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…

There’s one thing every medical patient and every medical professional should demand now that a nurse in Tennessee has been criminally charged with accidentally killing a patient; a full and public investigation into the factors that led to this tragic mistake. This could and should be the same as what happens following air accidents. Thirty-five-year-old Radonda Leanne Vaught gave a fatal dose of the paralyzing drug vecuronium rather than versed, an anti-anxiety medication to a 79-year old woman who was being prepared for a body scan. Because both drugs begin with the letters v e, Vaught selected the first drug offered by the computerized medication dispenser failing to… Read More…

(photo courtesy www.merdeka.com) From the time the pilots retracted the flaps of the new Lion Air jetliner that flew as Flight 610, they were presented with anomalous readings, chaotic warnings and an airplane that was not flying as it should. This is what can be learned reading between the lines of the service bulletin Boeing sent to airlines operating the planemaker’s newest 737, the MAX. The airplane crashed into the sea 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta on October 29th killing 189 people. In the bulletin, Boeing says during the Lion Air crash investigation, it was determined that a faulty reading of the flight… Read More…

Eighty years ago as Amelia Earhart waited in Lae, New Guinea for weather to clear so she could begin her homeward flight across the vast Pacific, she gave thought to the fact that on this, one of the last legs of her month-long, round-the-world flight, she’d be crossing the International Dateline. “Clocks turn back,” she noted. As with all errors of judgment, the sweetest idea is the impossible one; turning back the clock and starting afresh – armed with the lesson learned. As I wrote in my book, The Crash Detectives,  Earhart the adventurer and global role model, made several errors in planning her record-setting… Read More…

I’m starting a crusade for a more judicious use of the term “pilot error” and I nominate as my campaign poster boy…Tada! — Capt. Chesley Sullenberger. The newest member of the formerly obscure community of aviation safety commentators has a new gig on CBS News. From that platform he can say what many others who don’t have his good looks or American hero status have been saying, and he can make these points to the very people who have recently been given a somewhat mangled version of what happened on Air France Flight 447. By that I mean that when Capt. Understatement said on television… Read More…