Obviously there’ll be a bunch of title-only readlers making quips…
Police urged people to “strictly avoid” the area around the airport in Tomblaine to allow emergency responders and law enforcement unrestricted access to the crash site.
Yeah, most crashes, especially bad crashes, happen during takeoff and landing. Once you’re actually up, the engine is likely to continue running fine, and even if it doesn’t, you have sufficient altitude and airspeed to glide to a reasonable landing.
The disaster is the third deadliest aircraft incident in aviation history (after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175), and is the deadliest accident in aviation history.[1][2][3][c]
The other two are the planes that hit the world trade center on 9/11.
I always understood disaster to be describing more of an accident, but obviously it can also describe a terror attack where someone intentionally crashes an airplane, fair enough.
Small plane pilots are usually trained to maintain minimum altitudes to allow for that exact scenario. Airliners can fly with just one engine, that single engine Cessna can’t do the same when it’s only engine stops working.
The minimum altitude is actually part of even the amateur pilot license rules: at least 500 feet at all times except during takeoff and landing, plus single-engine planes are suppose to, when above an inhabited area, be high enough to be able to glide out of it before reaching the ground (which is why, for example, in cities you see helicopters following rivers and large avenues).
Further, something like a Cessna 150 is pretty light and designed to go slow (cruise speed is something like 90 knots - so a bit over 100km/h) and thus has a low stall speed and can glide quite well (remember that the air drag force is proportional to the square of speed, so a plane whose stall speed is low doesn’t need to trade as much potential energy - i.e. height - to offset the loss of speed from drag and stay above that stall speed).
It’s the stuff designed to go really fast - like jet fighters - that pretty much can’t glide because aerodynamic designs that optimizes for speed (and agility) actually reduce lift (and thus increase stall speed).
Yeah, modern jet fighters have horrible glide ratios. They are completely reliant on the engine to provide the brute force to push it through the air. Which is also why the F-35 and similar are so reliant on computers; they’re constantly correcting to actually stay flying.
But, if they do go down, usually it’s not toward a populated area, and the crew can eject.
Obviously there’ll be a bunch of title-only readlers making quips…
Sounds like it didn’t make it far off the ground.
Yeah, most crashes, especially bad crashes, happen during takeoff and landing. Once you’re actually up, the engine is likely to continue running fine, and even if it doesn’t, you have sufficient altitude and airspeed to glide to a reasonable landing.
Worst aviation disaster in history happened on the ground. Tenerife Airport disaster
Your own source says it’s the 3rd worst.
Kind of disingenuous to say the World Trade Center planes count as “aviation disasters” in a discussion about accidental crashes.
The other two are the planes that hit the world trade center on 9/11. I always understood disaster to be describing more of an accident, but obviously it can also describe a terror attack where someone intentionally crashes an airplane, fair enough.
Well if the attacks were only possible because of systemic shortcomings, it can be considered a disaster for sure.
It is considered the point in history when aviation acknowledged change was need for safe travel. Completely changed commerical air travel.
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Small plane pilots are usually trained to maintain minimum altitudes to allow for that exact scenario. Airliners can fly with just one engine, that single engine Cessna can’t do the same when it’s only engine stops working.
A Cessna, or pretty much any light aviation plane, can glide quite well.
Most airliners can too, provided the RAT is working. See “Miracle on the Hudson”
Also the flaps.
The stall speed is much higher if flaps can’t at all deploy.
The minimum altitude is actually part of even the amateur pilot license rules: at least 500 feet at all times except during takeoff and landing, plus single-engine planes are suppose to, when above an inhabited area, be high enough to be able to glide out of it before reaching the ground (which is why, for example, in cities you see helicopters following rivers and large avenues).
Further, something like a Cessna 150 is pretty light and designed to go slow (cruise speed is something like 90 knots - so a bit over 100km/h) and thus has a low stall speed and can glide quite well (remember that the air drag force is proportional to the square of speed, so a plane whose stall speed is low doesn’t need to trade as much potential energy - i.e. height - to offset the loss of speed from drag and stay above that stall speed).
It’s the stuff designed to go really fast - like jet fighters - that pretty much can’t glide because aerodynamic designs that optimizes for speed (and agility) actually reduce lift (and thus increase stall speed).
Yeah, modern jet fighters have horrible glide ratios. They are completely reliant on the engine to provide the brute force to push it through the air. Which is also why the F-35 and similar are so reliant on computers; they’re constantly correcting to actually stay flying.
But, if they do go down, usually it’s not toward a populated area, and the crew can eject.