Ethiopian Airlines are reporting all passengers and crew are safe at Geneva Airport. Associated Press announced that the hijacker of the plane has been arrested. Police spokesman Jean-Philippe Brandt told The Associated Press that “the situation is under control” Geneva airport is fermé (closed) until 9 a.m local time (8am GMT, 3am US EST) according to the airport website. There will be a Press Conference at that time. Flights bound for Geneva have been cancelled or diverted as a result. The reason for the hijacking is unclear, although unconfirmed reports suggest that some of those on board the aircraft may have been…
Air Safety
Category Archives for Air Safety.
Ethiopian Airlines Hijack? [updated]
Confession: I am less scared of crashing inside a plane than I am worried I may be a hijack victim. So my heart goes out to 200 passengers today. News sources are reporting that Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702, a Boeing 767-300 (registration: ET- AMF) was hijacked over Sudan. Social media posts suggested that the plane’s transponder began squawking”7500″. Flight 702 departed from Addis Ababa at 00:30 (local time) and had been scheduled to arrive in Rome (FCO) at 04:40 (local time). The flight was scheduled to fly on to Milan (MXP) but that segment has…
More guns at US airports
Most of the Western world knows that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is responsible for safety and security at US airports. TSA agents are visible as the screeners at the airport security points. We know them as the folks who sometimes yell at us or sometimes cajole us us to take our belts and shoes off. They xray carry-on luggage and will sometimes hand-search it for contents in the bag itself and in any hidden pockets and false walls. They are responsible for confiscating any dangerous goods including knives and guns. The number of guns…
BA 747 wing slices airport
A British Airways 747-400 with 185 passengers and 17 crew followed the wrong taxiway at Johannesburg’s main airport, prior to take-off for London. The pilots had been instructed to use taxiway B but followed a much narrower taxiway M. As a result, its wing sliced into an office building. Debris from the building injured four people on the ground. No one aboard was hurt. All passengers evacuated via slides. A kerosene spill from the fully fuelled jumbo was contained by the airport fire services. The 747 has been removed from the office block and its…
Did Pilot Deliberately Crash?
Joao Abreu, chairman of the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute has indicated that the investigations into a November 29 LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 plane crash suggest the pilot had an intention to crash the plane. The Embraer 190 was flying route 140 from Maputo in Moazambique to Quatro de Fevereiro Airport, Angola. It failed to arrive at its destination and its wreckage was found the next day in northern Namibia. Mr Abreu, said that data shows that the plane began to slow down and it dropped rapidly in altitude from 38,000 to 592 feet. Low and high…
US Airlines switch On PED Devices
The US Federal Aviation Administration ruled on October 31 that Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) may be used at every stage of a passenger’s air journey, that is from gate to gate. PEDs include e-readers, noise reduction headphones, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The ruling is “based on input from the PED Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) which concluded that most commercial airplanes can tolerate radio interference signals from PEDs.” Most of the key US carriers are now allowing usage: Alaska Airlines from Nov 9 American Airlines from Nov. 4 American Eagle flights from Nov 4 except those operated by Chautauqua , ExpressJet Airlines,…
Lao Airlines Flight 301
The news that a Lao Airlines plane crashed a mere six kilomtres (three miles) from its destination has barely been a blip on the international news networks. Yet 49 people from 11 countries perished in the crash. 16 Laotians, seven French, six Australians, five Thais, three South Koreans, three Vietnamese, and one national each from the China, Malaysia, Taiwan and USA. Five were crew and 44 were passengers. The crash highlights the danger of traveling in some parts of the world. Roads in Laos are in a very poor condition and rail service non existent. Tourists, business people, aid workers and locals all…
Lion Seeks help
Indonesia’s Lion Air is Indonesia’s biggest domestic airline and with two massive orders for jets from Airbus and Boeing aims ot beocme one of the world’s largest carriers. Except for one problem: its safety record. While Lion Air (and other airlines) have big plans, a spate of deadly accidents In Indonesia has raised international concern about the nations’s air-safety standards.. Along with most of the Indonesian carriers, Lion—is under a European Union and US safety ban. While Lion doesn’t fly into either airspace, it loses business as many travel agents are barred from booking tickets with…
Lion Air hits Cow
It was holiday time in Indonesia to celebrate Eid, the end of Ramadan. Planes are full of passengers aiming to get home to see family and friends. As a Lion Air flight JT-892 came into land at Gorontalo airport on northern Sulawesi island, on Tuesday 6th August, the Boeing 737-900 crashed into a cow and skidded off the runway into a field with the plane’s tail remaining on the runway. Not one of the 110 passengers and seven crew on board was killed or seriously injured and all passengers disembarked safely. The cow, however, was crushed to death under one of the…
Renfe train Crash Spain
I have always been a huge fan of trains and fascinated by the high speed options now in existence across the globe. The long term high speed rail operators of the world: France’s SNCF and Japan’s National Railways have enjoyed an excellent safety record.For example the JNR Shinkansen service has had no fatalities caused by derailments or collisions in its almost fifty years of service whilst carrying seven billion passengers. The French TGV has not recorded a single fatality due to accident while running at high speed over the last 32 years. The rail accident that is the…
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