Extracted from NTSB Accident reports and Aviation Safety Net.
Lay off the pipe, man
On June 12, 1983 near Yerington, Nevada, a Cessna 172
nosed over during a landing in a field. After police found
empty beer cans and some unidentified drugs in the
aircraft, the pilot resisted arrest and assaulted the officers. When
interviewed at a hospital, he stated, "It was my time to go" and
"God told me to crash the airplane." He also stated that a
briefcase with money inside flew out the rear window, and that he taped
the window shut while in flight. There was tape on the window, however
it was found on the outside of the aircraft.
Zzzzz...
On February 17, 1994, the lone pilot of a Piper PA-34
fell asleep while enroute from Springfield, Kentucky to Crossville,
Tennessee, when he awoke 5 hours later over the Gulf of Mexico. He was
210 miles south of Panama City, Florida and had only 20 minutes of fuel
remaining. He declared mayday and was assisted by Coast Guard and Air
Force aircraft. They directed him to the nearest airport, St. Petersburg.
While enroute to the airport the engines quit due to fuel exhaustion and
the aircraft was ditched 70 miles west of St. Petersburg. The pilot was
rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter.
Seeya, I'm outta here!
Near Clear, Alaska on June 5, 1996, the pilot of an Aronca AR-7
reported that he placed his dog in the back seat of the
airplane in preparation for takeoff. The takeoff was performed on rough
and even terrain. During the takeoff roll the cabin door jarred opened and the
dog tried to leave the airplane. The pilot aborted the takeoff while reaching
over and grabbing his dog as it leapt out. As the airplane slowed down, it
encountered a small ditch and boggy terrain and nosed over. Neither were
seriously hurt.
Crash with no class
On June 17, 1994 in Kent, Ohio, a Piper PA-23 attempted to take off.
During the takeoff roll at rotation speed, the airplane veered left of
the runway centerline and off the runway. It collided
with a dog house and came to rest in a water hole. Post-accident
examination showed no anomalies of the flight control system, engine,
and propellers. The pilot walked away with minor scrapes.
Oops...
On June 29, 1994, an American Airlines MD-11 with 97 aboard was enroute
from Miami to Buenos Aires.
The captain left for a short nap, and the reserve copilot took the
captain's seat. A flight attendant
entered the cockpit to bring a box of beverages for the flight crew.
She attempted to place them on the footrest of the center observer's
seat as directed by the reserve copilot. She had trouble doing this
and the reserve copilot realized the copilot's seat was in the way.
He reached across the cockpit and without the copilot's
knowledge activated the horizontal movement switch for the
copilot's seat, moving it forward. Unfortunately, the copilot's legs were
crossed, and they pushed the yoke forward. The autopilot responded
to the control inputs and turned itself off automatically. The aircraft
responded to the forward control column input and
pitched down, taking the plane into a dive. This resulted in injuries to
passengers and crew.
The copilot took manual control of the aircraft and returned the plane to
level flight. Two were hurt seriously, and 15 received minor cuts and
abrasions.
Fire!!!
On April 17, 1986, a TWA Boeing 727-200 with 102 aboard was taxiing for
takeoff at Detroit. A male passenger saw a mist coming out of the
vents (condensation from an overheated air conditioner pack). He
panicked and shouted "Open the door!" The lead flight attendant
mistook this instruction as coming from the cockpit and
opened an exit door. Passengers interpreted her action as clearance
to open another door, and soon everyone in the plane was heading for
the exits. At least 21 individuals were off the plane before the
captain intervened. Two flight attendants were on strike at the
time and the flights were being staffed by supervisors and new hires.
The lead flight attendant on this flight was a supervisor with no
recent day-to-day cabin supervision experience.
The worst-maintained aircraft award?
On July 5, 1991, a Champ 8 airplane was flying over Pomeroy, Ohio
with a flight instructor in the front seat and the owner in the
rear seat. Witnesses said the plane stalled and hit the ground.
Both the pilot and the owner survived.
The owner said he didn't know the pilot was having a problem, and didn't
take control of the plane to prevent the crash. During post-accident
disassembly inspectors found a beehive in the tail and a wasp nest
under the pilot's seat. The hospital determined that the pilot was
allergic to bee stings and that it was enough to incapacitate him.
Why not to fly Aeroflot
On March 23, 1994, an Aeroflot Airbus A310 with 75 passengers was cruising
from Moscow to Hong Kong, approaching Novokuznetsk, Russia at 33,000 feet.
The captain's daughter entered the cockpit. The captain let her sit in
the left-hand seat while he demonstrated some autopilot features. She got up
and then the captain's son took the seat. The son asked if he could
handle the yoke. He then turned the yoke slightly and held it in that
position for a few seconds before returning the yoke to the neutral position.
The captain then demonstrated the same features as he did to his daughter and
ended by using the autopilot to bring the aircraft back on course. As the
autopilot attempted to level the aircraft at its programmed heading, it came in
conflict with the son's inputs on the yoke. As a result the torque limiter
soon disconnected the autopilot inputs from the ailerons, releasing
the aircraft into a sharp bank.
The captain told the copilot to take control while he got back in
the left seat, fighting a 5 G load. The seat of the copilot was fully aft,
so it took him a few extra seconds to get to the yoke. Unfortunately by this
time the plane had entered an unrecoverable spin and hit the ground 2 minutes later.
Aggggh!
On May 20, 1991 near Rock Hill, South Carolina, a pilot in a Hughes
HU-269 helicopter was flying an aerial observation flight. He turned
on the cockpit heat. A copperhead snake emerged from the vent near
his feet. As the pilot maneuvered towards a landing area,
the snake appeared poised to strike. The pilot tried to step on the
snake with his foot and subsequently lost control of the helicopter.
The helicopter hit some trees and was destroyed, and the pilot was
seriously injured. The snake was not found after the accident.
Star Wars...
On October 30, 1995 at 6:10 pm, a Southwest Airlines 737 was taking off from
Las Vegas McCarran Intl Airport. The first officer, who was the flying
pilot, said a laser beam swept past the cockpit. He immediately
experienced eye pain and was completely blinded in the right eye.
After-image effects also induced a blind condition in his left eye.
He said the total inability to see lasted 30 seconds, and for an
additional 2 minutes he could not focus on or interpret any
instrument indications, and he was completely disoriented in his spatial
relationship to the vertical. The captain was not irradiated by the
beam and assumed control of the aircraft and continued the climb.
Many of the larger hotels in Las Vegas have some sort of outdoor laser
light show. Most of these installations have both fixed and stationary
beams of relatively high power, and "dancing" beams of lower power which
flash about the sky in irregular patterns. Recorded radar
data was used to perform a trajectory and vehicle attitude study to
determine the relative position of resorts with laser shows to the
position and orientation of the aircraft. As the aircraft passed
through 7,000 feet, the positions of three resorts relative to the
aircraft were all located in the clear vision field of view of the
first officer, and at a position of less than 90 degrees relative
azimuth from the first officer's eye reference point. One had the
shortest three dimensional distance to the aircraft at 4.7 nautical
miles, while the other two were at three dimensional distances of about
7 nautical miles. The source of the laser could not be established
with certainty. Fifty-one prior incidence of laser irradiations to
pilots have been recorded by the Las Vegas Air Traffic Control facility over
the past two years.