Plane Crash Diaries

Dec 23 2024 41 ep. 23 mins 663

Plane Crash Diaries Podcast artwork

I'm a pilot obsessed with flying and all things aviation. This podcast series covers more than a century of commercial aviation and how its shaped the world. Aviation is now safer than its ever been, but it took one hundred years of learning and often through accidents and incidents to reduce the risk of flying.

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Episode 41 - Dangerous Dalliances: EgyptAir 804 nicotine addiction & Aeroflot 821 intoxication

Dec 23 2024 27 mins

Episode 41 is about substance abuse, technocrats behaving badly, sub-standard crew training and fatal attractions to nicotine and C H 3 C H 2 OH — methylethyl alcohol, otherwise known as hootch, or in South Africa, dop. This is an episode that’s longer than usual, with quite a lot of ATC sound thrown in later. I hope you find it useful - remember this series is all about avia

Episode 40 - Shoddy Maintenance and blown screens

Aug 22 2024 23 mins

Episode 40 is about maintenance blunders. Aviation is littered with a long list of these, sometimes it the failure of unofficial parts, sometimes its poor management, sometimes engineers who cut corners - and believe it or not, all three. Because the topic is vast, I’m going to return to this subject in future podcasts. In this episode we’re going to focus on ground crews r

Episode 39 - Deadly delays during Ramadan as Saudia Airlines Flight 163 crew dawdles

Jun 19 2024 14 mins

This is episode 39 and we’re looking at a horrendous accident, Saudia Airlines Flight 163, a Lockheed TriStar which was gutted in a blaze on the ground on 19th August 1980 - all 301 aboard died. The plane was registered in Saudi Arabia as HZ-AHK, and made its first first flight on 13 July 1979, and was delivered brand new to Saudia on 21 August 1979. Some say this is a classic

Episode 38 - Newark Airport’s “umbrella of death” and Jimmy Doolittle’s clear ways

Feb 06 2024 20 mins

This episode we’re going to take a look at commercial airliners that have hit obstacles near runways and how three accidents in the small town of Elizabeth New Jersey in 1951 and 1952 led to rules about clear ways and re-zoning. It’s important though to stress how the rules have changed improving safety particularly with regard to clear ways. Take one of the the earliest wh

Episode 37 - Sharing the skies: A short history of bird strikes and improved safety

Dec 04 2023 22 mins

This is episode 37 and we’re dealing with bird strikes. The most famous of these was US Airways flight 1549 from New York City's LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte. Pilot Sully Sullenberger and first officer Jeffrey Skiles ditched the Airbus A320 in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan after a bird strike led to both engines failing - All 155 on board were rescued. This was know

Episode 36 - The 1971 Aeroflot Antonov twin crashes and the ATR-72’s achilles boot

Sep 01 2023 27 mins

This is episode 36 and its icy cold out there - it’s time to check out the incidents involving icing - starting with a short list and general description of the causes, then focusing on the two Aeroflot Atonovs accidents in 1971 and a design fault in the ATR-72. There’s an unfortunately long list of commercial airliners lost due to icing, more than 540 accidents and events ca

Episode 35 - The 1986 Aeromexico collision over L.A. that changed aviation

May 01 2023 27 mins

Episode 35 - The 1986 Aeromexico collision over L.A. that changed aviation by Desmond Latham

Episode 34 - The British Airship accident that was deadlier than The Hindenburg

Apr 25 2023 25 mins

The British government was focused on making dirigibles the transport of choice in the 1930s - competing with the Germans to produce the largest, most luxurious and most convenient way to travel across its empire. In the summer of 1930 two variants were created, one designed by a government team known ironically as "the socialist" airship as it was a labour government, the other "t

Episode 33 - The 1948 Gatow Air Disaster and other military blunders

Jan 16 2023 24 mins

We’re going to look at a few examples of trigger happy pilots and missile operators, starting with the 5th April 1948 Gatow Air Disaster over Berlin as the Cold War ramped up after the Second World War. A British European Airways Vickers VC.1B Viking airliner crashed near RAF Gatow air base, after a Soviet Air Force Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter aircraft flew into it from below. A

Episode 32 – Payne Stewart’s Learjet decompression death and missing maintenance logs

Nov 30 2022 35 mins

A listener asked me to take a closer look at the crash of a Lear jet in 1999 that was carrying golfer Payne Stewart so here we are. Of all the crashes we’ve looked at this has to be one of the more frustrating and needs quite a bit of sleuthing. The main reason is the NTSB still has not published a final report and probably never will. The basic facts are not in dispute – i