10 Air Crashes Caused By Heavy Pilot Error

A new top 10 this week, this time now Top, since it's a post about air crashes.
These 10 air crashes were caused either by some form of errors caused by toxicated pilots, pilots commiting heavy negligence of flying rules or unprofessionalism. In general, groos flying errors.
In this case, the order doesn't really matter.
No.10 Japan Airlines 1977 Anchorage Crash

Aircraft: Dc-8-62F
Fatalities: 5
Occupants: 5 (3 crew and 2 passangers)
On 13th January, 1977 a Dc-8 cargo airplane crashed a 300 metres of the runway at Anchorage airport. The cause of the crash was a stall caused by the captain's excessive maneuvers. The plane took off to early and began it's climb at an angle which was too high. In addition, the plane's crew made several errors while taxiing.
The entire situation was caused by the airplane's captain being drunk. When a taxi drive drove him up to the airport, the driver insisted, that the captain shouldn't be allowed to fly this day, but he was told that the crew will see that their captain is unable to fly and throw him out. However, that didn't happen.
You can see crash site photographs here:
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19890607-2
No.9 GP Express Airlines Beechcraft C99 Crash

Aircraft: Beechcraft C99
Fatalities: 2
Occupants: 2
During a training flight that was being conducted from and to Grand Island, Nebraska a Beech C99 crew was discusing their expierience with various types of rolls. The pilot flying suggested that he can try to do a barell roll. The pilot not flying didn't make any comments and didn't warn the pilot flying about the possible danger. Shortly before the maneuver that completes the roll, the plane crahsed, killing both pilots.
No.8 Air India Express Flight 812

Aircraft:Boeing 737-800
Fatalities: 158 
Occupants: 166 (160 passangers and 6 crew)
 In,morning one the 22nd of May, 2010 A Boeing 737 belonging to Air India Express was closing Mangalore Intl. airport, india. The plane started it's flight in Dubai. Mangalore's airport is a difficult one with a two runways, the longest being a 2450m. one. The airport is a 'tabletop' airport and it ends with a steep edge.The captain of the flight was a Serbian aged 55, who had previously worked in another Indian airline-Jet aiways. His copilot had much less experience and had joined Air India Express a year before the accident.
The plane was following the ILS approach, but was clearly too high. The plane was however given clearence to land and touched down 1600 m. down the runway. It didn't magae to stop, overrun the runway and plunged into the steep edge of the table-top airport after having passed 240 m. 158 perished in the accident, including both pilots.
the cause fo the crash was apparently the captain's unproffesional behaviour. He was asleep during the descent, and after waking up he didn't make the proper decision and decided not to abort the landing. On par with the captian's behaviour, the copilot had also shown signs of fatigue based on the CVR recording. This led to such a situation. In the final moments before the crash, the pilots were trying to abort their landing and make a go around. The lack of a radar at Mangalore airport also led to the dramatic situation the eventually caused a devastating crash.
No.7 Trans Colorado Airlines Flight 2268

Aircraft: Swearingen SA227 Metroliner III
Fatalities: 8
Occupants: 17 (15 passangers and 2 crew)
Trans Colorado Airlines flight 2268 took off from Denver Stapelton airport on the 19th of February 1988 bound for Durnago La Plata airport. The plane started it's descend from FL230 to FL160, and then FL150. A few minutes later, the plane was cleared for a VOR/DME approach to Durango airport. On final approach the plane hit a few tress, abruptly pitched up and lost control, crashing.
It turned out that the captain had taken cocaine before the fl;ight and this impacted his performance. On par with that, the frist officer conducted a veru unstable approach and he didn't monitor the flight instruments. The captain wasn't doing so, too and it eventually caused the plane to fly into the ground.
NTSB report on the crash:
http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR89-01.pdf
No.6 Varig Flight 254

