Airplane Gets Snagged In Power Lines

It's unbelievable that this seems to keep happening, but another plane got tangled up in some power lines this time in Germany. It happened today while the small sport plane was on approach to a rural airfield in the Bavarian town of Durach. The 65 year old pilot and his wife sat upside down in the cockpit for two hours after their landing gear snagged the 380,000 volt lines. The two were ultimately rescued by local emergency services with cherry pickers. Captions look like Hebrew or something so I can't quite tell what they're saying, but I'm sure it's along the lines of "lotse dummkopf".

[Daily Mail]

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Onboard Video from Qantas Emergency Landing

Someone had the smarts to record the landing and subsequent applause onboard the Qantas 747-400. See it below.

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757 nose cone crumpled by bird

A Northwest Airlines 757 took a birdstrike right to the nose yesterday on a flight from Detroit to Tampa according to a spokeswoman for Tampa International Airport. There were no injuries to the flight crew or the 182 passengers on board flight 478, but the aircraft has been removed from service until the dent can be banged out with a hammer. Must have been a big bird but the picture doesn't really show any blood or snarge consistent with a birdstrike though.

UPDATE 7 JULY 20:15Z: The New York Times is now reporting that a spokesperson from the FAA is ruling out a birdstrike. Of course, they wouldn't say what caused the damage. The plot thickens...

Picture property of CNN.com

(via CNN and KXAN)

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Another 757 loses part of its wing

Northwest Airlines became the latest Boeing operator to lose a piece of their airplane while inflight yesterday when one of their 757s had to divert to Las Vegas after a 3 foot by 2 foot wing panel ripped off the aircraft according to a story by Flight International. The flight, with 193 passengers enroute from LA to Detroit, diverted to Vegas as a precaution. And it's a good thing too as the right wing panel ripped off underlying hydraulic lines before hitting the row 28 window then damaging the right side horizontal stabilizer. This, of course, follows a string of Boeings falling to pieces we told you about here at PointNiner that include a US Airways 757 that lost a section of its wing in March, and an American 767 that lost a fuselage panel earlier this month. Mechanics better start stockpiling 100 mph tape.

Photo: AirTeamImages

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