Radar Contact Lost: The Podcast

Send us a text

On the evening of February 12, 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407 was on final approach to Runway 23 at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport in Buffalo, New York. It was dark, it was snowing, it was windy and the pilots had noted the accumulation of ice on the wings and windshield of the 78-seat regional airliner. Still, the pilots were not under undue stress as the cockpit voice recorders indicated a casual, unhurried atmosphere, there was even some unrelated chit-chat on the flight deck. Then, just moments before landing, air traffic controllers noticed the plane was no longer on their radar screens. Flight 3407 was down for reasons unknown.

In the post-crash investigation, the most likely cause of the crash – the weather (including the snow, the wind and the ice) was quickly dismissed. If not the weather, then what happened to Colgan Air Flight 3407 that caused it to fall out of the night sky and claim the lives of all on board and one on the ground?

Send us a text

On final approach to Havana’s José Martí International Airport in 1977, the Aeroflot Ilyushin IL-62M with 69 people on board, descended below the clouds and the pilot immediately was confronted with power lines between the plane and the runway – and the runway was close. The pilot attempted to pull the nose up to avoid the powerlines, but the emergency maneuver was not enough – the plane clipped the power lines and the steel-reinforced cables severed the vertical stabilizer from the rest of the plane. Rendered uncontrollable, the plane pitched sharply down and to the right, impacting the ground within seconds of contact with the power lines. The plane burst into flames, and though the rear of the fuselage was relatively intact, there were only two survivors.
What, exactly, happened on this day, some 46 years ago? An airliner from one of the world’s largest airlines clipping powerlines? A rookie mistake like this seems impossible. How did – how could – this happen? There aren’t many details, but the Radar Contact Lost team examines the details and tries to fill in the blanks.

Send us a text

Today’s episode, “When a Volcano Silenced a Boeing 747 Over the Indian Ocean," is the heart-stopping tale of a commercial jetliner – a Boeing 747 – that, contrary to every other episode in this podcast series, did not crash. However, the world’s largest passenger jet at the time came about as close to a spectacular and deadly crash as it could, before the crew saved the plane and the lives of everyone on board from near-certain destruction. Even after the plane landed safely, the mystery of what happened in the dark skies, so far above the ocean remained a mystery for days. How the superior airmanship of this crew saved the lives of 248 passengers, 15 crew and the B-747 has been called one of the most heroic of all time.
Join the "Radar Contact Lost" team as we discuss the meteorology, the weather, the piloting, the plane and even the geology of this amazing story.

Send us a text

This is Part 2 of 2. On a summer day in 1975, Eastern Airlines Flight 66 crashed just yards away from its intended runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport near New York City. Witnesses at the time, said the plane exploded in midair, but this was not the case. The plane had flown through a thunderstorm and had been shoved to the ground by a microburst. In 1975, thunderstorms were not well understood and their potential for severe damage had not been realized. Updrafts, downdrafts and microbursts were terms that had not yet been embraced by meteorologists or aviation safety experts, but this crash would change their minds. The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, as well as the AAR (Aircraft Accident Report) from the NTSB, provided many of the clues to what happened, but not all. What happened in the moments before this crash? What did the air traffic controllers tell the crew? What did the pilots and controllers not know, that could've prevented this crash? Why was a tornado expert summoned to investigate this crash, and how did his findings impact aviation safety in the decades to come? Episode 8 of "Radar Contact Lost: The Podcast" answers all these questions and more.

Send us a text

Imagine a world where the word "tornado" is banned from public weather announcements and tornadoes are considered unforecastable. This was not Bizzaro World, but the United States of America in the 1940s. It was thought the the mere word, tornado, would cause panic and the mass hysteria would cause more death than the tornado itself. Meanwhile, U.S. Air Force weather forecasters were laying the ground work for the first tornado forecast after two tornadoes in five days tore across an Air Force base near Oklahoma City, OK. These two tornadoes were responsible for damaging or destroying more than 200 aircraft. Join Radar Contact Lost to learn about the two Air Force forecasters who created the world's first tornado forecast and the Air Force general who spurred them on. Learn why the U.S. Weather Bureau would not issue tornado forecasts and why they prevented Air Force tornado forecasts from reaching the public, and learn how the Air Force is preventing massive destruction such as the damage caused by the Twin Tornadoes of 1948. While you're listening, learn a little about Tornado Alley and even a little bit of tornado safety.