MetaFilter posts tagged with crash

Collision Tests: Old versus New, rounds 1 and 2

filthy light thief — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:46:05 -0800

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently had their 50th anniversary, and to taut the progress of car safety design, they've set a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air versus a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu, and shared the crash test videos on YouTube. Spoiler: the dummy in the Malibu suffered only minor leg damage while the dummy in the Bel Air suffered damages that would have killed a person instantly. A few years ago, a similar test was run between two editions of Renault Espace as part of an episode of the UK series Fifth Gear. The result was similar, except there were only nine years between models (higher quality clip of the crash segment). In the segment, crash engineering research chief, Richard Morris, noted that if the older Espace hit a similarly constructed model, the damage would have been less drastic, and the driver may have survived.

"The world's most famous missing person."

kirkaracha — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:11:32 -0800

"The unburied come back to haunt us." On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan took off from Lae, Papua New Guinea (map) in their Lockheed Electra en route to Howland Island (map). They were never seen again. Earhart and Noonan's flight was one of the last legs of an attempted around-the-world flight at the Equator. (A previous attempt, flying east to west, failed when Earhart's plane was damaged in Hawaii and had to be sent to California for repairs.) The most common explanation is that they ran out of fuel, ditched in the ocean, and drowned, but the disappearance is an enduring mystery. In Search of...Amelia Earhart (part 2, part 3). Where's Amelia Earhart? The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR; previously) is a leading supporter of a theory that the Earhart and Noonan crash-landed at Nikumaroro (then called Gardner Island; map) TIGHAR's map of Nikumaroro shows the locations of possible evidence to support their theory. TIGHAR recently obtained a reference sample of mitochondrial DNA from a direct female relative of Earhart's, and is making a new expedition to Nikumaroro in May 2010 to look for DNA evidence. Crash Reconstruction by the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University.

Shellshocked and awed...

schyler523 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:25:24 -0800

Loved Nanaca Crash? Want to hurl a turtle instead? Toss the Turtle will be right up your alley. Easy concept, shoot turtle from cannon and watch him bounce and blow up as he careens across the screen. Enjoy!

Train vs. Tornado. Guess who wins!

P.o.B. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:17:13 -0800

Have you ever wondered what happens when a freight train drives through a tornado? Let me show you (2:01 SLYT)

You Get the Bill When My Luck Goes Stale

telstar — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:07:57 -0800

The Austin Lounge Lizards are Too Big To Fail. (SLYT)

Remember that cool house from Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

punkfloyd — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:21:21 -0800

Remember that cool house from Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Yeah...well it's for sale. Great house as long as you don't have a frustrated teenager and a Ferrari.

How do you say "wipe out" in French?

schyler523 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:59:04 -0800

90 minutes of rally car crashes. That is all. [via]

Midair collision at 37,000 feet

flug — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:45:09 -0800

The sky is a really big place, right? So how did a Boeing 737 and a Legacy 600 private jet manage to collide head-on at 37,000 feet over the Amazon jungle in Brazil? William Langewiesche's detailed analysis of the 2006 crash--which killed all 154 aboard the 737--provides some answers. It seems the sky just isn't as big as it used to be: "Until recently, head-on airplanes mistakenly assigned the same altitude and route by Air Traffic Control would almost certainly have passed some distance apart, due to the navigation slop inherent in their systems. But this is no longer true." The navigation systems of the two aircraft are so precise that when they met--at a closing speed of about a thousand miles per hour--the Legacy 600 was only 2 feet below and 30 feet to the left of the 737.

Another look at the incident from Salon's Patrick Smith
Another analysis of an aircraft disaster by William Langewiesche, the 1999 crash of EgyptAir 990 (previously on MeFi)

Near death experience

puckish — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:01:00 -0800

Australian auto website offers anatomy of a crash-- a point by point account of what happens during an accident, up to and including the moment you realize it's happening. "One way to appreciate the slowness of your perception is to compare it to the speed of mechanical devices. Take this incredible, sobering "anatomy of a crash"....With fine-grained temporal resolution, it analyzes what happens when a stationary Ford Falcon XT sedan is struck in the driver’s door by another vehicle traveling at 50 kilometers per hour" (via 3quarksdaily) Of related interest: David Eagleman on whether our perception of time slows down during terrifying events (short answer: no) and how you would test this in the first place (short answer: strap a chronometer to your test subject and throw him off a building)

Prescient Economist: Housing Crash Result of Government Incentives

shivohum — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:37:24 -0800

Peter Wallison, an economist who arguably predicted the housing crash and bailout in 1999 explains his current views on the crash: "Other players...played a part" but "...government policy over many years--particularly the use of the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to distort the housing credit system-- underlies the current crisis."

Survival in The Sky

maxwelton — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 01:16:11 -0800

Known as Black Box in the UK, Survival in the Sky was a four-episode 1996 series about commercial aviation accidents and the investigation of their causes. (Two additional episodes were filmed in 1998.) Not currently available on DVD, five of the six episodes are available in their entirety on YouTube (links within). The series, narrated by Will Lyman, is notable for being produced with the cooperation of the NTSB and AAIB, and is a studied and thoughtful contrast to the much more frenetic Seconds from Disaster, a recent series which often focuses on aviation disasters. Survival in the Sky features a minimum of CGI recreation and no dramatic reenactments, instead allowing period footage and compelling interviews with survivors, air crew, experts, and investigators tell the story. Please see the wikipedia entry for a synopsis of the specific incidents each episode explores, and beware that there are a few moments in the show which take an unblinking look at the aftermath of aviation disasters. The episodes (missing the 1998 program about Flight 800):

