Posts with the tag ‘air safety’


Emergency Slide Falls Off Plane into Chicago Backyard

July 18, 2023

  Shortly before touching down at Chicago’s O’Hare International Monday afternoon, the emergency slide on United Flight 12 from Zurich fell uninflated, into the backyard of Patrick Devitt. The Boeing 767 landed without incident and it appears the flight crew was unaware of the mishap. That the emergency equipment was missing was noticed by the maintenance crew and reported. The emergency slides on Boeing 767s have been a cause of concern since at least 2014 which is when Boeing sent the first of two bulletins to operators notifying them that there was a problem with slides deploying during maintenance and in flight. The FAA followed… Read More…


The Bonus Benefit of More Rest For Flight Attendants

October 4, 2022

Long before the pandemic made flying a horror show for passengers and crew, the US Congress acknowledged that flight attendant rest time was insufficient. But like a bad dream from which they could not awake, these essential airline safety workers have waited 4 years to see new rules guaranteeing a minimum of 10 hours rest between shifts. The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to announce them shortly. The change increases present rest time for flight attendants by one to two hours depending on circumstances, and makes the 10 hours mandatory. “Ten hours and not a minute less,” became a rallying call for flight attendants and… Read More…


Delta Pilots ‘Need to Know’ Judge Says

June 7, 2022

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…


Black Boxes Pulled as French Open Probe into Air France Go-Around

April 6, 2022

  Frances’s air accident investigation office has opened a probe into Tuesday’s near-disaster of an Air France flight from New York to Paris.  Flight 11, a Boeing 777 was on final approach and descending when air traffic control heard a transmission from the cockpit of human grunting and alarms. The controller repeated the runway clearance information several times before the crew answered. Controllers saw that as the plane continued its descent it veered off the flight path and to the left. At this point, the pilots initiated a go-around. In the ATC tape of the episode which can be heard via the Airlive YouTube channel… Read More…


United 767 Makes Emergency Landing as Engine Quits on Zurich Flight

March 28, 2022

This post has been modified to reflect a wise reader’s observation that the age of plane is less relevant than the age and most recent maintenance of the PW4000 engines, which this person believes must be considerably younger. I do not have this information as Pratt & Whitney and United declined to answer questions. Passengers boarding United’s Sunday flight from Newark to Zurich had to be pleasantly surprised to discover the cabin was only half full.  That is unusual as airlines struggle to keep up with post-pandemic passenger demand. But the good news stopped before the Boeing 767-300 had even crossed the Atlantic, as the… Read More…


New Recorder Find Should Narrow List of Theories in China Eastern Disaster

March 27, 2022

Officials looking into the fatal crash of China Eastern Flight 5735 told reporters Sunday morning that they had located a critical piece of wreckage from the main debris site, the Boeing 737’s flight data recorder. The find was made by one of several teams of local fire and rescue personnel in an area determined to be a likely spot based on where other key debris was found. Mao Yanfeng head of aircraft investigation at the Civil Aviation Administration of China board told reporters the FDR will provide a raft of “real and objective” information for determining what caused the crash. Included in this list, Yanfeng… Read More…


Jetliner Debris Found Miles from Crash Scene May Indicate Pre-Crash Breakup

March 24, 2022

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…


China Eastern Crash and What You Don’t Know About 737 NG

March 21, 2022

News bulletins today related to the crash of China Eastern Flight 5735 include the disclaimer that the Boeing 737 that plunged to earth killing 132 people, is not the notorious 737 MAX. Most news consumers, indeed most air travelers, know at least a glimmer of the story of the MAX, a flawed Boeing product that produced two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. They know less about the 737 NG. What remains practically a secret, is that the 737 NG was the subject of a decade-long series of court cases filed by Boeing whistleblowers who say the NGs are poorly constructed and at risk of… Read More…


Head of FBI Probe Into TWA 800 Crash Dies, Leaves Mixed Legacy

July 6, 2021

This post has been updated to included confirmation of Kallstrom’s death and details concerning the cause of death. James Kallstrom, the 78-year old former head of the New York office of the FBI, died on July 3rd. According to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, Kallstrom struggled for six years with an illness related to his exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam in the sixties. Edmond J. Boran, the foundation’s president told me Wednesday morning that Kallstrom’s exposure in 1966 and 1967 only began to trouble him fifty years later when a mysterious rash appeared on his upper torso. He was treated with chemotherapy…. Read More…


Like A Greek Tragedy, Congressional Report on 737 Max Disasters Replete With Tales of Chicanery and Hubris

September 16, 2020

  Over the course of 7 months in 2011, Boeing did an about-face. While in January it eschewed the idea of putting new engines on its 44-year old workhorse, the 737, by July, executives embraced the idea. The change in attitude was in response to the re-engined Airbus A 320 neo, which was racking up orders for the Toulouse-based planemaker, including some from formerly loyal Boeing airline customers. The calculation that it would be cheaper and faster to tweak an old model than to design a new one, led to the Boeing 737 Max. Like a Greek tragedy, with all of the sorrow, the intrigue,… Read More…


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