Aircraft: Boeing 737-200
Fatalities: 13
Occupants: 54 (48 passangers and 6 crew).
Varig 254 was on a flight from Sao Paulo to Belem on the 3rd of September 1989. The flight 5 (yes, 5!!!) stopovers, the last one being the town of Maraba. After taking off from Maraba, the plane was suppost to fly heading 27, but instead the plane flew heading 270 loosing contact with Belem tower. The plane was low on fuel and soon lost it's engine. Being over the jungle there was no place to land and the 737 made a belly landing in the jungle, fatally injuring a few people. A few other people were critically injured and died after the crash. The plane was found two days later.
What caused this bizzare situation was pilot error. The captain had seen a 0270 heading in his flightplan, believing that it means heading 270 and set heading 270 in his autopilot, whereas it meant heading 27.0. The copilot didn't tell the captain about it (he also set the heading of 270 degrees). During tyhe flight the pilots were heavily distracted, since they were listening to the radio (a football match was taking place at the time).
No.5 Aero Flight 311


Aircraft: Douglas Dc-3
Fatalities: 25
Occupants: 25 (22 passangers and 3 crew).
 The DC-3 belonging to Aero (now Finnair) was flying from Kronoby to Vaasa, both in Finland on the 3rd of January, 1961 when it crashed in Kvevlax. It turned out that the crash was caused by pilot error, in this case, the crew hadn't followed the basic rules of flight and conducted aseries of very dangerous manouvers. They flew at an altitude too low (they requested free flight altitude above a certain minimum) and at one moment they made a turn that was too sharp, resulting in the plane loosing control and crashing. Everyone was killed.
The weird behaviour of the crew was caused by two things, both pilots had insufficient sleep and dunk alcohol the night before (the captain had 2 promiles of alcohol in  his body, whereas the copilot-1.65).
No.4 Aeroflot Flight 6502

Aircraft:Tu-134A
Fatalities:70
Occupants:94 (87 passangers and 7 crew)
Aeroflot Flight 6502 crashed in 1986, on the 20 October killing 70 people. Itt was a flight from Yekaterinburg to Grozny via Samara (then Kuybyshev). During landing, the captain made a bet with the first officer. Hew insisted that he's ghoing to land with no visual contact with the ground, using instruments only. He could use an NDB approach, as suggested by ATC, but he disagreed. The captain had difficulties with making a stable approach and he touched down too fast. He ignored most alarms nor suggestions about going around. As a result the plane overrun the runway and burst into flames. 70 people died, including the captain. The rest of the crew was sentenced to prison for 15 years, but were realesed after 6 years.
No.3 Blackwater 61 Crash

Aircraft: CASA 212
Fatalities: 6
Occupants: 6 (3 passangers and 3 crew)
Blackwater 61 was a flight operated by a Presidential Airways CASA 212, a subsidiary of Blackwater safety company, also operating as Blackwater Aviation for the US Department of Defense. The CASA 212 was carrying military equipment to Farah in Afghanistan on November 7th, 2004. The route takes through mountainous terrain, in which the crew chose to fly. Eventually this wasn't safe as they didn't know the entire route and got lost during low level 'fun flying'. One of the passangers survived intially, but died due to his injuries and very low temperature.
No.2 Aeroflot Flight 593

Aircraft: A310-300
Fatalities: 75
Occupants:7 5 (63 passangers and 12 crew)
Flight 593 took off from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on 23rd March 1994 bound for Hong Kong. During cruise at 33000 ft. the captain let showed his children the cockpit. At first, he let his daughter sit at the captain's seat and showed some autopilot features. Then, his son sat at the captain's seat and turned the yoke slightly for a few seconds and moved it back to the neutral position. The captain then showed his son the same things as he did to his daughter. As the Autopilot wanted to come back to it's initially heading, the control wheel inputs interfeared with the planned heading, disconnecting the autopilot control of aeilerons. Other than that, the autopilot was still on.In this situation, the plane started to bank. When it reahced 45 degrees, the copilot attempted to regian control, and the captin to go back to his seat. Their efforts were in vain, because the plane soon lost control. The captain nearly regained it, but the airplane was too low and crashed near Mezhduretshensk.
No.1 1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 Crash

