Traffic is backed up in both directions as remarkable photos from the scene show a light aircraft landed on the central reservation
  • mackwinstonEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

    However, I’m sure the CAA will want words with the pilot for selecting a road rather than a field to do the forced landing.

    • ScreamingFirehawkEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      More like why not the airport that is literally right next to this section of the A40?

      • mackwinstonEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Three main possibilities:

        • Engine failure after takeoff - turning back to the airport is known as the “impossible turn”. It isn’t quite impossible but it is difficult to execute successfully once you add on the startle factor. An incorrectly executed “impossible turn” usually results in a low altitude stall, which is normally fatal, so generally light aircraft pilots are trained to find somewhere to put it down directly in front of the aircraft.

        • Engine failure on approach to land - aircraft following the standard ‘3 degree glideslope’, this is too shallow of a glideslope for most aircraft to actually glide at without power so in the case of an engine failure the aircraft will end up short of the airfield.

        • Engine failure during cruise flight - aircraft diverted to EGBJ/Gloucestershire but didn’t have enough altitude to quite make it there. But this also gives the most time to look for a suitable paddock to put it down in.

    • Kit Sorens@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      Most crashes happen near landing sites as pilots make emergency calls for open runways whenever a mid-flight pan or mayday comes up. They immediately divert to the nearest responding tower designated site, but that doesn’t mean you’ll make it in time. If your engines stalled, you’re flying on your glide ratio alone, which gets far worse the more you course correct. Add the startle response and call-in stage, and you have much less time to get treads to earth than the theoretical Xmi at Y:Z glide ratio. Your final options are fields and highways, and you better hope you find a flat field or sparse country highway or you’re nosing dirt or guiderail like this guy.