In the next 30 days, Delta Air Lines must notify 13-thousand pilots of its misbehavior,  in the case of the whistleblower pilot it punished for reporting safety violations. A psychiatrist hired by Delta declared first officer Karlene Petitt, bipolar in a diagnosis that left her grounded until it was disputed by a number of other psychiatrists. Without further delay, the details of the case should be emailed and posted at flight stations for 60 days, under the ruling by Administrative Law Judge Scott Morris. Several years earlier Judge Morris had warned Delta to settle with Petitt. You must decide if “you want all this laundry… Read More…

Chinese authorities say they have found a piece of the China Eastern airliner, six miles from the area where the Boeing 737 NG crashed on Monday. While the main debris field is concentrated as a result of the plane’s near-vertical plummet from the sky, this separate piece, a distance away, indicates that prior to the crash the airplane was shedding parts. Whether the piece coming free of the plane triggered the disaster or if it was a consequence of the high-speed dive is not known but is certainly a question the investigators will try to answer. An airliner dropping nose down so dramatically and rapidly… Read More…

A cascade of failures on an Air India Boeing 777 led to an emergency diversion to Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday. By the time the plane touched down, fuel was low enough for a “not very comfortable,” situation for the crew, according to Les Abend, a recently retired 777 captain. On Friday, Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said the agency was aware of the event and would be looking into it along with Air India. Flight 101 from Delhi to New York’s JFK with 370 people aboard was descending through 300 feet when the crew initiated a go-around. After reaching two-thousand… Read More…

What unites the first airliner to go missing in 1931 with the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 is simple geography. As big as today’s airliners are, they are infinitesimally small in comparison to the vast, often-uninhabited places over which they fly. The Australian National Airlines flight of the plane named the Southern Cloud departed Sydney for Melbourne on March 21, 1931 but never arrived. Eighty-three years later, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing and likewise, was never seen again. In both events, mysteries seemed to multiply and unsubstantiated stories blended with likely possibilities until fact and fiction were inseparable. Much has changed… Read More…

Air travelers to St. Maarten expect a thrilling view approaching Princess Juliana International Airport. But thrills turned terrifying for passengers and observers of WestJet Flight 2652 from Toronto on Tuesday. When the Boeing 737 descended through the clouds it went well below the minimum descent altitude. The scene of the jet skimming the surface of Maho Bay was captured by aviation photographer Christine Garner,  shooting from the roof of a nearby building. She said she thought the plane was going to crash. “When this plane came out of the cloud, I was so shocked,” she said. “The surprising thing was he was lower than me. Normally they pass… Read More…

Recently a friend asked me what airlines were the safest to fly. I get asked that question all the time. I find the question challenging in part because of the chasm between risk and perceived risk. For example, most air travelers will admit to some anxiety about the safety of their flight, but few worry much about the taxi in which they are speeding to the airport. Travelers are also treated to end-of-the-year news reports about the world’s most dangerous airlines based on fatalities. That’s a false relationship as I’ve reported before. Sometimes, however, it is obvious what airlines to avoid. I was reminded of that… Read More…

Updated Thursday August 6th with news from inspection in Dallas >Radome damage Glass half full: This American Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner, returned to Beijing safely after flying into a hail storm at 26 thousand feet (ish) after takeoff on July 27. All 209 passengers and a crew of 13 were able to continue on the way to Dallas albeit on a different airplane and with a delay. Glass half empty: Travelers had the beejeebies scared out of them during the encounter. Passenger Dallas Rueschoff told a reporter, “We were going sideways, up and down…we dropped a good few hundred feet at least.”  Or as a 787… Read More…

>N671US in Shannon days ago. Photo courtesy Kevin Corry This just in: The Delta Air Lines Boeing 747 N664US which was heavily damaged by hail on a flight to Seoul Korea last month will return to the United States late this week but it appears her flying days are over. This Queen of the Sky, I am told, is headed for Marana Aerospace Solutions, a enormous boneyard for retired airliners north of Tucson, Arizona. For more on this story, read on. This post has been updated with more information about the process of taking an airliner out of desert storage. First its Arizona retirement was… Read More…

>N671US in Shannon Photo courtesy Kevin Corry The Boeing 747 taken out of the desert in Arizona to replace the Delta jumbo jet pelted by hail over China, has itself gone out of service, at least temporarily after an emergency landing in Ireland on Friday. Flightaware.com shows N671US back on the ground in Shannon after departing Amsterdam for New York.  The St. Paul Business Journal reported a smoke alarm triggered the emergency landing. There were 376 passengers on board. “Wow, just wow,” was the response I received from a Delta 747 pilot who has been watching the events unfold. He then turned his attention to… Read More…

>Photo by Brian Walker Armchair airline pilots may be asking why the crew of Delta Air Lines Flight 159 from Detroit to Seoul opted to fly through a hail storm on June 16th, rather than insist on an altitude deviation from air traffic control in China. The decision to maintain flight at 36,000 feet resulted in some dramatic looking damage to various parts of Delta’s Boeing 747 registration N664US and some shaken passengers – none of whom was injured. The answer seems to be that the crew was more concerned about possibly of flying into another aircraft having been told by Chinese controllers of traffic…. Read More…