Crashing, Burning Planes Don’t Stop Passengers From Grabbing Their Luggage

Ever considered taking your bags in an emergency despite those instructions to leave them behind? You’re not the only one.

If your flight has an emergency and you’re told to evacuate, be certain that at least two things will happen. You’ll experience the adrenaline rush of a lifetime, for one. But you’ll also hear the urgent commands of flight attendants telling you to leave your bags behind. Yes, all of them. Laptops and purses, too.

Maybe the adrenaline is causing temporary deafness. Materialism has been winning out over self-preservation as air travelers often ignore the order to drop everything, a fact illustrated in recent years by laden passengers fleeing a burning 777 in San Francisco or a Delta Air Lines Inc. jet that skidded off a snowy New York runway. The latest example came on Wednesday, when an Emirates Airline flight crashed on landing in Dubai, followed by a severe fire that consumed much of the Boeing 777-300. Video showed some travelers collecting luggage before they escaped. All 282 passengers and 18 crew survived, but an airport firefighter died while battling the blaze.

This Is How 300 People Escaped a Fiery Crash Landing in Dubai

Lessons learned from past tragedies have made modern aircraft much safer. The Emirates disaster is a prime example.


An Emirates jumbo jet crash lands in Dubai, suffers an apparent engine explosion, and loses most of its top section to fire. The plane comes to rest looking as though someone used a giant, flame-throwing can opener to rip off the length of the cabin.

Despite this tremendous mechanical violence, all 300 people aboard escaped with their lives. How did this happen?

The short answer is engineering and training.

The incident involving Flight 521, a Boeing Co. 777-300 on a flight from India, resembled the July 2013 crash landing of an Asiana Boeing 777-200 in San Francisco, which clipped a seawall, flipped, and then burned near a runway. Only three of the 291 passengers on that flight died—a 99 percent survival rate—while the jet was destroyed.

Delta plane with 130 passengers lands at the wrong airport

The National Transport Safety Board is investigating the landing of a Delta A320 at Ellsworth AFB instead of its intended destination of Rapid City, 7 miles away.

Delta Air Lines confirmed that the flight crew of Delta Flight 2845 on the evening of July 7 conducted a safe landing at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota mistakenly rather than the flight’s intended destination of Rapid City.

The Airbus A320 aircraft, registered N333NW, had 130 passengers on board and was in-bound from Minneapolis/St. Paul. The flight re-departed for Rapid City Thursday night after coordinating with officials.



“Delta has contacted the customers of this flight and offered a gesture of apology for the inconvenience”, the airline said in a statement.

The crew has been taken off-duty while an investigation commences by the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Delta will fully cooperate with that investigation and has already begun an internal review of its own”, the airline added.

Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base located approximately 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Rapid City, South Dakota. The host unit at Ellsworth is the 28th Bomb Wing (28 BW) assigned to the Global Strike Command’s Eighth Air Force.

Ellsworth Air Force Base has one runway available:
Runway 13/31 (concrete): 13,497 feet/4.114 meters

Rapid City Airport has two runways available:
Runway 14/32 (concrete): 8,701 feet/2.652 meters
Runway 05/23 (asphalt): 3,601 feet/1.098 meters

Tail-strike damage found after Corendon 737 diversion

Turkish investigators are looking into a serious incident involving a Boeing 737-800 which suffered a tail-strike on departure from Billund.

The Corendon Airlines aircraft had been bound for Antalya on 5 March.

Although it sustained the tail-strike on take-off, in darkness, the aircraft did not return to the airport but proceeded to follow its course to Turkey.

Danish investigation authority HCL says the strike “presumably went unnoticed” by the crew.

Some 1h 20min into the flight, in the vicinity of the Polish-Slovakian border, the crew chose to turn north and divert to Warsaw.

Initial inspection of the jet – an 11-year old airframe, registered TC-TJP – revealed damage consistent with a tail-strike on departure.

HCL has not explained what prompted the diversion to Warsaw. Turkish investigators have started an inquiry supported by the Danish authority.

Hyderabad Mishap because of terrible planning

Improper planning resulted in the crash of the decommissioned Airbus 320 aircraft on Monday. The Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) was not followed while transporting the massive structure by road. Police were also not given details of the transport plan. North Zone police has booked a case against Air India and Durga Crane Services under IPC Section 336 for negligence.

Even the wings of the aircraft had not been dismantled. The aircraft, stripped of its engines and seats, was being carried by a crane. Durga Cranes, the operator, has never transported a full aircraft before. Air India’s Central Training Establishment (CTE), Director, Soman Atul said the hull weighed about 20 tonnes.

