Posts Tagged ‘accident’
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Not too often you see regular military fighter jets above San Francisco these days, you know, just flying around on some mission as opposed to performing an airshow. Last time for me seeing something like that was when a pair of U.S. Air Force F-15’s roared low and fast over the Western Addition about a half-decade ago.
Here’s the view from Haight Ashbury yesterday, through the Blue Gum Eucalyptus trees. Don’t bother looking at the misfocused photo ’cause you probably won’t be able to see them, but KPIX / CBS5 has some footage from Oakland International Airport yesterday. There they are lined up next to the King Airs and whatnot at OAK.
Speaking of airshows, remember this alarmist headline from a few years back: “Blue Angel Kills Thousands in SF crash”
Of course, no spectator has died at an airshow in San Francisco ever, I don’t think. And actually, no airshow accident has killed or injured a spectator in America in the past half-century or so that writer Tim Redmond has been alive. (Let’s not talk about Russia or Ukraine – spectators die all the time in those places.)
And of course, a crash like that one in San Diego wouldn’t kill anybody in San Francisco because the Blue Angels would react differently to a sudden loss of power. And if there were a crash for other reasons, it would be simply unpossible for that to kill “thousands.”
Anyway, if you ever want to say that you don’t like the Blue Angels, it’ll be up to you to just say that you don’t like the Blue Angels or, instead, to make a blog post going, “Blue Angel Kills Thousands in SF crash.”
Your choice.
Anyway again, this “Military Aircraft operation” might have brought a nuclear aircraft carrier to the waters of the Farallones, who knows.
Look to the skies! They are ever changing.
Suit and tie comes up to me
His face red
Like a rose on a thorn bush
Like all the colours of a royal flush
And he’s peeling off those dollars bills
Slapping them down, one hundred, two hundred,
And I can see those fighter planes
And I can see the fighter planes
Across the mud huts as the children sleep
Through the alleys of a quiet city street
Up the staircase to the first floor
We turn the key and slowly unlock the door
A man breathes deep into saxophone
Through the walls we hear the city groan
Outside is America
Outside is America
Tags: 1000's, 18, ab, accident, air show, aircraft, airplane, airport, arishow, attack, Bay, bay guardian, Blue Angel, Blue Angel.Blue Angels, blue angels, carrier, cd, crash, cvn, f-18, f/a, f18, fa-18, fighter, guardian, haight Ashbury, hornet, international, KPIX, military, newspaper, nuclear, oak, Oakland, pilot, San Francisco, SFO, super hornet, thousands, tim redmond, TV, u.s. navy, United States, usmc. marines
Posted in aircraft, military | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
General Aviation is dangerous, it always has been and it always will be. (Now, that’s different than commercial aviation these days – I mean, has some passenger in America died due to a big old Boeing or Airbus or McDonnell-Douglas or Lockheed crashing since the infamous year of 2001? Not that I am aware of. I’m talking about the big jets, your 737’s, your A320’s and the like, and your jumbo widebodies, too.)
On the other hand, little jets and propeller planes, they crash and kill people all the time. And the reason why is pilot error, of some kind, generally speaking.
So there’s no need, generally speaking, to defend the skills of a pilot after an aircrash. Sometimes, people make mistakes – that doesn’t mean that anyone in particular is a bad person. So, instead of dwelling on anybody’s reputation as a skilled pilot, why not, instead, remember that person as a person? Just asking.
Jeanette Symons
Steve Fossett
JFK Jr.
John Denver
Graham Hill
Another thing to ponder is this – “Is This Trip Really Necessary?” Would you make the same trip if you didn’t have access to a little airplane?
A bay area pilot’s CitationJet after an avoidable tragedy in snowy Maine, from a few years back. This is what get-there-itis looks like.
Just saying…
Tags: accident, air, airplane, bay area, crash, error, fog, foggy, general aviation, jet, pilot, San Francisco, weather
Posted in aircraft | No Comments »
Monday, February 8th, 2010
BIKE NOPA has just posted details on the SFPD police report and the District Attorney’s response to the death of pedestrian Melissa Dennison, killed by a collision at the intersection of Fell and Broderick on September 15th, 2009.