Aircraft: B-52H
Fatalities: 4
Occupants: 4
On the 24th of June, 1994-Czar 52 a B-52H was practising for an airshow. The plane was making low altitude maneuvers over the airbase. At one point, the plane was flying close to the ATC tower at 75 metre altitude, when the captain decided to make a 360 degrees left turn to avoid flying over restricted airspace (a nuclear weapons storage facility). While making the turn, the plane exceeded the bank angle of 80 degrees and entered a stall. The B-52 clipped a power line and crahsed, killing all onboard. It turned out that the captain had bad flying habits with a history of several flyovers at low altitude with an excessive bank or climb angle. The captain had a history of making 80 degree climbs, flying below 100 feet, making excessive turns and maneuvers at airshows, coming to close to other aircraft or offending other crewman when they warned him about his dangerous pilotage.
What do you think?
Which of these pilot's made the biggest mistakes and were the most unproffesional aircraft commanders on this list?
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Mitsubishi Regional Jet about to fly next week

 Testing the new jetliner

The Mitsubishi Regional Jet has already completed a few taxi tests and recieved an approval from the Japanese 

transport ministry to complete it's first flight on the 9th of november (Monday). However, this isn't the original date of the first flight. The plane was suppost to complete it by the end of october, but the plans were changed by the later mentioned issue with rudder pedals. Mitsubishi has simulated “normal and abnormal scenarios” and that no issues have been found. Currently, during taxi tests only one, small problemn with the rudder pedals. When the rudder pedals are under extreme condition, there was “interference to the linkage mechanism of the rudder pedal”. In mid 2016 the first MRJ-90 is going to be flown to the US for additional test flights.

About the Mitsubish Regional Jet

The Mitsubishi Regional jet is Japan's first airliner after the NAMC YS-11 from the 1960s, designed by Mitubishi Aircraft Corporation (ironically, it's its first aircraft). The plane has a range comperable to the ERJ-19x series aircraft, with similar seat number and performance. The MRJ is slightly cheaper, but more expensive than the Russian alternative-the Sukhoi Superjet.Currently 223 have been ordered, 150 by leasing companies.

Top 10 largest bombers

Hello,

I’m starting a new series of posts published weekly. They ‘ll be the so called „aviation top 10s”. Hopefully, you’ll like those.

Today the topic is bombers- to be more precise, the top 10 largest bombers. By bombers I also mean martime patrol aircraft.  

No.10 Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire

Length:42,4m.

Wingspan:Maximum-34,3m.

The Tu-22M is one of the largest supersonic aircraft to be built, and the third largest still in service. This aircraft is somewhat a continuation of the Tu-22. Despite its similar name, the Tu-22M is a radically different design with different strategic roles (in this case martime operations).The NATO forces called this airplane ‘Backfire’ suggesting, that it’s a medicore design for it’s time, as they thought it was a just a modified Tu-22.  Ironically, the Backfire has two times the payload of the Tu-22.

No.9 Rockwell B-1 Lancer

Length:44,8m

Wingspan:41,7m

The B-1  is just another supersonic swept wing bomber. The B-1 is much younger and the design was nearly given up. The first B-1 (B-1A) flew in 1974, while the plane was introduced to service twelve years later (B-1B). The B-1B’s main role is low-level bombing, but in it’s operational history it usually performer high altitude conventional bombings. Th B-1B is one of the stealthiest (is that even a word?!) aircraft on this list.

No.8 Myasishchev M-50 Bounder

Length:57,5m

Wingspan:35,1m

The M-50 was a Soviet prototype supersonic bomber. Most probably the plane was first flown in 1957. It had two afterburning and two non-after burning engines. The Max. Speed was 1950 km/h an hour and the cruise speed-1500 km/h. In 1958 a western newspaper Aviation Week  published an article, saying that the Soviets have built a nuclear powered aircraft and provided pictures of the M-50 bomber.

