faultyjackscrew

that’s a busted horizontal stabilizer, son

[faultyjackscrew]

likes: aviation and Nintendo and dogs and walkable communities and Liverpool FC and human rights

dislikes: waking up early and a lot of food textures and pranks and hot weather

[faultyjackscrew]

Salah gave us his best years. It’s obviously time, for multiple reasons. Watching him score with mine own two eyes will be one of the joys of my life forever. And I just hope that whatever he does next is worthy of him. All happiness, our Egyptian King. You’ll never walk alone.

[faultyjackscrew]

TWA 800 is truly my Roman Empire.

I was a kid on Long Island when it went down and the way it dominated the news that summer permanently altered my brain chemistry, I think about it way more often than is logical. It is the accident that flipped a switch in me that turned on my obsession with aviation accidents that has now persisted for almost 30 years and probably always will. Mentour Pilot’s new explainer of the crash triggered fireworks in my brain so now I’m gonna reread the 341 page NTSB report on my day off.

[faultyjackscrew]

Imagine not extending Geno couldn’t be me

[hamletthedane]

I think about British Airways Flight 5390 a lot

[hamletthedane]

OKAY STRAP IN because this is one of the WILDEST stories in aviation history.

In 1990, a British Airways BAC One-Eleven, captained by Tim Lancaster and co-piloted by Alastair Atchison, was cruising at 17,000 feet.

Around 15 minutes after take-off, flight attendant Nigel Ogden entered the cockpit to bring the pilots something to drink. One second everything was fine. The next second, the pilot's side window blew out from the force of the pressurized cockpit. Even though he was strapped in, the force of the explosive decompression ripped the captain out of his chair and pulled him though the window.

The flight attendant immediately leapt forward and grasped the captain's belt. The force was so strong - due to the plane's speed - the captain slipped and was pulled almost entirely out of the plane, but the flight attendant caught his leg. The captain laid on the roof, then the side of the fuselage (the above image is an inaccurate recreation - the side window was smashed) and the flight attendant's entire arm was soon outside of the plane, gripping him.

(Recreation from the show Mayday at the point of decompression)

At the same time, the event caused the autopilot to disengage, and the captain's body hitting the flight controls caused the plane to enter into a deep dive. The throttle was set to full power and could not be accessed due to debris, meaning the plane was descending rapidly. The co-pilot, experiencing hypoxia, fought to control the plane's dive while allowing it to continue descending to a level the passengers/crew could breathe at. He attempted to contact air traffic control, but the wind made communication impossible, so he broadcast a mayday signal. Finally, he was able to re-engage the autopilot and level the plane out at a breathable altitude.

Soon, the flight attendant's entire arm was burned from wind shear and frostbite, and his grip began to slip. The other attendants entered the cabin to see what was wrong and took over holding the captain's body. Seeing the blood covering the windows from the captain's severe wind sheer burns and frostbite, the attendants and co-pilot knew he was dead. However, they could not let his body go because it could smash into the wing, horz stabilizer, or engine, and bring the plane down.

For 30+ minutes the co-pilot flew a jet plane with an OPEN WINDOW and his co-worker's body hanging along the side of the plane. Finally, clearance to land from ATC came across over the sound of the wind and the flight attendants were able to dislodge the captain's ankles from the flight controls without letting him go. The co-pilot successfully landed the plane.

(tw below for blood)

(Taken same day as the incident)

BUT HERE'S THE KICKER: when they reached the ground and evacuated, they realized THE CAPTAIN WAS NOT DEAD.

He SURVIVED being outside the fuselage of a jet airplane traveling 550mph at 17,000 feet. His only injuries were extensive - but mostly superficial - frostbite and windshear burns, bruising, fractures in his hand, and shock. He has since stated that he remembers the event and was conscious for much of the time he was outside of the fuselage. The only other injury was the flight attendant's frostbitten/windshorn arm. Captain Tim Lancaster returned to flying five months later.

(Captain Tim Lancaster in bed several weeks after the incident, with flight attendant Ogden (+ Ogden's wife) above him and co-pilot Alastair Atchison to the far left, along with the two other flight attendants)

Why did this occur? Because the plane had received maintenance the day before, and the maintenance supervisor did not check he was using the correct screws in re-installing the windscreen.

