dial up. I'll have to check that out later.
opps...just cheked google...looks like it is in implementation only. its called CAS or ACAS...
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