No.7 North American XB-70 Valkyrie

Length:59,7m

Wingspan:32m

The Valkyrie is a plane that doesn’t have to be introduced- it’s the fastest bomber that was ever flown and of the fastest aircraft able to carry bombs. It’s faster than nearly all fighters. The fastest speed achieved by the XB-70 was 3250 km/h. Such a speed would be used in order to escape incoming missiles (rather doubtful, since in such a situation the plane would have probably been outrun by missiles) and enemy interceptors as well as escape the blast of a nuclear weapon that the Xb-70 would drop (which wouldn’t be probably used in a combat situation, since the bombs the plane could carry didn’t have such a high yield ).

No.6 Blohm&Voss Bv238

Length:43,3m

Wingspan:60,2m

The BV238 is the only flying boat that’s on this list. It was intially designed to as a transport aircraft to fly with supplies during the Battle of the Atlantic, but in middle of 1944 there was no need for usch aircraft. The BV238 was also designed to carry bombs and be used for martime patrol. This aircraft was suppost to be equipped with 5 cannons and 6 machine guns for defensive purpose. In the late 1944 the plane was flown to the Schalsee lake in north Germany. In April 1945 the plane was destroyed by bombs of the allied forces. This aircraft was suppost to be equipped with 5 cannons and 6 machine guns for defensive purpose. It’s probably the largest plane on this list not to drop a nuclear weapon.

No.5 Tupolev Tu-95 Bear

Length:46,2m

Wingspan:50,1m

The Tu-95 is one of the icons of the Cold War. It’s one of the fastest turboprop aircraft  with it’s propellers moving at the speed of sound, obviously making it very noise and unable to perform low altitude missions. The Tu-95 has a payload of only 15 tonnes (withn one version Tu-95V able to carry a 27 tonne nthermonuclear weapon-Tsar Bomba). The Bear ha dan interesting modififcation-the LAL version, a nuclear powered aircraft. The Tu-95 was actually used in the Ukarinian Air Force for a very short time, but was retired.

No.4 Myasishchev M-4 Bison (Molot)

Length:47,2m

Wingspan:50,5m

The Myasishchev M-4 Molot was the first Soviet plane designed to attack the US and come back to the Soviet Union, however it’s range was later prooven to be insufficient. The United States and Western intelligence believed, that the plane was in mass production in 1955 (entered service in 1956) and that by 1960 800 are going ot be built. In reality, only 93 were made. The aircraft never saw combat, usually performing as a martime patrol or reconnaisance airplane. Many were converted into tankers.

No.3 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (BUFF)

Length:48,5m

Wingspan:56,4m

This is the largest plane to ever shoot dswon another plane ( in this case, a MiG-21), a plane that is probably going to serve in the USAF for nearly 100 years, a plane that can survive and fly with out it’s horizontal stabilizer a plane that nearly caused Worl War III, not once, not twice, but thrice! The B-52 is quite….. interesting.  And those USAF pilots still cal lit a Big Ugly Fat Fellow. Honestly, it’s not that ugly.

No.2 Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack (White Swan)

Length:54,1m

Wingspan:55,7m

 The Blackjack is the largest supersonic aircraft,  largest swept-wing aircraft as well as the largest combat aircraft in service. It’s the last bomber built in the Soviet Union, however it was formally introduced into service in 2005. The Blackjack can carry the largest non-nuclear bomb- the Father of All Bombs. Technically, the Tu-160 never saw real combat use, somewhat like the largest bomber ever-the ………

No.1 Convair B-36 Peacemaker

Length:49,4m

Wingspan:70,1m

 The B-36 had 10 engines-four jet and six radial. The plane was used for 10 years, was never used in combat (only flew a few reconnaisance missions), lost the first nuclear bomb, but was used for many experiments, including a nuclear powered airplane, was used as a parasite bomber carrier and a testbed for tracked landing gear. As previously mentioned, the Peacemaker was used only for 10 years, but became obsolete after only few months of service with jet fighters being able to inercept it easily, as well as jet bombers that were introduced by the USAF after the Korean War.
What topic to cover next in the next Aviation Top 10 post?