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Dan Hulme
Dan Hulme
08:01
Here's why roads are not great places to do a forced landing: bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35953183 :-(
 
3 hours later…
falstro
falstro
10:42
@DanHulme I keep saying to anyone who asks, the priorities for a pilot should always be 1) the people not in the airplane, 2) the people in the airplane, and then, only then, 3) the airplane itself. That said, it might well be that the highway was the best place to put it down, as anywhere else might have carried the risk of even higher loss of life.
Three other planes have made the same decision in the past decade which suggests it might be safest choice around.
 
3 hours later…
Jo 7
Jo 7
13:45
I found my self listening to Russian classical music for the first time...
 
3 hours later…
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
17:15
Not so great.... nbcnews.com/news/us-news/…
falstro
falstro
17:30
@JayCarr literally 3 lines above yours ;)
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
@falstro Ah, sorry, was busy reading the articles and just posted it to see if it got some comments ;). Looks like it already has, so I can read them now!
Regarding the spot of landings. It's worth pointing out that the exact same plane had an engine out problem in the exact same area about 10 years ago. Landed on the same highway without any issues. So it seems the highway is preferable in that particular locale.

Further, the landing would have been fine (it's a 3 lane higway with a wide soft shoulder, I've actually driven on it further north...it's a typical American "super wide" highway.) Would have been fine provided there wasn't a car parked on the side of the road...
It's a super unfortunate co-incidence a car just happened to be on the shoulder there, and the plane just happened to be unable to deploy it's gear so it could touch down and control where it was going.
Tragic though... Really wondering what went wrong with the plane.
falstro
falstro
@JayCarr yes, that was what I mentioned as well ;)
still, you take the risk of flying, not the people on the ground, the odds have to be really sucky everywhere else before I would chose a highway with vehicles on it.
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
18:20
@falstro in most cities, the odds are sucky just about everywhere else
falstro
falstro
@Shalvenay yes, in the cities.
judging from the footage, this was at least a bit outside of a city
but again, it might well have been the best option all things considered
Dan Hulme
Dan Hulme
18:58
@JayCarr it might have been the difference between rush hour and not rush hour
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
19:46
@DanHulme Possibly, but then again, the first time this plane landed on that freeway, the gear were down. This time...no gear down and only one flap was deployed, which makes me wonder if there was just something quite wrong with the aircraft... Of course we won't know until a report is finalized.
falstro
falstro
20:23
@JayCarr what makes you say there was only one flap?
or even if he had flaps at all
 
2 hours later…
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
22:27
@falstro Very careful analysis of the pictures. Mainly that, when you look at them, one flap is down and the other is up. and the one that is up doesn't appear to have any evidence that it was shoved up during the belly flop.
falstro
falstro
@JayCarr i don't know the vans rv (which it appears to be) but small aircraft often have mechanically linked flaps thus eliminating flaps asymmetries unless a rod snaps. Like during a crash.
And i wouldn't be surprised if the failure mode is flaps up.
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
@falstro Twould make sense. Like I said, I'll be curious to see the final report.

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