Videos of landing aircraft in challenging conditions is nothing new, but this video - currently popular on YouTube - showcases how an afternoon of bad weather at Düsseldorf airport can make landing an aircraft a real test of skill for pilots.
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A Qantas Airways Airbus A380 was forced to take a diversion from its scheduled flight from Singapore to London, due to an oil problem, causing one of its four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines to shut down.
Flight QF31 flew for around two-and-a-half hours with only three functioning engines before landing safely in Dubai. The aircraft had 250 passengers and 25 members of staff who all disembarked safely.
Avid Twitter user Stephen Fry was a passenger onboard this flight tweeted his reactions: ''Bugger. Forced to land in Dubai. An engine has decided not to play.'' Adding: ''I should in all conscience add that staff are being wonderful & that morale is high and the passengers understanding & cheerful.''
He colourfully expressed anger at leaving his wallet on the grounded flight: "I've left my wallet on the sodding plane. Hell's teeth this really isn't my day."
This isn't the first time Qantas has had engine-related problems. Almost exactly one year ago, in November 2010, a fault in a Trent 900 oil feed tube caused the number two engine of a Qantas A380 to fail, resulting in an emergency landing in Singapore. Oddly similar to today's events.
Qantas isn't having much luck recently, as earlier this week it was forced to ground its fleet due to a dispute with its staff and unions, before resuming limited flights. All of these incidents are continuing to put a strain on Qantas' revenue.
Related blog posts
Airline Business: The Qantas A380 drama - QF32 a year on
Learmount: Handling The Big Jet: the human story of QF32
This post was written by Rebecca Springfield
Full marks to Lyon-Saint Exupery airport for deploying technology to good effect. Noting that "wait times to pass through security are often a source of stress for passengers", the airport now features signs on the public side of the concourse indicating estimated time from the end of the queue to the security gates, to help passengers better manage their time in the airport.
The system - installed at security point 15 (Terminal 1) and set to be airport-wide by year-end - uses several cameras that count the number of passengers in the queue; an algorithm calculates the estimated time to reach the departure lounges.
Why has nobody thought of this before?
The system - installed at security point 15 (Terminal 1) and set to be airport-wide by year-end - uses several cameras that count the number of passengers in the queue; an algorithm calculates the estimated time to reach the departure lounges.
Why has nobody thought of this before?
Since the two aircraft ploughed into the twin towers in New York and other attacks on the US Pentagon, airport and airline security has had to change to prevent hijacks and ground attacks. But it has affected the ease of people travelling.
Flight has reported on developments from the security industry including a Honeywell device to be fitted to Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s called the pilot override system that works as a recovery system using the automatic flight control system in fly-by-wire airliners to override pilots who set a course that would enter restricted airspace or intentionally collide with buildings.
Another article headlined USA acts to avoid 9/11 repetition with temporary flight restrictions, one of which includes a a 30 minute which involves a "30min seat rule" on commercial flights where passengers will be required to remain seated for 30min after take-off and prior to landing, and limiting general aviation flights.
Have new measure been effective? This article was published in 2006 in which Safety and operations editor David Learmount concluded that there had been no hijack attempt since September 2001, "with the exception of an event in Colombia where lawless elements dominate some parts of the country. But even then the aircraft and its passengers survived."
- What are your views on airport and airline security?
- Is there less of a threat of terrorism now which should lead to rules and regulations being relaxed?
- Have the security measures put in place been a success?
See a whole host of other security related features post 9/11 in the Flightglobal Historic pages to see how the industry has changed.
- Security concerns cockpit lock
- AAR cockpit security attracts strong interest
- Air Canada Jazz pilot trapped on 'wrong side' of cockpit door incident re-opens security questions
- On Board defences
- USA pilots speak
- Eye-in cabin
- Winning passengers confidence of security back
- Industry upturn after 9/11
- Beating the Bombers
- Table of illegal interference with aircraft since 9/11
- Slump since 9/11
- 9/11 not cause of downturn
- 10 year anniversary pushes security
- Short Term and long term effects
An Asiana A321 with 119 passengers and crew members onboard is the latest jet to come under bullet fire as two South Korean soldiers fired 99 rounds from their K-2 rifles over ten minutes towards the jet last Friday, AFP reports.The jet descending to Seoul's Incheon airport managed to escape any harm as it was too far away from the soldiers, who were stationed on Gyodong island, 1.7 kilometres south of the North Korean coast. They managed to mistake the A321 for a jet from North Korea, its northerly neighbor who it lacks peaceful relations with. South Korean soldiers had been alerted to possible provocative acts by North Korea and are reported to have rules of engagement that do not quire superior approval.
"When the plane appeared over Jumun island, soldiers mistook it as a North Korean military aircraft and fired," a Marine Corps official told Yonhap, the AFP says.
The aircraft was "flying normally" and following a normal route from Chengdu, China, an air traffic controller told the AFP.
An Asiana spokeswoman said the military checked-up with the airline after the incident, and confirmed to the AFP there was no damage.
The AFP adds that local newspaper Yonhap says the Marine Corps will step up training for soldiers to help them distinguish civilian aircraft from enemy jets.
In other aircraft shootings incidents, the military of the French overseas territory of Reunion needs no help distinguishing jets but does require help distinguishing blank cartridges from live ones after a counter-hijacking exercise used real bullets and left a hole in one of the carrier's Boeing 777-300ERs.
And then of course there was the 737 from US Airways Airlines that encountered a stray bullet in March.
This presentation by Airbus test pilot Xavier Lesceu (click here), given before a performance and operations conference in Dubai in May 2011, contains a detailed explanation of the blanket revision of procedures for stall recovery adopted last year.
It's particularly interesting to read in light of the revelations about Air France flight AF447, notably the observation that the previous recovery procedure could result in "reluctance to apply nose-down input".
The controller asked the crew to maintain FL350 and to give their estimated time at TASIL.
Flight AF447 is told to keep cruising at 35,000ft and inform Brazilian air traffic control when it expects to reach the waypoint 'TASIL' - the entry point into Senegalese airspace, where responsibility for watching over the flight will transfer to the control centre in Dakar.
Continue reading AF447: After two long years, six short minutes.
The above screenshot of an Emirates A380 being struck by lightning while on approach to London Heathrow (full video below) may look scary, but our operations and safety editor David Learmount reminds us aircraft are designed to withstand such events.
As he told the Daily Mail in an interview:
As he told the Daily Mail in an interview:
'Planes get hit by lightning several times a year,' he said. 'They act as a conductor. Getting a good strike like this can look very dramatic but it might not make any impact.You can read our David Learmount's "operationally speaking" blog here.
'Manufacturers must make aircraft capable of withstanding a lightning strike and protecting those inside.
'It means the plane's body must contain metal so it can act as a conductor, allowing the electricity to pass through it.
'If it didn't have the metal, the plane could explode when hit.'
France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses has released this striking map of the debris field from flight AF447, the Airbus A330-200 which crashed in the South Atlantic in June 2009.
Click on the map for a larger version.
Clearly visible in the background of this video about the AF447 flight-recorder retrieval is a cutaway drawing from Flightglobal's extensive collection of similar illustrations.
But it's a curious choice, the reason for which isn't entirely clear: the aircraft in the diagram is not an Airbus A330, as might be expected, but an A321 - as the original image shows:
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