Fear of Landing

While it's "only" 52 years old, another plane still in production (albeit under a new company) that's worthy of discussion is the de Havilland Canada (now Viking) DHC-6 Twin Otter[1]. The Twin Otter isn't just nice to fly, cheap, or ubiquitous. It isn't just a mainstay bush plane everywhere. It's still the best plane in existence for certain extreme requirements. Many different planes can go deep into Antarctica during the summer, but when somebody gets sick enough to warrant evacuation from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica in the middle of winter, as happened in 2016[2], the DHC-6 is still the best plane for the job. In fact, two DHC-6's went because the only plane capable of performing search and rescue for the first was another DHC-6. There simply aren't other planes out there that can land on a short, frozen runway in the dark of an Antarctic Winter when temperatures are so cold that fuel turns into jelly[3]. Viking has been modernizing many aspects of the Twin Otter, but they're still making Twin Otters. The Twin Otter is 52 years old and still does things no other plane can. [1]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/kenn-borek-air-south-pole-june-2… [2]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/kenn-borek-air-south-pole-june-2… [3]https://fearoflanding.com/misc/twin-otter-emergency-winter-flight-to-t…

There's a transcript from a decompression event that shows what you're talking about here: https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/accident-reports/weve-lost-the-cab… I particularly like the "He's doing it anyway" comment. I imagine there are situations where they can't descend though.

Remember that they left an airport about 7000 feet up and headed over mountains. It's unlikely the plane was ever more than a few thousand feet above ground level. Page 26 in Ethiopia's report: https://fearoflanding.com/files/2019/04/Preliminary-Report-B737-800MAX…

Another interesting one is the guy that was suffering from hypoxia. "Unable... to control... altitude" "Unable... to control... airspeed" "Unable... to control... heading" "Other than that, everything A-OK!" Guy landed safely after ATC realized it was hypoxia and ordered the flight to descend. EDIT: link https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/accident-reports/hypoxia-on-kalitt…

So it turns out not only was that guy negligent, but there was also another plane in the pattern who got priority because, at the time, it looked like that other one was low fuel also (maybe a false alarm). Here's a reputable source. https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/not-enough-fuel-the-disgusting-tru…

Example where the pilots involved pushed their luck until that 1% chance finally killed them (and their passengers): http://fearoflanding.com/accidents/accident-reports/how-to-drop-a-gulf…