Air Safety

Category Archives for Air Safety.

New Safety Video: The Beans do Cabin Safety Badly

To illustrate how human beans can do better when travelling, CASA, Australia’s  Civil Aviation Safety Authority has put together a video featuring jelly beans as clueless passengers on what ends up being a doomed flight.   The video includes messages about limiting carry on, alcohol consumption, seat belts, seat reclining, listening to crew instructions, not smoking on board and not taking luggage off the plane in an evacuation: Here is the video: I am not sure when this film is meant to be shown. I could not imagine it being used on board on aeroplanes!…

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Air Safety- Who I will and won’t fly.

Flying is incredibly safe. There are over 5000 airlines with ICAO codes. Very few of those carriers experience any major emergency incidents. Others do. Who do you know is safe or not? I rely on airlineratings.com, that rate about 10 percent of all airlines. Out of those airlines, extrapolating airlineratings.com data, 35% of airlines are fully compliant with seven safety measures. Now no one can guarantee that a “seven star” airline won’t have a crash involving fatalities but they are compliant with the most stringent safety requirements. In addition,  12% are one star airlines that…

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UK to follow USA with laptop ban 

I asked a question this morning,  in relation to the ban on electronic equipment  in cabin on flights from ten cities in eight countries:  “How long before we see a worldwide ban on travelling with laptops?” The BBC have just announced that the UK will ban some electronic devices from the cabin for flights originating in  Egypt, Jordan,  Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey.  Under the new arrangements passengers will not be allowed to take into the cabin mobile phones, laptops, e-readers and tablets which are larger than: length: 16.0cm width: 9.3cm depth: 1.5cm Unlike…

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US Electronics Ban -what to do if You are a Passenger

As I blogged about earlier today, The United States has announced today that any electronic item larger than a phone will be banned from cabins on all flights from ten airports in eight Middle Eastern countries. Check if you are flying from or through any of the ten affected airports to the USA. It is important to note it only applies at this stage to flights to the USA. So if you are flying New York to Dubai for example, the rules do not apply to you.  If you feel uncomfortable or concerned with flying…

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US Electronics Ban on MidEast originating flights

– This morning US time, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued an emergency security directive banning on certain electronic gadgets being taken brought into cabins on some flights to the USA. Of course, we knew about the ban already, because Royal Jordanian tweeted about it yesterday! Where they got the information from and why they announced it is a mystery. They also were in error suggesting that the ban applied to US originating flights. There has been a suggestion they inadvertently published information from a TSA circular that was…

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YOU MUST wear your seat belt on a plane- Graphic warning as to why

I noted on my last Air Asia flight, how much disregard was shown for the seat belt sign with passengers chatting in rows and aisles and wandering up and down the plane even while we went through turbulence. If you have any family members or friends who still believe wearing the seat belt in a plane during turbulence, is optional, show them this post. Last week, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board gave a very strong reminder for passengers to wear seatbelts in their report on Air Canada flight 088 . I am always fascinated by air turbulence stories and this…

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Airlines of Thailand receive key safety rating upgrade

In March last year, Thai-registered airlines were placed under “special measures” by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). This followed an ICAO audit that found concerns over the  Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand’s ability to manage the air operator certification process. This led to Japan,  South Korea and the USA blocking any new flights by Thai-registered airlines. Now,  Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways and Thai AirAsia are expected to have air operating certificates  re-issued in Februray, 2017 by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand. Five more airlines will get theirs by March. A further 17 Thai airlines will get…

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Obnoxious Flyers increase–why?

He was seated two seats ahead of me, on the last (and delayed) service between two major Australian cities.  Soon after take off, it became clear he was drunk. He started off with what seemed to be funny banter, turned into mocking behaviour and then became full on racist and sexist abuse of cabin crew and neighbouring passengers. In all of the 1140 times I have flown, I have seen passengers whose behaviour was less than ideal but there has only been one flight where I have feared for my safety.  I have I have been…

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Van hits plane at Hong Kong airport

This is the aftermath of a China Aircraft Services hitting a fully loaded Dragonair Airbus 330 at Hong Kong International Airport’s apron 25 at about 4pm local time. The video of the incident appears to shows the van driving directly towards the aircraft as it moves towards the runway for takeoff. The van then seems to veer straight toward the engine. Completely bizarre. The vehicle was dragged along the tarmac for several metres by the plane. The pilot stopped the plane. Five fire engines and two ambulances were called to the scene. The driver was reportedly…

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