The intersection of Fell and Broderick
Tags: 2009, 29, 600, accident, ada, bac, bike, BIKE NOPA, california, cars, cited, crosswalk, da', dead, denison, denisson, dennison, department, dept., District Attorney, divisidero, driver, facebook, fault, fell broderick, haight, homicide, Honda, hope, intersection, Kamala Harris, killed, lake tahoe, Lieutenant, lt., manslaughter, melisa, Melissa, melissa dennison, melissa dennisson, melissa hope dennison, memorial, NOPA, north of panhandle, ocean beach, Park station, partial, ped, pedestrian, pit, PM, police, police report, prosecutor, Ramlin, referred, San Francisco, september, sfgo, SFPD, SFSU, shrine, snowboard, snowboarding, state, street, truckee, university, vehicular, western addition
Posted in transit | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
You know that beige color (it’s not paint but I don’t know what it is, actually) that was just put down on Market Street? Well, it’s coming off fast.
From this…
…to this:
Sic transit gloria Market
Tags: 4th, 5th, accident, andy thornley, beige, bicycle coalition, bicycle coallition, bikes, bus, fawn, geary, green sfbc, Greenway, inbound, market, mta, off, old navy, paint, pedestrians, peeling, Program Director, Ride Awa, Ride Away Greenway, Ride Away/Greenway, safety, safety zone, San Francisco, san francisco bicycle coalition, sfcta, SFMTA, street, textured, Trail, west, zone
Posted in bikes | No Comments »
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Things weren’t looking so hot for the driver of this #5 Fulton MUNI bus at this scene a while back, ’cause even the City-employed investigator was basically admitting that the pilot of the black Nissan sedan wasn’t at fault.
When pulling into traffic, you need to look first – that rule applies to people pulling buses out of bus stops as well you and me.
(Some MUNI drivers don’t pull into bus stops for this very reason. Oh well.)
When you crash into a city bus make sure you file notice of your claim within the next six months (otherwise your claim might go poof)
Let’s be careful out there.
Tags: 5, accident, bus, collision, driver, fender bender, five, fulton, investigator, mcallister, Muni, nissan, Polk, san fransico, stop, street
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
When parking in San Francisco, you should always curb your wheels. If you can’t tell whether you’re pointing uphill or down, just pour out a little water from your bottle into the gutter.
The way the water goes tells you which way the hill goes. Or just look at what all the other drivers on the block did. Easy peasy, right?
The driver of this VW Cabrio made the wrong choice, so a ticket from SFMTA was the result. Parking Control Officers will spot this infraction from a block away and then make a special trip just for you.
Oh well.
Tags: accident, angle, away, curb, degrees, down, downhill, DPT, hill, illegal, law, legal, meter maids, mta, parking, pco, roll, rule, San Francisco, sfdpt, SFMTA, slope, ticket, tires, up, uphill, Wheels
Posted in cars | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Read below to see the message that came over the transom of this little blog yesterday, the very blog you’re looking at right now. It concerns a post from a year and half ago about an airplane crash-landing that resulted in no major injuries.
The missive, in its entirety:
“When you google Flying Vikings your false article comes up. If you do not fix your false statements. I will deal with you. My name is Celine Correa and I am a co-owner of Flying Vikings. You need to report on the many thousands and thousands of flight hours we have done. Call me and I will give you verifiable details no false hoods. You need to correct your article immediately.
Celine”
O.K. fine. If anybody wants to go through and find any of the purported “false statements,” well then have at it – that would help me out.
Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll be “reporting” on Flying Vikings’ “many thousands and thousands of flight hours” (is that a lot? My dad, currently pushing up daisies in Virginia, had five figures worth of flying hours with no accidents, AFAIK) in some sort of fairness-doctrine type of deal.
The comments are open on this post, if anyone wants to pipe up. Thanks for your help.
Here it is:
Another Accident Involving Hayward-based Flying Vikings, Inc.
Today’s headlines include news of the crash landing of a Flying Vikings, Inc. Cessna 172 in Oakland, California.
