FBI video of laser illumination of an airliner cockpit No less a brainiac than Albert Einstein could have weighed in on the phenomenally ineffective efforts of American aviation and law enforcement to combat laser attacks on airplanes. The German American physicist defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” For the past eight years, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other authorities have taken a blame and shame approach to miscreants who aim laser pointers into the night sky causing momentary blindness or distracting pilots during a high workload phase of flight. I’ve written about this… Read More…

The apparent shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 in the Ukraine today is a shocker  for many reasons, not the least of which is that this is a double dose of tragedy for an airline already off-balance over the mysterious disappearance of another jumbo jet in March of this year. It is also deeply troubling to think of air travelers as casualties of geopolitical turbulence. But perhaps it should not be so shocking. Over the past decades, nearly two dozen passenger airliners have been hit by missiles. Among them Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 hit and destroyed by the U.S. Navy Korean… Read More…

>The aircraft arriving at LAX in 2013 courtesy Jay Davis The recent release of communication data from missing Malaysia Flight 370, shows the Boeing 777 probably flew for no longer than nine minutes beyond the point at which the plane ran out of fuel. Buried in the 47-page report (warning: heavy on numbers and light on text) is the notation that between 8:10 and 8:19 the morning it disappeared on March 8, the plane lost and then regained power. Fuel exhaustion and engine flameout would cut power to the airplane. The only explanation for what caused it to ramp up again is the deployment of… Read More…

With the latest news, that an Australian ship may have detected the sound of pinging from the black boxes on the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner, the massive effort in the South Indian Ocean begins to seem a little less overwhelming. But let’s set aside the search and the constant speculation over whether this is an accident or a crime. I want to write about the effect the event is having on the people who live in Malaysia. Since arriving in Kuala Lumpur on March 13, to assist ABC News in its coverage of this unusual story, I have been repeatedly startled that so many Malaysians… Read More…

Writing from Kuala Lumpur — The case of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has taken another unexpected turn now that searchers in the South Indian Ocean have moved from the last-best guess of where the airplane might be to an area 1100 kilometers north east.  Ten airplanes and six vessels headed to the new location, off the coast of Perth, as the 30 day clock on the black box locator pingers ticks down. You may be asking, what new information prompted the moving of all this expensive hardware? I’m here to tell you. According to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and the Australian Transport Safety… Read More…

Writing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — In the afternoon, hundreds of reporters assemble in the ground floor ballroom of the Sama-Sama Hotel in Kuala Lumpur and listen attentively while the various men investigating the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 repeat that they are investigating all possibilities. When asked to expound on those potential scenarios, the definition of “all” really gets quite narrow. Those in front of the cameras and those behind them are totally focused on a crime; a hijacking, a deliberate act. This is based on several findings. Various electronic communication methods ceased as the plane was leaving Malaysian airspace less than an… Read More…

The kidnapping on Friday morning of two Turkish airline pilots in Lebanon is upsetting on a number of levels, beyond the obvious tragedy of their capture in the first place. Captain Murat Akpinar and first officer Murat Agca were taken at gunpoint from the van in which the entire eight person flight crew was being transported from Rafiq Harari International Airport to the crew hotel. Just the pilots were taken – none of the four cabin attendants -and early reports do not say whether there was security in the van at the time. Many airlines use location-based intelligence to determine the level of risk at… Read More…

Does it strike anyone else as odd that of all the foreign airports in all the world, Abu Dhabi International would be one of the few to offer immigration pre-clearance for travelers heading to the United States? Let me answer my own question. Yes it does. Several members of congress – also flummoxed by this proposal have added an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security budget appropriation, that’s essentially a not-so-fast-there, yank on the leash to DHS. Unions, airlines and airport executives were all scratching their heads when it was revealed last year that a dozen or so U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents… Read More…

Flight attendants may not rank up there with firefighters or police officers in terms of dangerous jobs, but the story on Wednesday that a Delta Air Lines employee was injured when the plane on which she was working encountered turbulence is proof – as if anyone needed it – that the job can be a pretty hazardous. And indeed if there were to be a fire or other emergency, firefighter/police officer/lifeguard/medic are all roles the cabin attendant is trained and expected to perform. Firefighter training for flight attendants Those are not the hazards encountered day-to-day though. It is the mundane tasks like providing meal service… Read More…