Will it become a new trend for passengers to film or photograph their planes and themselves in emergency situations? What does it say of our voyeuristic tendencies if we watch these events especially if they occur in real time? Last week on July 29, a Cathay Pacific flight 884, a five year old Boeing 777-300ER (registration B-KPQ, travelling from Hong Kong to Los Angeles International Airport with 276 passengers and 18 crew diverted to U.S. Eareckson Air Station in Shemya, in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Before the emergency landing, passengers had been told to prepare for a ditching…
Air Safety
Category Archives for Air Safety.
MH370- Reunion gives news but not answers
The news that part of an aeroplane has washed up on the shore of the Island of Réunion last Wednesday gives little comfort to families and friends of those who were on Malaysia Airlines 370 that disappeared on March 8, 2014. Confirmation by Malaysia on Friday, that the part is a flaperon and is indeed from a Boeing 777 tells us that it is likely that the plane did indeed end up in the sea. It does not tell us how, where or why. (See wsj: What is a flaperon?) Additional information emerged that a suitcase was…
Thai air problems knock Nok Scoot
In Thailand Nok means bird. “Premium low cost” domestic carrier Nokair after ten years of operation commands a healthy 27% chunk of the country’s domestic market and a healthy profit margin. Nok has not expanded internationally with the exception of a couple of routes. This was due to change this year. Nok has joined with Singapore Airline’s low cost arm Scoot, to form low cost international carrier called imaginatively NokScoot with the slogan: Fly Awesome. Literally the name means: Bird leaves suddenly and quickly! This new venture is 49% is owned by Scoot and 51% owned by Nok. The carrier aims to link China, Japan…
Post Germanwings: 2 in cockpit
On many of my flights, I have watched the pilot come out of the cockpit to use the lavatory. On some airlines, as he or she has emerged, a member of the cabin crew has replaced him. On others, the pilot or co pilot has left their colleague alone in charge of the plane. The U.S.A had rules before last Tuesday’s Germanwings crash requiring airlines to have two crew members present at all times during the flight. Many other countries allowed airlines to set their own policies. And this has always bothered me. I have always…
Modern Cockpit doors & Germanwings
After 11 September, 2001, airlines and authorities needed to ensure that no unauthorised persons could get into the cockpit. This resulted in the creation the cockpit doors we have on aircraft today. No more did we see the cockpit door left open on flights or people wandering in and out or passengers visiting. The doors themselves are virtually impenetrable. These may not have been topical until this week when the copilot of Germanwings 9525, Andreas Lubitz reportedly locked Captain Patrick Sondenheime out of the cockpit before deliberately flying the Airbus 320 into a French mountain. This video (which…
Germanwings 9525 Crashes in France
An Airbus A320 registration D-AIPX, operated by Germanwings, has crashed near Digne les Bains in the mountainous French Alpes-des-Hautes province on Tuesday morning 24th March, 2015, shortly after 10:47am local time. Flight 9525 was carrying a total of 144 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew. A distress signal was issued by the pilot flying at 6800ft. “We do not yet know what has happened to flight 4U 9525. My deepest sympathy goes to the families and friends of our passengers and crew on 4U 9525. If our fears are confirmed, this is a dark…
Second Flight Diverted Due to Reclining Seat!
Is this a new trend? Another fight over whether a seat should be reclined or not leading to an aeroplane diversion occurred this week. En route from Miami to Paris, on American Airlines flight 62, passenger Edmund Alexandre demanded that the female passenger in front of him not recline her seat. After she refused, Mr Alexandre got into an altercation with the flight attendants. After grabbing one of the attendants, he was restrained by federal air marshals. The Boeing 767 then diverted to Boston. So, is it a new trend? Are we going to see open war…
Iceland Volcano threatens -live feed
In 2010, the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjoell led to the biggest European airspace shutdown since World War Two with one hundred thousand flights across Europe cancelled and eight million passengers stranded. Over the weekend Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano has been shaken by earthquakes and started a small eruption. Located in south-east Iceland under the country’s largest glacier Vatnajoekull, Bardarbunga rises to more than 2000 metres. It has an ice layer of between 150 and 400 metres thick. So far, there is no indication of imminent flooding caused by glacier melt. There have been fears that this volcano will have the same impact as Eyjafjoell if it erupts. I fly…
Will I keep flying?
First of all it was MH370, then MH 17, then Taiwan, Iran, one in Mali and a shooting at a plane in Pakistan. Lots of people have been asking me whether I will keep flying after these horrific events. A poll, conducted for TheStreet by GfK at the end of July found that 36% of Americans feel afraid to fly internationally. Women are more fearful than men, older people are more fearful than younger people. For an Australian who flies Malaysia Airlines a lot and who has traversed the skies above the Ukraine a few times in my Europe voyages,…
Air Algerie flight down
What a weird week. I have just heard of the reports that Air Algerie flight #AH5017 with 116 people onboard has crashed in Niger. The aircraft reportedly lost contact 50 minutes after take-off and is likely to be carrying many French passengers. The MD83 was flying from Ouagadougou,Burkina Faso, to Algiers, Algeria and was operated by SwiftairS A . Swiftair is a Spanish airline which operates scheduled and charter, passenger and cargo flights in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. This adds to a horror week in Europe with MH17, Asia with TransAsia 222 and now Africa. More people have died in plane crashes this week than…
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