A Southwest Airlines jet had a rather eventful flight today minutes after taking off from California, leading to injuries.
Continue reading: Southwest Boeing 737 Dives To Avoid Traffic, Leading To Crew Injuries
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Of course I had to Google "Hawker Hunter," because how many 66-year-old jets are there anyway, and that led to this interesting 57-year-old story about one of its pilots who died just this year.
"The Hawker Hunter Tower Bridge incident occurred on 5 April 1968, when Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock (1936-2025), a Royal Air Force (RAF) Hawker Hunter pilot, performed unauthorised low flying over several London landmarks and then flew through the span of Tower Bridge on the River Thames. His actions were to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the RAF and as a demonstration against the Ministry of Defence for not recognising it. Upon landing Pollock was arrested and later invalided out of the RAF on medical grounds, which avoided a court martial."
Those familiar with TCAS and its operation understand that RAs need only 0.25 G’s to comply and only 0.35 G’s for a reverse RA. It’s very easy to overdo it.
The Hawker Hunter is a fighter jet from the 1950's. The Royal Jordanian Air Force had them but in 1967, Israel bombed and destroyed all of them in one day.
Even if the fasten seatbelt light is not illuminated, we recommend you keep your seatbelt fastened at all times.
Ugh, passenger comments about inflight incidents are always the worst. I expect the Daily Mail will regurgitate these social media posts in a report headed "TERRIFYING DEATH PLUNGE!", or something equally as ridiculous.
So the flight attendants were starting to hawk beverages about what 7 or 8mins after take-off?!
6Mins after Take-off all passengers should still be in their safety belts and no one ought to have been thrown up or down. Seriously humans.
That said; these incidents are alarming.
Im curious why there is zero focus on the Hawker Hunter which is a pretty cool fighter jet from the beginning of the jet-age. Why was it there? How cool would it be to do a 500 feet dive in that one? Am I the only one that just assumes this is some kind of flight experience thing and it divested with 100 certainty from its flightpath?
This was also my thought. Why was it there? VFR flight in controlled air space?
This only happens in the US. Pretty much everywhere else in the world the fasten belts sign is switched off when crossing 10.000 ft. Here in Brazil, GOL does it even earlier, usually 2-3 min after takeoff.
"The planes were roughly at the same altitude but weren’t on the same course, so they wouldn’t have collided if they just maintained course,"
In terms of a car accident, where two vehicles are at the same altitude (ground level), isn't this like saying that if I am northbound with a green light at an intersection and a westbound car runs a red light, I don't have to worry about a collision because we aren't going the same direction?
@ Ross -- Not quite. I'm simply making the point that based on the speed and direction of travel, the planes would not have actually collided. Of course it's important to have separation, and TCAS is a vital safety tool. But my point is simply that based on flight tracking, this would not have actually been a "hit" if the TCAS hadn't activated, for whatever reason.
The Hawkers are owned by ATAC and regularly fly around the US as adversary aircraft for the US military.
One crashed departing HNL in 2018.
ATAC has a colorful history to say the least.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Tactical_Advantage_Company (scroll to Accidents and incidents)
Last week a B52, January AA 5342. Wonder how many near misses with military or military contractors there have been recently.
@Ross
So, the pilot of the Hawker, Alan Pollock (1936-2025) "flew through the span of the Tower Bridge on the River Thames in 1968." Looks like that disproves the old adage that there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots! RIP