International Irony

After posting the previous "I got it at  Wal*Mart", I remembered an incident  that happened to one our crews while descending into Reno NV in Aug 06. They were descending through the mid teens with passengers onboard probably clipping along at 300 kts indicated. All of a sudden the captain saw a flash and BANG! The had hit something that severely 

changed the flight characteristics of the aircraft. The bang in question turned out to be a  high tech German glider (pictured right) that was running the mountain ridges in the area.

The Captain of the Hawker found herself (that's right) with a lap full of instrument panel that provided no information what so ever about what the aircraft was doing aero

dynamically. The flight controls were sluggish and the right engine took some damage and failed. What the crew did not know was that a good portion of the right wing was missing and the tail surfaces received significant damage. As far as the glider was concerned it was unknown at the time but from the view of the Hawker (pictured right) there was a section of the gliders main wing spar sticking out of the left side of the aircraft (no it is not the curved part sticking up in the air).

As it turned out the glider went just under the right wing of the Hawker but was unable to maintain flight. Later the pilot was found walking on a road and was rescued. When he realized what had happened, he rolled out of the glider cockpit with his parachute and arrived relatively close to the gliders point of impact.

Back in the Hawker it took both crewmembers to control the aircraft. They soon found out the hydraulic system had been damaged to the point the landing gear could not be extended. Let's see... Midair collision, destroyed nose, gaping rip in the airframe, instrument panel of no value and laying in your lap, missing part of the wing and damaged tail, one engine failed, and no landing gear. The crew did a phenomenal job of getting this aircraft on the ground, let alone on the runway at Carson City NV.

Ok... So where is the irony? Here we go...

The glider was German, flown by a Japanese man that his a British airplane flown by an American crew.

Go figure. The Birts & Yanks dominated again but thankfully nobody was seriously injured.

Take care,

Doug