Two cranes and two trailers were brought. The crane capacity was over 100 tonnes each, said Mr Raavi Chakradhar of Durga Cranes that was hired as third party by Air India.

The crane company claimed it had carried equipment weighing over 50 tonnes before but did not give details. The aircraft has a wingspan of 150 feet, while the road was not half as wide. Though CTE officials planned to hoist the aircraft 50 feet and take it by road, they had not considered overhead cables. But they added personnel from TS discom were following the crane to ensure power is shut down along the route.
Mr V.N. Bharat Reddy, director, aviation, Telangana state government, said the safest way to transport a decommissioned aircraft is to dismantle it. “A standard operating procedure with route map should have been prepared,” he said.
11/04/16 M Roushan Ali/Deccan Chronicle

King Air Destroyed During EMS Positioning Flight

Beechcraft King Air 200, seven miles southwest of Atqasuk, Alaska, May 16, 2011–The aircraft hit terrain because the pilot failed to maintain sufficient airspeed during an instrument approach in icing conditions, according to the NTSB. The result was an aerodynamic stall and subsequent loss of control. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s fatigue; the operator’s decision to initiate the flight without conducting a formal risk assessment that included time of day, weather and crew rest; and the lack of formal guidelines for the medical community to determine the appropriate mode of transportation for patients. The pilot and two medical personnel aboard the aircraft received minor injuries. The aircraft was destroyed.

The pilot had worked a 10-hour shift the day of the accident and had been off duty for about two hours when the chief pilot called him around midnight to transport a patient. The pilot accepted the flight, and about two hours later he was conducting an instrument approach to Atqasuk airport to pick up the patient. The pilot reported receiving his clearance for a GPS Runway 6 approach about 35 miles from the airport. He remained above 2,200 feet–just above the cloud tops–in the descent, most likely to remain clear of the ice. Before the initial approach fix he did descend to 2,000 feet, putting the aircraft in the clouds.

Turkish Airlines - Accident: Landing Gear Collapse - Nepal Kathmandu Airport

Turkish Airlines' Airbus A330 front landing gear collapsed and the plane nose-dived on the runway in Kathmandu Airport, Nepal

No passengers on the flight, THY726, were seriously hurt in the incident but some were given medical attention after evacuation.

American plane makes emergency landing at SFO

SAN FRANCISCO: A Dallas-bound American Airlines flight made an emergency landing at San Francisco International Airport Monday after some of the cabin's wall panels came loose because of a possible blown air duct, aviation and airlines officials said.

The captain of the Boeing 757 decided to turn around an hour into the flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport because of a problem with pressurization in the cabin, American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller said.

Flight 2293 departed from SFO shortly before 1 p.m. and landed without incident at about 2.15pm. No one on the plane with 184 passengers and six crew members was hurt, he said.

Feds: Plane with unconscious pilot goes into ocean

CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. (AP) — A pilot lost consciousness and the plane drifted into restricted airspace over the nation's capital, scrambling fighter jets that stayed with the small aircraft until it ran out of fuel and crashed Saturday into the Atlantic Ocean, the Coast Guard said.

Crews searched the waters for the single-engine Cirrus plane, which crashed about 50 miles southeast of Chincoteague Island along the Virginia coast, Coast Guard Petty Officer Nate Littlejohn said. The plane took off from Waukesha, Wisconsin, and was headed to Manassas, Virginia, which is about 30 miles southwest of Washington, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said.

The Coast Guard was notified about 2:40 p.m. Saturday that the plane failed to land in Manassas and flew into restricted airspace. Two Air Force F16s took to the air and confirmed the pilot was unconscious. They stayed with the plane until it crashed.

No one else was on board.

The plane was registered to Ronald Hutchinson, of Brookfield, Wisconsin. Relatives reached at a phone listing for him didn't want to comment Saturday night.

A Coast Guard helicopter found no sign of the plane before heading back for refueling. A C130 airplane based out of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and an 87-foot cutter from Virginia Beach also were responding, Littlejohn said.

4 killed in New Mexico crash of medical flight.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) - An air ambulance carrying a cancer patient to Phoenix crashed shortly after taking off from a southern New Mexico airport, killing all four people aboard, authorities said Thursday.

The twin-engine aircraft had just left the Las Cruces airport on Wednesday evening and was reported by witnesses to be flying low when it hit a mesquite tree in a field, flipped and burst into flames, according to New Mexico State Police Lt. James Frietze.

No one injured when landing gear malfunctions at Arnold Palmer airport

No one was injured when a single-engine plane's landing gear malfunctioned as it touched down at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport this morning.

Airport officials said the four-seat Beechcraft Bonanza plane carrying a pilot and one passenger skidded to a halt on the runway around 11:15 a.m., causing moderate damage to the aircraft.