(Recreation)

So yeah: you can apparently survive clinging to the side of a jet airliner traveling 500+mph at 17,000 feet.

[hamletthedane]

Wow! Didn't expect this many likes for an aviation post.

Just a note that I was wrong - it was the front pilot's windscreen, not the side-window! I'm used to looking at Boeing windows with different positions :)

If y'all want the full story & more analysis of what exactly went wrong, Mayday: Air Investigations did a pretty decent special on the incident. It's free on YouTube here (and here on dailymotion if you're outside the US).

[desmoscatghost]

Adding some stuff:

The ‘maintenance supervisor did not check the bolts’ is technically correct but ignores the amount of stuff that had to go wrong for that to happen.

1: the supervisor was the one doing the bolts (I think there was a staffing issue) and so did not have to check the work that he did

2: the window was not on the list of vital components that need to be checked by someone else even if the supervisor does it.

3: the parts store where he had to go to get the bolts was badly lit and had bolts in the wrong drawers.

4: the wrong bolts and the right bolts are almost indistinguishable by sight.

5: the correct tool to put the screws in was not available so they had to do some lite bodging to get the screws in. By this I mean it was still a torque wrench and they checked it released at the right point but the correct socket did not stay in place or something like that.

6: any slight differences between the right bolts and the wrong bolts were hidden because of the tool they were using (which would have worked perfectly if they were using the right bolts).

If one of those things had not happened then the plane would have had the right bolts when it took off.

[hamletthedane]

^ absolutely critical edition and a great example of what’s known in risk analysis as the Swiss Cheese Model.

From Wikipedia:

“The Swiss cheese model of accident causation illustrates that, although many layers of defense lie between hazards and accidents, there are flaws in each layer that, if aligned, can allow the accident to occur. In this diagram, three hazard vectors are stopped by the defenses, but one passes through where the "holes" are lined up.”

Accidents in complex systems are very rarely one person’s fault and my original post indeed oversimplified the incident for the sake of telling a straightforward story. This was not the case of one bad maintenance worker; this was a systematic failure. The holes lined up and a tragedy nearly occurred because profit (short staffing, poor maintenance facilities, poor training and tools) was prioritized over safety at several layers. Any additional degree of safety would have prevented this from occurring.

[faultyjackscrew]

I think about BA 5390 at least once a week.

[planeposting]

Concorde is a testament to both humanity's drive to achieve incredible technological advancements and also the sunk cost fallacy

[planeposting]

Blasting this tag because it made me giggle

[faultyjackscrew]

Antonin Scalia has been in Hell where he belongs for 10 years today, the horrors persist but we must find joy where it exists 💕

[faultyjackscrew]

In recent years I’ve intentionally incorporated “y’all” into my vocabulary as a plural pronoun, even though it doesn’t come naturally to me, because what *does* come naturally to me is “guys,” which while totally gender neutral in my personal brain is obviously not always correct or welcome for some people. I think that “gang” is also quite good for this purpose. In 2026 I intend to refer to all groups of people as “hoodlums.” This may be my only New Year’s resolution and I hope that it is affirming for my gang of hoodlums.

[faultyjackscrew]

HIS NAME IS MAMDANI

M A M D A N I

[faultyjackscrew]

I’m scrolling through Letterboxd trying to pick a couple of horror movies to watch tonight, thinking about how Takashi Miike made ‘Audition,’ a fucked up torture movie that makes me wanna barf; the original ‘One Missed Call,’ one of my all-time favorite slightly goofy ghost/curse gems; and the live action Gyakuten Saiban movie. Because gosh, that’s a man who contains multitudes.

Happy Halloween, y’all. All treats no tricks.

[faultyjackscrew]

When I wonder if it’s too much to believe that Liverpool’s performance this season is/will be affected by Diogo Jota’s death, I remember the time a coworker-turned-friend died in a car crash while on their way to work, and how I cried at work practically every day for weeks, and how it’s now been almost 6 years and I still occasionally cry at work when I think about them. So yeah.

