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Last night at the 2009 Dubai air show the Flightglobal achievement award for aviator of the year went to US Airways Captain Chesley Sullenberger, who famously landed an A320 in the Hudson River last January.

Sullenberger's win for his phenomenal skills remind us preparation and training are two keywords in this industry. But perhaps there are times when preparation go too far, or at least too public.

As reported from Gulf News, Oman Air with government and airport agencies staged a drill to respond to a hypothetical aircraft crash.

The Oman Air website even put up a condolence message from their CEO for 'those killed in the crash'.

The crash announcement on the website said: "Exercise Exercise Exercise Exercise 13th November 2009 11:14 hrs. Revised information indicates that Flight WY900 had a total of 158 people on board, there are 126 injuries, 29 fatalities (including all 8 crew) and 3 unaccounted for. It is further reported that there are five resident fatalities."

Anyone know of any other drills that got mistaken for a real incident?

The Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators (GAPAN) has awarded the Master's Medal to the crew of US Airways Flight 1549, for an exemplary exercise in ditching their Airbus A320 in the Hudson River near New York with no injury or loss of life.

The detailed citation on the crew's work that day, 15 January 2009, includes this statement: "The crew quickly cleared all the passengers: parents with children, an elderly woman, and dozens of people travelling on business. Capt Sullenberger then walked up and down the cabin, twice, to make sure everyone was out. He then took a final look at his sinking aircraft, grabbed the maintenance logbook and jumped onto a life-raft that was then filled with passengers."

The presentation took place at the Guildhall in the City of London on 29 October, and the medal was received on behalf of the crew by the aircraft commander, Capt Chesley Sullenberger, and two of his cabin crew, Donna Dent and Sheila Dail.

 

 

Not present for the ceremony were the flight's First Officer Jeff Skiles and Flight Attendant Doreen Welsh.

The awards were presented by the Guild's Master, Rear Admiral C Cooke-Priest, and the immediate Past Master Air Commodore R Peacock-Edwards.

GAPAN also presented Flight International with its Award for Aviation Journalism. The citation noted Flight's work in "charting the major events and developments in aviation and making sense of them to both the general public and to the professionals since its first issue was published 100 years ago on 2 January 1909, weeks after Cody's 'hop' at Farnborough."

It added: "Flight International's team of committed and knowledgeable journalists under the current editorship of Murdo Morrison, are trusted by the people they interview and in turn trusted by their readers to deliver factually accurate and balanced information and well-informed insights. They provide a valuable service to the general media of providing expert comment to explain the complexities of aviation to a public audience."

The Award was accepted on behalf of the Flight International team by Operations and Safety Editor David Learmount.

The Guild presented more than 20 Awards for outstanding services to aviation that evening. A list of the Award winners can be found on the GAPAN website.

Related blog:

LEARMOUNT: Opening doors onto the Hudson River

LEARMOUNT: Why Sully succeeds

Related stories:

Hudson crash: A320's engines lost power simultaneously - including CNN video news report

Archive:

The Cody Flyer

 

Captain Chesley B (Sully) Sullenberger and some of his crew, (Donna Dent, Sheila Dail) who ensured the safety of all 150 passengers after the US Airways A320 Flight 1549, crash-landed in the Hudson River west of New York City after a departure from LaGuardia Airport. 

Sully accepted the Master's Medal for "an outstanding aviation achievement" from Air Cdr Rick Peacock-Edwards , Immediate Past Master (GAPAN) last night at The Guild's Annual Trophies & Awards Banquet in London's Guildhall for his and his crew's actions back in January following a bird strike and double engine failure.   

Related content:

VIDEO: US Airways A320 crew showed the world how ditching should be done

US Airways A320 Flight 1549 coverage on Flightglobal and the rest of the web

It may not be Webster's dictionary or the OED, but Urban Dictionary has coined a new phrase in response to Northwest flight 188, which last week overshot its destination by 150nm.

Welcome to your lexicon "Northwest Nap", today's Urban Dictionary Word of the Day.

