The blame game in that horrible crash of Air France Flight 447 is intensifying, even while everyone admits they still have no idea what caused the disaster. The latest dust up involves management taking some potshots at Air France pilots for their attention to detail, and the pilots responding with angry statements.

Now it's unseemly enough to have the parties involved publicly bickering with each other in full view of the nation and the victims' families. But it's not a real party until self-important unions get involved and start talking about the pilots' hurt feelings. And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what's happening:]]> Omri 2009-10-27T17:04:43-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/11/11625/9486

Yesterday evening, while we were out gallivanting around town for Fashion's Night Out, we passed by a store whose sidewalk sported those rental searchlights. We continued walking, until we noticed another pair of searchlights even further downtown, and that is when we stopped in our tracks. This is the pair of Tribute Lights for 9/11, placed in the hole where the Twin Towers stood up until this date in 2001.

We won't run through the history of the event again for you, but we will remind you that today's date still carries some weight when it comes to air travel. Use your common sense, arrive to your airport extra early in case of heightened security, and don't go around the terminal talking about how great you did at the shooting range last night. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-09-11T08:38:51-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/9/225234/9290

On Saturday, just after noon in New York City, yet another crash took place in the Hudson River as a tour helicopter and small airplane collided in the air and then dropped into the river, killing 9 people.

The latest reports indicate that 7 of the 9 bodies have been recovered, along with the fuselage of the crumpled Liberty Tours helicopter and the black box; the small Piper PA-32 plane remains underwater. This tragedy took place near the same spot on the river where US Airways Flight 1549 safely landed after a mid-air bird strike causes it to use the river as a runway. However, that incident was tagged "Miracle On The Hudson" for its incredible story including no loss of life; this last Saturday's accident is instead branded "Horror On The Hudson." ]]> JetSetCD 2009-08-10T08:39:32-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/17/125049/367

Two Marriott hotels were attacked yesterday in Jakarta, Indonesia by suicide bombings that killed eight people and left more than 50 injured. It is now believed that the suicide bombers actually checked into the JW Marriott Jakarta and the Ritz-Carlton Jakarta. A third bomb was later found on the 18th floor of the JW Marriott in one of the guestrooms.

Times Online has details from the blast sites:

Bleeding victims, including foreign businessmen who had been in breakfast meetings, crawled and staggered out of the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta’s Mega Kuningan business district after the explosions struck two minutes apart shortly before 8am.

Footage from a security camera at the Ritz-Carlton showed a suited man wearing a baseball cap, and carrying a backpack and a wheeled suitcase, entering the hotel’s first floor restaurant just before the explosion, which killed two people.

]]> juliana 2009-07-17T12:59:33-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/6/30/93525/3782

We don't know about you, but we're tired of hearing about all the deaths in the last month; from the tragedy of Air France Flight 447 to the passing of famous faces like Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and yes, even Billy Mays. Perhaps the world joins us in this exhaustion over bad news, because yesterday night's crash of a Yemenia Airlines flight off the coast of the Comoros Islands hasn't unleashed a media frenzy.

To fill in the details, the Yemenia Airbus 310, originating in Paris, was en route from Yemen's capital Sanaa to Moroni Airport in the Comoros crashed into the ocean after making a first attempt at landing. The crash was so close to the island that it was witnessed from land, and yet a police official admitted "we really have no sea rescue capabilities."

Nearly 4-5 hours later, rescue boats began finding debris from the airliner and bodies of the crash victims. Up until this morning, it was believed that none of the 153 passengers had survived, but then a toddler was pulled from the ocean and taken to a hospital. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-06-30T10:32:19-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/6/29/115625/354

It was a bad week to be a celebrity last week. We spent the weekend mourning Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon but it turns out we've still got some more mourning left to do. Famous pitchman Billy Mays, who you probably remember from the Oxiclean commercials, died at his home in Tampa, Fla. yesterday, hours after a rough landing at the Tampa airport where the US Airways plane he was on blew out a tire as it touched down.

Mays had told news reporters after he got off the plane that something had hit his head. He also complained about not feeling very well before going to bed later that night.

Tampa police initially said that any connection between his death and the landing was "purely speculation." Indeed, the results of an autopsy where just released moments ago and the Hillsborough County Coroner said heart disease, not the rough landing, was to blame for Mays' death. Either way, the world has lost its best "pitchman."

While Mays only had about 4,000 Twitter followers before his death, that number has jumped to 10,000 today. But we can't imagine US Airways is too happy about his last ever tweet which he wrote just after landing:

Just had a close call landing in Tampa. The tires blew out upon landing. Stuck in the plane on the runway. You can always count on US Air."

Related Stories:
· TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead in Florida home [Newsday]
· Us Airways coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: NY Daily News]]]> juliana 2009-06-29T12:23:56-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/6/21/105354/027

With just over a week left to retrieve the black box of Air France Flight 447 before it gives up the ghost, search teams and airline authorities are beginning to wind down and instead turn their focus onto the families of the victims.

Although they've recovered approximately fifty bodies of the 228 on board and whole sections of the aircraft's galley, CNN reports that the "head of the French accident investigation board, Paul-Louis Arslanian, said this week that there is a chance the entire aircraft may never be found." Aircraft wreckage or not, Air France will begin compensating the families of the deceased, to the tune of $24,500 per victim regardless of class flown.

In addition to the money, Air France has sent counselors to the aid of some 1,800 relatives of the victims, who were of 32 different nationalities. The Wikipedia page on the tragedy has a graph of these nationalities and how many were on board, showing some from Gabon, Estonia and Lebanon even. This next week should bring the conclusion of major searches, but we're far from having questions answered.

Related Stories:
· Air France pays $24,500 to crash victims' families [CNN]
· Air France Black Box Search Borrows The Titanic's Sub [Jaunted]
· Flight 447 Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: AP]]]> JetSetCD 2009-06-22T08:47:15-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/