Air travelers lingering to retrieve bags during an emergency evacuation may very well be responsible for the deaths of 41 people in the fiery crash of an Aeroflot jetliner in Moscow on Sunday. More than half of those onboard the Sukhoi Superjet were unable to escape the burning airplane – raising the possibility that the deaths were due to evacuation delays. In addition to determining what happened to trigger the power loss that prompted the pilots to return to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport shortly after taking off, airlines, airplane manufacturers, flight crews and yes, air travelers must examine the role of passenger behavior. Because everyone has… Read More…

How difficult would it be to find a basketball in an area of the ocean slightly larger than the city of Dallas? That was the job facing the U.S. Coast Guard 7th District Southeast over the weekend. Cutters, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft spent 21 hours unsuccessfully searching for 68-year old Robert Hopkins, a pilot for a Florida air cargo company who ditched in the Atlantic on Friday afternoon, about 13 miles off the coast of Miami. After failing to find Capt. Hopkins by midday on Saturday, the search was called off as Hopkins was presumed dead. The flight’s first officer, 28-year old Rolland Silva was recovered by a Coast… 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…

For an update on this event from the NTSB click here. Uncontained engine failures are relatively rare. Rarer still is the failure that leads to a hull loss. But American Airlines Flight 383, a Boeing 767 routed from Chicago to Miami was on its takeoff roll on Friday afternoon when passengers reported a loud explosion quickly followed by black smoke and fire just outside the right side of the aircraft. “People are yelling, ‘Open the door! Open the door!’ Everyone’s screaming and jumping on top of each other to open the door,” Sarah Ahmed told Chicago’s ABC television station, WLS. Ahmed said she could smell smoke… Read More…