The preliminary report is in, and it appears that the Spanair aircraft that crashed on takeoff last month did not have its flaps extended. While it’s not clear if this was actually the cause of the accident, if it were, it would be eerily similar to the crash of Northwest 255 more than 20 years ago, as Chris B first mentioned in the comments in my first Spanair post. So what exactly are flaps and why do they matter? I think it’s time for a brief tutorial. I encourage other to jump into this discussion in the comments section.

At left, you can see a Spanair MD-80 taking off the right way, with its flaps extended for takeoff. But I should back up. What are flaps? If you look at the back half of the wing, you’ll see that there are hinges and then pieces of the wing tilted slightly downward. Those are the flaps, and what they do is create a larger surface area for the wing on takeoff. This helps create more lift at slower speeds, so basically the airplane can takeoff earlier than it would without the flaps. NASA has a simple but effective tutorial on this subject.

Airplanes can take off without flaps, but they just need to get going faster. So, if you have a really long runway, you might be ok. But hot weather also reduces lift, and different aircraft types need different distances to get in the air. So, it’s not cut and dry. I’m sure right now, the authorities are running the numbers to see what exactly happened here.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, there is a flap warning when they aren’t extended for takeoff, but it could possibly have been malfunctioning, ignored, or misinterpreted. We just don’t know, but we’ll find out soon enough.

(Photo credit: EC-GNY Spanair McDonnell Douglas MD-80 by David el Nomo via Flickr)

There’s not much that makes me feel as sick to my stomach as I do when I see an airplane crash. I suppose it’s a good thing that it happens rarely enough that it is a headline-worthy event, but seeing the pain and suffering of all the families, survivors, and the employees just hits me in the gut. Of course, that’s the feeling I had this week when the Spanair MD-80 from Madrid to Las Palmas crashed on takeoff killing north of 150 people.

It’s far too early to know what happened here, and as in most accidents, there will inevitably be several smaller things that led up to the accident, but that hasn’t prevented speculation from all corners of the globe.

Some people are focusing on a faulty valve which was addressed before departure. (I suppose we’re supposed to forget that this was a faulty gauge that isn’t considered necessary and was simply turned off.) Then there’s this irresponsible piece entitled “Engine blamed for Spanish plane crash.” Oh yeah, this one is just priceless:

Kieran Daly, editor of Flight International, said it was premature to speculate on the accident’s cause but in the absence of dangerous weather conditions there had likely been an engine problem and the aircraft did not have enough power to pull away.

Oh yeah, clearly too premature to speculate. Right.

But nobody can top Joe Sharkey for having some of the worst coverage out there on this accident. His most recent blog post states that “Lame coverage of the MD80 crash in Madrid continues in the media.” Oh sweet irony considering he has some of the lamest.

His first post on the subject said “The plane was an MD-80, a model of aging aircraft that has had well-documented safety problems in the last year.” Oh boy, here we go with the “aging aircraft” bull again. And the well-documented safety problems (I assume he’s talking about American’s MD-80 grounding) were not a safety-of-flight issue. In that first post of his I mentioned above, he yells at Spanair authorities for not looking something up. Maybe he should take his own advice.

A quick check found that this aircraft was EC-HFP. And a visit to Airfleets.net shows us that this plane was first delivered to Korean Air in late 1993. So, an airplane that’s not even 15 years old is aging? I think not. That’s a relatively new aircraft.

Joe also goes on to cite all the previous MD-80 crashes and asks us to “note the more recent incidents and similarities to what apparently occurred on an MD80 that went off the runway and broke up today in Madrid.”

Again, we don’t know what happened in Madrid, but I don’t see anything on the five most recent accidents that look similar to me. One had a fire in the cabin that was apparently started by someone on board. One had problems with both engines at cruise, which sounds like fuel contamination. Two skidded off the runway in bad weather. And one disappeared from radar and crashed shortly after.

This is all just scare tactics, and it has no actual value. Is there a reason for someone stepping on an American Airlines MD-80 today to be more concerned than they were last week? No way. Please try to ignore this sort of irresponsible journalism and wait until we know all the details.