The San Jose Mercury News earlier reported that N61736 ”had a gas leak,” but now is going with ”mechanical problems” as the cause of this incident. KCBS, which labels this single engine plane the KCBS Radio Traffic Plane, is reporting the pilot claimed the oil pressure guage plummetted just before the engine conked out. This aircraft, built in 1974, suffered “substantial damage” during an incident in 1981.
The following language, written before today’s accident, appears on the Flying Vikings website:
Since Flying Vikings also has a contract with local news gathering organizations, students are offered opportunities to build time that no other school can. Fly 3 to 6 hours a day and get paid.
A visual aid to help imagine yourself staring at a motionless propeller low over the Bay Area. Click to expand:
The dash of a Cessna 172 and a view of Candlestick Park, from the incredible Telstar Logistics Flickrstream
Here’s a photo of a different Flying Vikings aircraft, a Piper that suffered a fatal accident in 2006. Readers may find this link, relating to the Piper crash, of interest, however, it might lead you to unproven speculation about the cause of that tragedy.
The Federal Aviation Administration and Cal OSHA should be able to determine the cause of this forced landing fairly easily.
A relatively happy ending to a scary situation.
So that’s the purported “false article” from 2008.
Actually, the only reason I found this incident noteworthy at the time was the number of conflicting reports about the cause of this incident. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated and concluded the problem was:
“A loss of engine power due to oil starvation. The oil starvation event was due to the failure of maintenance personnel to tighten the mounting bolts for the newly installed vacuum pump.”
Seems the pump had just been replaced three days earlier and the flight of June 30, 2008 was the first one using the new pump.
All the deets from the NTSB, after the jump.
Tags: 172, 172M, 740, accident, alan brooks, am, blog, california, cessna, crash, defamation, emergency, flying school, flying vikings, forced, hayward, incident, kcbs, landing, libel, mechanical, Metro Networks, N61736, news, ntsb, Oakland, owner, problem, radio, report, reporter, Richard Liu, SEA08LA155, skyhawk, slander, traffic, Westwood One
Posted in aircraft, law | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
This is the scene near Union Square, inbound, right down the street from the latest the latest MUNI bus vs. cyclist collision.
(Dude got scuffed up by an articulated 38 Geary (or whatever – it’s line number had been switched off) but he looked O.K. when they were putting him the ambulance.)
Anyway, here it is:
Click to expand.
Beige? Really? Wasn’t it supposed to be painted green?
(Beige. I think I’ll paint the ceiling beige, after seeing this glorious color up close.)
But, anything for safety’s sake. Hurray!
UPDATE: Turns out, per Bluoz, that this stuff is called “Ride Away/Greenway” or something. It’s from DaVinci Pavement and Design.
And here’s San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Program Director Andy Thornley chirping up to bring it all home:
“It’s actually “fawn” — I brake for Bambi — though others have characterized it as “cafe au lait” or “mochacino” — if it gets people to wake up and pay attention that’s all that matters. It’s another trial for Market Street, joining the forced right turns at 6th & 8th Streets (expect to see 10th Street turns soon) and Art in Storefronts and other good stuff. There’s more to the “Safety Zone” trial, 10 MPH pavement legends and signs, rumble strips, and advance stop lines that will blossom into full-blown bike boxes (with green pavement, you betcha) once the blinking Bike Plan injunction is lifted. These elements (color, rumble strips, 10 MPH marking) will be combined in various ways at the four parts of the 4th & 5th Street intersections (eastbound and westbound), SFMTA and SFCTA folks will be watching and evaluating to see which things are effective at slowing traffic and getting folks to watch out for each other, and then they’ll take the winning combination and implement it at all Market St boarding islands from Castro to the Embarcadero. Get yourself a fresh soy latte and roll on down for a test ride . . .”
So There You Have It.
Tags: 4th, 5th, accident, andy thornley, beige, bicycle coalition, bicycle coallition, bikes, bus, fawn, geary, green sfbc, Greenway, inbound, market, mta, old navy, paint, pedestrians, Program Director, Ride Awa, Ride Away Greenway, Ride Away/Greenway, safety, safety zone, San Francisco, san francisco bicycle coalition, sfcta, SFMTA, street, textured, Trail, west, zone
Posted in streets | 5 Comments »
