It didn’t take long for Capt. Al Haynes to realize that when the tail-mounted engine on his DC-10 failed high above the Great Plains 20 years ago Sunday, it also took the plane’s entire hydraulic control system with it. Haynes, along with the two other flight crew and a DC-10 instructor on United Airlines flight 232, were able to vary the power on the two remaining engines to bring the flight in to a somewhat controlled crash landing at Sioux City, Iowa. One wing dipped as it touched down, setting off an explosion and breaking the plane into several pieces. By the time the pieces came to rest, 111 people had been killed – but Haynes’ deft maneuvering saved the lives of 185 others, the
Seattle Times reported. After the crash, pilots in simulators were unable to successfully land a plane with no usable flight controls as Haynes had done. Though Haynes quickly became a hero, he took three months off to deal with survivor’s guilt, then flew two more years before retiring. Now 77 and living in the Seattle area, Haynes still tours the country to talk about aviation safety. The crash prompted several new safety measures: more thorough engine inspections, as well as shielding and safety valves on hydraulic lines that pass near engines. The cause of the crash was traced to a titanium disk in the engine that had developed small fatigue cracks that no one had caught.

In a report released Thursday, investigators said strong downdrafts forced down adventurer Steve Fossett’s plane, causing it to crash on the side of a rugged peak in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in September 2007. The crash site was discovered more than a year later by a hiker. After that find, investigators reviewed radar data from the day Fossett’s plane disappeared and found a radar track that ended one mile from the crash site, the National Transportation Safety Board said. While investigators briefly reviewed that radar track during the search two years ago, they ruled it out because it didn’t match the time a witness reported seeing a plane like Fossett’s fly over a Nevada town 90 miles to the north. That witness’s recollection of the time turned out to have been off by an hour.

Fossett, who holds scores of aviation records, had taken a Bellanca Super Decathlon up from a private airstrip south of Reno, Nev., to scout dry lake beds for a planned land speed record attempt. He never returned, and one of the largest search efforts in U.S. history failed to locate him or his plane in the month after the crash.

The NTSB said Thursday that Fossett’s plane encountered strong downdrafts that pushed the plane down at a rate greater than its climb rate. High density altitudes — a result of warm temperatures that day — further inhibited the Super Decathlon’s climb performance, the NTSB said. The NTSB calculated downdrafts at the time of the crash were about 400 feet per minute, while the Super Decathlon’s maximum climb rate at the 13,000-foot density altitude was only 300 feet per minute.

Updated 10:22 a.m. CDT on July 10 to provide more details.

An Indiana investment fund manager who parachuted out of his plane over Alabama before letting it run out of fuel and crash in Florida has pleaded guilty to sending a fake distress call and deliberately crashing his plane. Marcus Schrenker could face up to 26 years in prison for the crimes, though his attorneys hope he’ll get a lighter sentence of five years or less, Bloomberg reported. Schrenker’s trial was to have started June 8. Schrenker set his Piper Malibu on autopilot at 3,500 feet after sending a series of fake radio calls that his windscreen had blown out, and that he was bleeding profusely and losing consciousness. He had planned that the plane would run out of fuel and crash in the Gulf of Mexico, but due to stronger than forecast headwinds, the plane crashed in a swampy area near homes. Schrenker parachuted to the ground near a self-storage facility in Alabama where he had previously stashed a motorcycle and camping gear. Authorities caught up to him at a campground where he tried to commit suicide. Schrenker tried to fake his death because he had recently lost a costly court settlement, his wife was divorcing him and he was under investigation for running a fraudulent investment scheme.

Jeremy Taylor, a millionaire businessman from Binham, UK, was taking off in his Augusta 119 helicopter recently when he noticed a burglar making a getaway from his lumberyard. So Taylor laid chase to the burglar by air, with his sister and mother in pursuit by car, the Telegraph reported. Taylor followed the unidentified burglar and police ultimately caught him after the 50-mile chase. The burglar tried to evade Taylor’s helicopter by detouring through at least two villages and by driving into a forest. But while the burglar was driving at about 50 mph, Talyor’s Augusta could do 190 mph, making it relatively easy to keep the burglar’s van in sight. His mother and sister were able to get the license plate of the van from the ground and police later arrested the man, who admitted to stealing firewood, tools, a gas can and a tractor battery. The man got off with a conditional release, a relatively minor punishment for the crime. Taylor estimates he spent nearly $4,000 on fuel during the chase. But catching the burglar made it worth it, he said, because of the principle of the matter, and because he had been robbed several times before.

