I have been long fascinated by and worried by the pitching into the ocean of Air France flight 447 bound from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France in June, 2009. While it was in the middle of a tropical storm, it fell from the sky. This state of the art four year old A330 was piloted by a very experienced flight crew and belonged to an airline that is meticulous about maintenance. It should not have come down. For the families of those on board, answers were needed to explain the tragic loss of 228 lives (216 passengers and 12 crew). 02:13:40…
Air Safety
Category Archives for Air Safety.
Qantas gets back Nancy
April 21 saw the formal handing back to Qantas of their Airbus 380 named Nancy Bird Walton. This is the plane that dramatically “lost an engine” in a mid-air blast off Singapore in November 2010. I have previously blogged about how dangerous the incident was.. The incident dented both the reputation of Qantas as one of the world’s safest airlines (despite the fact the crew managed to nurse the plane into a safe landing) and the reputation of the giant plane. (The concerns some have about the 380 have been further heightened by hysteria over the wing cracks that have been found recently. Qantas is denying they are considering suing Airbus over the cracks but they are in…
Wednesday Weirdness: I don’t wanna go to work
There are some very drastic ways not to go to work. On Sunday 12th February,a British Airways flight en route between Tokyo and London with 150 passenegrs, a note was reportedly found scrawled on one of the toilet doors: “The bomb on board will explode at 16.00 GMT unless our demands are met.” Terrorist? Disgruntled passenger? Flight Attendant? Well on touchdown, Flight attendant Mathew Davis was arrested when the Boeing 777 landed safely at Heathrow after its 10,000-kilomtre (7 000 mile) journey. His DNA, mugshot and fingerprints were taken at the Heathrow Airport Police station. The next day…
Costa Concordia accident
I am astounded by the cruise liner sinking in Italy. My condolences to family members affected by this tragedy. What is your reaction? Costa Concordia accident: Pictures of cruise ship sinking off coast of Italy in Titanic-like scene | Mail Online.
Virgin America Plane Clips fence
Media sources say that a Virgin America airplane bound for San Francisco as flight 83, clipped a fence at O’Hare International Airport with one of its wings on Saturday afternoon at about 230pm. The plane was leaving the gate. No injuries were reported and the accident will be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Airbus Hail Storm
I have been in a bird strike where the windscreen of a small plane was shattered as were taking off from Kirkwall airport in the UK. These images of what hail can do to an Airbus 330 are astounding. This must have been quite a storm. The Emirates A330-200 (registration A6-EAP) was en route from Dubai, UAE to Munich, Germany as flight EK501. The plane went through a hail zone, 30 nautical miles south of Vienna, Austria. The crew decided to divert and landed safely at Prague, Czech Republic 40 minutes later. Passengers then travelled by…
A330 Black Box- sorting out what happened with Qantas & Air France
From Time: Investigators have located and recovered the memory unit of the flight data recorder of a 2009 Air France flight — a remarkable deep-sea discovery they hope will explain why the aircraft went down in a remote area of the mid-Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board. This incident and the 7 October 2008, Qantas 72 incident where their A330 suffered a rapid loss of altitude mean I am very very keen for them to sort out the issue
Back to the 80s with Air NZ’s newest safety video
Same words…very different costumes…in the last Air New Zealand air safety video, the crew were nude- in this one, they go”funky”. Led by flamboyant American fitness personality Richard Simmons, the briefing introduces all of the usual safety features on a plane (ie no smoking, fasten seatbelts, brace positions, life jacket, luggage etc) as a series of “exercises” to be completed before flying. The instructions are delivered with lots of crazy costumes, boppy music and humourous gags. The video available for viewing here. What do you think of it? Some thoughts from me: I noticed a couple of the crew…
Man treads on my foot in Bizarre air incident
This has to be a first for me. As I snoozed comfortably in my British Airways BA 9 window seat from Bangkok to Sydney, a fellow passenger from behind me took a convoluted “short cut” through my seat area to get to the lavatory. In doing so, trod heavily on my foot. I woke up swearing to excruciating pain. The angle that my passenger must have stood on my foot caused it to bleed and on going pain! Worst is, I am a runner. BA staff very helpful. Why would you take a “short cut”…
Indian Fake Pilots
Last month, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation revoked the licence of a pilot, flying for IndiGo, after she caused damage to an Airbus A320 by landing the plane on the nose wheel instead of the rear wheels. She was found to have forged papers to get her airline transport pilot licence. The DGCA then found two more pilots with forged qualifications flying passenger planes. Another reason, why I am nervous to fly in India. Give me Indian Railways every time!
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