I once heard someone describe Admiral Cloudberg's air crash investigation blog as "the best thing on the Internet" and I still think that might be true. She is a great researcher and a superb writer, which stands out all the more these days in these fallen times of load-bearing AI slop. Her blog is beloved of both aviation geeks and, for obvious reasons, SREs (and other engineers).
She recently posted what's basically her magnum opus, on the Potomac river midair collision.[0] It's the length of a short book. I'm working my way through it; I'm taking a flight today, and I'll probably read it on the plane tonight.
This article, on how an A380 with 469 souls aboard almost crashed, but didn't, is one of her best. I like it because it's a happy ending, and a story of the combined effects of good engineering design (the astonishing degree of redundancy built into the A380 proved just enough to prevent catastrophe), and human troubleshooting under pressure in the cockpit by some smart people with vast experience who remained calm throughout. (Another favorite article of her, on the Air France 447 crash, tells the exact opposite story: poor systems design combined with pilots basically losing the most basic ability to aviate in the heat of the moment. That one is a much darker read.[1])
Going to plug her Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Admiral_Cloudberg) here because her articles are extensively researched and consistently well-written, and I enjoy reading them, and hope to continue reading new ones in the future!
I would also highly recommend checking out Mentour Pilot channel on youtube as she is the writer for some episodes. Accident videos there have interesting technical details.
I've watched some but I really hate watching videos. And I found that the videos she scripted basically follow the same flow as her corresponding article. So it felt like I'd already watched it.
If you like videos I'm sure they're great but if you love the writeup, you're not missing anything by skipping the videos IMO.
Ps I hate mentour pilot's clickbaity thumbnails so much. That alone puts me off from watching it too. But lately I use "DeArrow" which desensationalises all the thumbnails and even titles. That helps a lot. Mentour pilot is not alone in this, a lot of youtubers do it, but he sensationalises the severity of an aviation crash by going like "whoa kaboom!". Which is what I object to. Usually people died there and lots of them. It's strange because the actual videos have none of that.
It baffles me that that airlines can run so well on check lists and procedures instead of thinking and understanding. This is a case where just a tiny bit of understanding on the part of the mechanics would have avoided a crash and two deaths.
Comments
I once heard someone describe Admiral Cloudberg's air crash investigation blog as "the best thing on the Internet" and I still think that might be true. She is a great researcher and a superb writer, which stands out all the more these days in these fallen times of load-bearing AI slop. Her blog is beloved of both aviation geeks and, for obvious reasons, SREs (and other engineers).
She recently posted what's basically her magnum opus, on the Potomac river midair collision.[0] It's the length of a short book. I'm working my way through it; I'm taking a flight today, and I'll probably read it on the plane tonight.
This article, on how an A380 with 469 souls aboard almost crashed, but didn't, is one of her best. I like it because it's a happy ending, and a story of the combined effects of good engineering design (the astonishing degree of redundancy built into the A380 proved just enough to prevent catastrophe), and human troubleshooting under pressure in the cockpit by some smart people with vast experience who remained calm throughout. (Another favorite article of her, on the Air France 447 crash, tells the exact opposite story: poor systems design combined with pilots basically losing the most basic ability to aviate in the heat of the moment. That one is a much darker read.[1])
[0] https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/reaping-the-whirlwind-in... [1] https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-long-way-down-the-cr...
Going to plug her Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Admiral_Cloudberg) here because her articles are extensively researched and consistently well-written, and I enjoy reading them, and hope to continue reading new ones in the future!
I would also highly recommend checking out Mentour Pilot channel on youtube as she is the writer for some episodes. Accident videos there have interesting technical details.
I've watched some but I really hate watching videos. And I found that the videos she scripted basically follow the same flow as her corresponding article. So it felt like I'd already watched it.
If you like videos I'm sure they're great but if you love the writeup, you're not missing anything by skipping the videos IMO.
Ps I hate mentour pilot's clickbaity thumbnails so much. That alone puts me off from watching it too. But lately I use "DeArrow" which desensationalises all the thumbnails and even titles. That helps a lot. Mentour pilot is not alone in this, a lot of youtubers do it, but he sensationalises the severity of an aviation crash by going like "whoa kaboom!". Which is what I object to. Usually people died there and lots of them. It's strange because the actual videos have none of that.
This was a scary one to read:
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/years-of-salt-and-metal-...
It baffles me that that airlines can run so well on check lists and procedures instead of thinking and understanding. This is a case where just a tiny bit of understanding on the part of the mechanics would have avoided a crash and two deaths.