Nearly 100 years after the first flight over the Alps, Sunseeker II set a new record last week, becoming the first solar plane to do the same thing as it crossed from Switzerland to Italy. The 150-mile trip took about five hours and the plane climbed as high as 14,000 feet, GreenMuze reported. Sunseeker II has a small electric motor powered by lithium polymer batteries and solar panels embedded in the wings and horizontal stabilizers. The 8 horsepower motor lets the Sunseeker II cruise at 40 mph. The flight on April 14 had American pilot Eric Raymond flying between towering clouds at one point as it snowed in clear air. This was one of the first legs of Sunseeker II’s summer tour across Europe. It will now travel down the length of Italy to Mt. Etna.

A plane similar to Sparky Imeson’s Cessna 180 was flying as low as 30 feet above the ground shortly before Imeson’s plane crashed in Montana on March 17, a witness told the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB’s preliminary report into the crash that killed the well known mountain pilot provided few new details about what happened. Imeson, 64, was reportedly flying over a small airport near Townsend, Mont., where he was involved in a 2007 crash that seriously injured him. The witness described seeing a high-wing plane flying fast and low near a set of power lines, then pitching up and turning around 180 degrees. The witness did not see the plane crash, so it’s not clear whether that plane was in fact Imeson’s.

The widely respected flight instructor and author of the “Mountain Flying Bible,” Sparky Imeson, died in a crash in Montana Tuesday. Imeson, 64, was circling over an airstrip at Canyon Ferry, where he was seriously injured in a crash in 2007, the Jackson Hole Daily reported. He was apparently taking photos to document that accident when he cleared a ridgeline but then clipped trees, which brought down his Cessna 180. Imeson had accumulated 20,000 hours and wrote 19 books, many of them on flight training, mountain flying and other aviation topics. His credentials included ratings in the United States, Canada and Brazil, as well as experience in dozens of light aircraft models and many turboprops. Imeson developed the Mountain Fury training course, used by the Civil Air Patrol to teach pilots search-and-rescue techniques over harsh terrain. Imeson grew up in Jackson, Wyo., and started flying in 1966. Two years later, he and his parents founded Imeson Aviation, a fixed-base operator at Jackson Hole Airport.

Ray Melikian stopped at Pearl Harbor two days before it was bombed by the Japanese in 1941, and, because of landing gear problems, missed getting on an aircraft carrier in 1942 that sank days later. The pilot and his Curtiss P-40 Warbird, Melikian’s name stenciled on the side, flew in nearly 240 missions across the South Pacific in World War II before another pilot borrowed his plane and never returned, the Fresno Bee reported. On March 14, Melikian was reunited with his plane and took it for a spin over the San Francisco Bay Area. Vintage aircraft restorer Chris Prevost picked up the hulk of the P-41 in Australia a decade ago and started painstakingly rebuilding it. It had been found wrecked in a New Guinea jungle in 1969. Using Army serial numbers, Prevost was able to track down Melikian and set up the reunion flight. About 125 people turned out at a Northern California Airport to see the flight. Melikian shared time on the controls with Prevost, who estimates he spent about $600,000 buying and restoring the plane. The restored P-41 is one of just 25 still flying today.

The National Transportation Safety Board has released details into Steve Fossett’s final flight that ended in a fatal crash high in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains in September 2007. The factual report says that weather on the day of the crash was clear and that there was relatively little turbulence over the mountain range. But high winds aloft likely created strong downdrafts that may have pushed Fossett’s plane into the mountain where its wreckage was found a year later. Radar returns likely from the Bellanca Super Decathlon Fossett was flying indicate he was at about 15,000 feet in the minutes before the crash. The crash site was at 10,000 feet on the side of a mountain, with the plane’s debris field stretching upward several hundred feet. A computer simulation ordered by the NTSB suggested downdrafts in the area may have been more than 400 feet per minute; at 13,000 feet, the Super Decathlon’s listed rate of climb would have been 300 feet per minute. Fossett had taken off for a morning flight to scout dry lake beds; his wife described the flight as “a Sunday drive.”

The investment banker who allegedly set his Piper Malibu on a course to ditch in the Gulf of Mexico Jan. 11 and parachuted out over Alabama now says he wasn’t trying to fake his death. Authorities found Marcus Schrenker bleeding in a tent after a suicide attempt several days after his plane ran out of fuel and crashed in a marsh near homes, the Associated Press reported. Authorities said Schrenker planned to bail out of his plane, then use a motorcycle stashed in a storage locker to escape to Florida. But authorities quickly caught up to him and arrested him. In a letter to Indiana authorities, Schrenker now says he suffered a head injury in the incident and does not remember what happened. But he denies that he tried to fake his death and make a getaway. He is the subject of multiple lawsuits claiming that he defrauded investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.