[faultyjackscrew]

For many years I worked with and became close with an elder Gen Z girl who I often felt spoke an entirely different language than the English that I did. I basically learned some new slang/TikTok/Very Online Youth word or phrase every single day from being around this girl, which was delightful and also made me feel very old. She was crazy and funny and I cared for her like a little sister and about six years ago she was killed in a car crash and I miss her very much.

She also remains to this day the only human being from whose mouth I have ever heard the word “dickmatized.”

So, all other thoughts about “The Life of a Showgirl” aside, I did not *instantly* clock that word for “(Ah!)matized” on first listen. Maybe it was because I played the album again at work - the place where I spent the most time with this girl - that suddenly her face popped into my head in an epiphany, then I laughed so hard and also cried a little. Because goddamn, I really do miss her.

Anyway, I just didn’t expect when I woke up this morning that I was going to get emotionally cracked open by a song about banging Travis Kelce. Life really does come at you fast.

[faultyjackscrew]

Some years ago now, when I was in probably my mid-20s, the boss I was working for at the time had a family member who was experiencing a sudden onset, severe psychiatric condition. I won’t speculate as to his diagnosis because I never knew it, but I did know that this young man, a few years younger than I was, experienced hallucinations/heard voices.

This person would frequently come to my workplace, make himself comfy in my workspace, and spend extended periods of time happily chattering utter nonsense.

“If he’s bothering you, let me know, and I’ll tell him that he can’t hang around here anymore,” my boss told me.

It made me a little bit uncomfortable to have someone in my space telling me about their delusions. But he always seemed to be in a pretty good mood, and he seemed happy to talk on with relatively minimal engagement on my part. I also knew that this young man’s home life was sometimes turbulent even prior to this psychiatric condition manifesting. So I decided that, on balance, if this person felt like hanging around me like this was a safe space for him, I was probably OK with that.

“He’s not getting in the way of my work, so if he wants to hang out, I don’t mind,” I told my boss.

And it was fine for awhile, weeks, maybe a few months. He’d come in, and he’d tell me about things that weren’t real, and I’d mostly try to avoid saying much in return because he had doctors and I wasn’t one, not wanting to say the wrong thing. I knew that sometimes the voices he heard were very distressing to him and I knew that sometimes they caused him to lash out verbally and physically at home, but when he was around me, he always seemed pretty cheerful, maybe a little manic at times, but I never once felt threatened, so I mostly limited anything I said in return to him to good wishes - I hope you’re feeling good today, man. I hope tomorrow goes better for you. Things will get better.

Til the day that he came in, seeming as happy as ever, and said, “Hey, [me], I gotta tell you something, and I don’t want you to feel weird about it, it’s nothing bad, I promise!”

Well.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“I just thought you should know that sometimes, when I’m hearing voices in my head, they talk in your voice!”

… oh shit oh shit don’t fuck this up what do I SAY to that??

Carefully measure my voice. Don’t let on that I am internally freaking the fuck out.

“Oh. Okay. Thank you for telling me that. I hope that my voice isn’t saying anything scary or upsetting to you.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he assured me. “Just sometimes it’s your voice. But it’s not bad.”

“Okay, I’m glad to hear that it’s not too bad of a thing for you.”

I honestly don’t even remember how I extricated myself from that moment. His mother might have called him away, or maybe a customer needed my attention.

After that, I told my boss that I wasn’t comfortable with him hanging around anymore. I’m a little ashamed of that now, but it made my mind spin and I knew that I’d be thinking about that any time he was around from then on. I think that if the same thing happened now, I might react differently, but I’ll admit that I hope I never find out.

I saw him around only rarely from then on. Today I still work in the same shop, but their family no longer owns it, so I don’t expect I’ll ever see him again. I ask how he’s doing once in awhile, and always get told that he’s doing well, but in the way that makes you pretty sure that however he’s doing, the family doesn’t really wanna talk about it.