"Blaming the Pilot" (1996) [1 2 3 4 5]
"Deadly Weather" (1996) [1 2 3 4 5]
"A Wing and a Prayer" (1996) [1 2 3 4 5]
"Crash Detectives" (1996) [1 2 3 4 5]
"Sky Crimes" (1998) [1 2 3 4 5]

Birdstrike in the Hudson

kdar — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:56:32 -0800

US Airways Flight 1549 has crashed into the Hudson. Fortunately, it appears that everyone has survived. The culprit appears to be a bird strike from a flock of geese (as opposed to a single bird, which airplane engines are built to withstand). Not surprisingly, there has been some serious research effort into bird strikes and how they affect airline safety. (The Bird Strike Society has been established to advocate for greater public awareness.)

The Grand Experiment

troy — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:01:31 -0800

History Repeats Itself in Different Hues -- a readable Q&A data dump comparing the economics and policy responses of 1990s Japan and current events

Do They Know It's Christmastime At All?

fearfulsymmetry — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:22:42 -0800

Bleed The World

Down, down, down.

CheeseDigestsAll — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:28:57 -0800

By one measure, this stock market is as bad as any in the last 180 years.

Watch out for the Holnists.

Telf — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:23:04 -0800

Russian professor and information warrior, Igor Panarin, has predicted the collapse and breakup of the USA. (Potential artists' renderings 1 2) The interview was originally reported in the Russian newspaper, Izvestia. (Google Translated) The prediction has been met with varying levels of credulity, scoffed at by some and embraced by others. The prediction, which goes so far as to speculate exactly how the US might reorganize, was posted to Drudge and has offended many bloggers who, while excited by the prospects of secession, are insulted by the insinuation that the south may go Hispanic and not Confederate.

Poor Little Rich Kids.

gman — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:05:01 -0800

Influential billionaires like Carl, Thomas, Kirk, and Warren have been losing their shirts. And it's being felt around the world. Warning - First link plays video immediately and without warning.

Crush, Texas - Town for a Day

tellurian — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:07:36 -0800

The "Crash at Crush" was the intentional head-on crash of two Katy locomotives on Sept. 15, 1896. The results were not quite what Agent Crush had planned. Scott Joplin wrote The Great Crush Collision March [more pictures] to commemorate the event and it was also an inspiration for 'Head-On' Joe Connelly. The Spectacular Death of Georgia-Pacific Number 9 is the site of the derail from the Joe Connelly link.

Once in a lifetime

unSane — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:02:45 -0800

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile | And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife | And you may ask yourself... Well...How did I get here?

Hindenburg Omen: Doom?

Lord_Pall — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:41:08 -0800

Stock Market on Crash Watch due to a Hindenburg Omen. More info on a Hindenburg Omen. Even More info And more and more information in a PDF. (Editorial - No idea if this is legit or not, but I thought it was interesting. It sort of reminds me of Baseball statistic mining.)

Air India 182

netbros — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:21:01 -0800

On June 22, 1985, Air India flight 182 left Montreal en route to Delhi with 329 passengers aboard, most of them Canadian. Four hours later, an explosion in the baggage compartment destroyed the plane, killing all on board. Premiering tonight on CBC television, this documentary (trailer) recounts the final hours, days and weeks before the plane disappeared off Irish radar screens. It reveals the story of how Canada’s first major counter-terrorism operation failed to thwart the conspiracy and details the errors that resulted in the world’s most lethal act of aviation terrorism before Sept. 11. (previously on MetaFilter) The producers have also created a site.

The Next Bubble

stavrosthewonderchicken — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:28:53 -0800

The Next Bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow's big crash. A layman's primer on the genesis and future of today's economic troubles, at Harper's Magazine.

Skier loses leg in super-G crash

gman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:22:45 -0800

It started with some broken bones and then Austrian skier Matthias Lanzinger had his lower leg amputated yesterday.

Look out below...!

Asparagirl — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:18:35 -0800

While the US equities markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day, stock markets around the world took a nosedive, losing billions in equity; the markets in Australia, South Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Germany, France, the UK, and more countries have dropped at least 5% each (Canada only fell 4.75%), even though most of those markets had already been seriously down for several days prior. India has been hit particularly hard, at one point down a whopping 11%, tripping their markets' automatic "circuit breakers" for a mandatory time-out period, before scraping back up to close at 8% down. US futures markets are currently predicting a 650+ point drop just at the open Tuesday morning, before even a single trade goes through. In a bit of serendipitous timing (for us, not for him), one poor young daytrader started posting unedited videos of his daily trading activities on YouTube several weeks ago, which meant that his Sunday night breakdown and Monday night quarterbacking (both videos NSFW for language) are both online for the world to see. (He was long the futures market without stops and lost about $40k out of his $55k account.) I suspect similar sentiments to the ones he expressed in his Sunday night video are going to be echoing throughout many offices on Wall Street this week...

Wet landing

eye of newt — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:04:57 -0800

On Nov 22, 1968, exactly 39 years ago, on a reasonably clear, uneventful day, a new JAL DC-8 descended toward the SFO airport. The landing was so well executed that no one was hurt when the pilot landed the plane into the San Francisco Bay, several miles from the airport. What explanation did 15 year veteran pilot Captain Kohei Asoh give for his botched landing? It was so unusual (especially in this day and age), so refreshingly honest, that it came to be known as the Asoh Defense. Amazingly, the plane was recovered, refurbished, and was in service for another 35 years.