Urban Dictionary defines it as:

When you hear that an aircraft has lost an engine, best to check what that means before committing to press, and before it turns up (as this one did) embarrassingly intact.

 

This week marks the centenary of the La Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne held at the current site of the Reims Airbase BA112, according to Flightglobal user Stephen Wolf on 22-29 August 1909.

Flight wrote a pre-show report it in its 14 August issue, in which it said: "The Grand Semaine de Champagne will commence [22 August], and in view of the long list of prominent aviators who have promised to take part in the various contests, this will go down to history as the first great meeting of aeroplanes. Its most prominent event will be the first contest for the Gordon-Bennett Aviation Trophy."

There was to be a race in which competitors must cover two circuits of the 10km course. "The one who covers it in the fastest time wins a £500 trophy for his club and £1000 for himself."

Great Britain was to be represented by Mr. G. B. Cockburn on a Farman biplane, and America by Mr. Glenn Curtiss on a machine of his own design.

In Flight's 28 August issue, its leader piece said: "The Rheims meeting marks an epoch in the history of mechanical aerial locomotion. It is the first occasion on which a wide variety of machines has been brought together, and on which one has been pitted against the other day after day..."

Mr Wolf said: "The joy of flying was captured in the displays, and was a fitting tribute to those brave pioneers of 100 years ago, where every flight was an adventure destined for the record books.....

"I hope this centenary will get a mention on the FlightGlobal website, particularly as there are some great articles on the event in the annals of Flight."

Pictures of the Rheims 1909 aviators

 

Ashton Kutcher; Hollywood actor, comic, prankster and now it seems, aviation safety expert.

After hearing the advice of a 30 year veteran pilot who he doesn't name, Ashton, a very popular and high profile celebrity user of Twitter, tweeted to his 2.5 million followers the following advice:

A 30 year vetran pilot recommended 2 me that I dont ride on an airbus until they prove that the composite tail is not creating ths accidents

Explaining why he would tweet something to his sizeable audience, he further tweeted:

'Im not a big fear person I just felt it would be neglegent to not share RT @FrenchysLady: way to put any nerves into flying at all LOL'

Dubious syntax and spelling aside, Ashton's comments won't be the biggest issue that Airbus faces, as it tries to investigate some real recent tragedies, but besmirching your safety record to 2.5 million people who use your aircraft daily must be of slight concern.

 

 The passengers of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 had to be evacuated on Tuesday when the tyre caught fire when landing at Houston Airport. The firefighters had to put out the flames as people were being removed from the aircraft through the emergency shute but nobody sustained any injury

Picture credit: CSU Archv/Everett/Rex Features

The Hindenburg was the largest commercial dirigible ever built but on this day 72 years ago the hydrogen filled airship spectacularly burst into flames when it touched its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey. There were around 100 people on board yet the disaster killed 36 passengers.

In this video we see the flammable craft burst insto flames and people on the ground run for their lives.

The commentator was expecting a safe touchdown but you'll hear the horror in his voice as he describes the accident as "the worst catastrophe the world has ever seen". Watch the rest of the video to hear what witnesses experienced.

 

Hindenberg started a scheduled service--consisting of ten return flights during the summer over this route between Frankfurt and Lakehurst, in 1936. Flight reported that the cause of the accident was the ignition of a mixture of free hydrogen and air.

Flight reported in its 14 May 1936 issue: "A record for the North Atlantic crossing by an airship has been made by the Zeppelin Hindenburg, which took 61 hr. 38 min. for the 4,381-mile Friedrichshafen-New York trip."

• See inside the Hindenburg

In October 1910 dirigibles had only been in the air "both literally and figuratively" in the course of the past few weeks which inspired Flight to focus on the aircraft's failures and successes.

 

Two pilots had a lucky escape after safely landing an experimental plane on a roadway after the experiencing engine failure.

The incident was caught by professional cameraman Joe Suroweic as the SkyRanger aircraft was heading to Sun and Fun show in Lakeland, Florida:

As you can see the piloting was impressive but it was lucky that the roads weren't so busy; otherwise the pilot may have had to resort to some Sullenberger inspired water ditching.