Something random reminded me of one of his delusions today, and maybe this sounds weird, but it made me smile. Wherever he is now, I just really hope that he’s doing better, that he’s happy, and that none of the voices in his head are mine anymore - but if they are, that they’re not telling him anything too scary or upsetting.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Me when someone else has a heavy accent when speaking English: That accent is charming and I can tell they put in a lot of effort to learn English.

Me when I have a heavy accent speaking another language: They are going to shoot me the second I open my mouth aren’t they

[faultyjackscrew]

I am the only person on my shift at work whose first language is English. Amongst my coworkers, they also do not all share the same first language.

Sometimes that makes things more difficult in certain ways, but mostly it’s just incredibly humbling and rewarding and something that genuinely enriches my life.

The degree to which my various coworkers speak English at all ranges from “extremely fluent with a heavy accent” to “a handful of disjointed words and two or three phrases,” and one way or another we make effective communication happen every day, and I think they’re all extremely impressive - languages are hard!!

Between someone’s accent and my hearing impairment I might have to ask for something to be repeated more than once, but it would never in a million years occur to me to be anything but encouraging to someone who is exerting that kind of effort to talk to ME.

I took Spanish in school for four years, but that was decades ago and most of it is gone. I’ve engaged in light self-study on and off for years to keep as much of it as I can. But actually speaking it is so scary for me! I might know the words in my head, but clam up when it comes time to actually use them, because I’m scared that my accent will be bad or that my grammar will be wrong and I’ll feel foolish.

A guy I used to work with - a native Spanish speaker - was incredibly encouraging to me on this. He told me (paraphrasing), “I know it’s hard. I didn’t know any English when I came here, and had to pick it up as I went along. But you know more Spanish than you want to say you do, and I know that you can talk to people. The only way for it to not be scary anymore is to just do it.” Then he refused to act as an intermediary for me anymore. “Can you please tell -” “Nope! I know you can tell them yourself!” And you know what? It helped a lot. I still have to grab help for more complicated questions, but I’m not too shy to at least *try* first. Nobody has ever been unkind if it isn’t perfect. Most people are really pleased and surprised when I just do my best. I was really sad when that guy decided to return to his country of origin. I hope he’s doing fantastic.

Introducing myself to a new Spanish-speaking coworker and explaining that Lo siento, mi vocabulario de español es cómo una niña pequeña, and being met with a BEAMING smile and being told that my pronunciation was really good had me floating for like a day and a half. Now that we’ve worked together for awhile we get through our days with her tiny amount of English and my tiny amount of Spanish and gestures and facial expressions and Google Translate and we put on Selena to sing to while we’re cleaning at night and then laugh at the bafflement on the face of our manager whose first language is neither of ours. And we are united on what matters most: mocking, in two languages, our store’s only racist trash MAGA employee who likes to complain loudly about the language barrier as if she thinks they don’t understand when she’s bitching about people who are RIGHT THERE.

Be cool to peeps who are learning your language. They might be really funny people and they might share their snacks with you if you’re just kind and encouraging.

[faultyjackscrew]

Around 2002 my parents bought a GameCube, and in their infinite wisdom told *me* that it was for the family to share but told my younger sister that it was *hers* (they did stuff like this somewhat frequently, don’t ask me why, golden child something something).

This was a problem because I could not play anything on it without my sister absolutely losing her shit.

We had a copy of Kirby Air Ride, but I never got to play it because my sister would stash it in her room when she wasn’t playing to keep it from me.

And so now that, in the big year 2025, Kirby Air Riders is coming out for Switch 2, the excitement and catharsis that I’m feeling about finally playing it cannot be oversold.

Why yes I am an adult in my mid 30s and the sibling rivalry will never end.

[dutchscouser]

lovely message for the family of diogo and andre 🕊🫶🏼

[faultyjackscrew]

Liverpool fans are Good People.

[faultyjackscrew]

What a special, messy, emotional, flawed, beautiful opener we got today. A reminder to never take that opening Anfield win for granted. And above all so special to have Diogo’s family there, to hopefully feel the incredible outpouring of love from the fans who will always hold them as part of our LFC family in our hearts, and of course win it in his honor. Just incredible scenes. I love this stupid, gorgeous game.