Late Friday night, The Costa Cruises ship Costa Concordia sailed from the Italian port of Civitavecchia near Rome, beginning what would be a nice Mediterrnean cruise. Shortly thereafter, it went off course and struck a reef, eventually listing and coming to rest off the island of Giglio.

The weekend brought new stories, new shocks and new questions of what exactly happened that night, and how it could even happen. Even the death tool is fluctuating. So until some concrete facts emerge, we're returning to a story we know to be the firsthand account from a friend who survived a cruise ship accident (though it didn't end up sinking).

Kathy, who was kind enough to share her story with us, was stuck onboard a crippled cruise ship for three days, albeit a couple decades ago.

Here's her story:]]> JetSetCD 2012-01-16T08:30:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/4/12/94917/3703

Okay, so everyone and their moms are posting this video, but we can't get enough of it and we want to make sure you're seeing it too. Here's the deal: last night, a Delta jet, operated by Comair (a little Bombardier CRJ700), was taxiing to its gate at New York-JFK Airport, having just arrived after a short flight down from Boston. There were 62 passengers and four crew onboard.

Meanwhile, an Air France superjumbo double-decker A380, with 495 passengers and 25 crew onboard, was taxiing to a runway to begin a flight to Paris, when its left wing totally smacked the rear fin (ah hem vertical stabilizer) of the Delta jet. No one was hurt, but as you can see in the video above, the A380 sure gave the regional jet a heck of a slap.]]> JetSetCD 2011-04-12T09:49:17-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/1/14/152815/876

Technically tomorrow is the exact anniversary, but tonight's a Friday night and we're looking for an excuse to toast a shot of Grey Goose.

Do you remember where you were when US Airways Flight 1549 from New York-LaGuardia to Charlotte only made it as far as the Hudson River, ditching into the water after bird strikes took out both engines? We do—we were working, but then threw on our boots and walked about a mile in the 10-degree air and slush to get as close to it as possible, just to see the Airbus A320 still floating and being slowly tugged over to the side of the river.

All 155 passengers and crew survived, with only 5 bad injuries despite the fact that they glided on no power, then freaking landed in a freezing river. Last year on the anniversary, they all came back to the city and took a boat out to the spot where they faced one of the most harrowing moments of their lives. There they enjoyed a little party, celebrating the fact that they were alive, thanks to the actions of their calm and quick-thinking pilot Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger. Since there's no such shindig this year, let's look back on what's happened since that historic day: ]]> JetSetCD 2011-01-14T15:28:15-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/1/3/81245/43280

Some Delta passengers had something to be thankful for this holiday season as 2010 ended, as their flight had to make an emergency landing in Colorado Springs last Thursday. Obviously any landing that isn’t on the scheduled runway at the scheduled time is an emergency one, but this detour was pretty calm and orderly.

Pilots noticed a light indicating that one of their engines was probably not working like it was supposed to, so they made the decision to land in Colorado instead of Arizona. However, once safely on the ground the overheated brakes created a fire danger, so the call was made for all passengers to Steven Slater their way out of the plane and onto the runway. ]]> kjb 2011-01-03T09:12:56-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2010/12/16/112940/66

Although it's never nice to talk about past air incidents when they have the possibility of freaking you out before flying, but it's important to note that today marks the 50th Anniversary of one of the most tragic airplane accidents in history. At the time, in 1960, it was the deadliest, killing 128 people in the sky and 6 on the ground. Here's what happened:

In the morning of December 16, 1960, a TWA Constellation carrying 44 was heading to land at LaGuardia Airport while a United DC-8 Jet with 84 on board was on its way to land at Idlewild Airport (now JFK). Because of lower-tech air traffic control systems of the time, and because the United jet wasn't in the spot it thought it was, the two planes collided over Staten Island. The TWA prop plane was sliced into three pieces and fell straight down onto a military field in SI, while the United Jet managed to continue as far as Brooklyn, where it eventually fell into a church and intersection in the Park Slope neighborhood, killing 6 on the ground and setting buildings on fire. ]]> JetSetCD 2010-12-16T13:35:53-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2010/12/6/61931/3880
The remembrance stone in Roissy, France

Just over ten years after the deadly day, a French court has found Continental Airlines guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the July 2000 crash of the Air France Concorde, which took the lives of 109 passengers and crew and another 4 on the ground. So just how did this come to be, that another airline is convicted of murdering the entire flight of another airline? It all goes back to a small piece of metal.

The tragedy of the Concorde AF Flight 4590 is well known, but here's a sentence to refresh your memory: a Continental Airlines DC-10 flew out of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. The plane wasn't properly maintained, and a 12" x 17" piece of titanium (that shouldn't have been on the plane anyways) fell of it onto the runway at CDG. The Concorde took off next, and the metal strip burst a tire, pieces of which then ruptured a fuel tank, which then did all sorts of damage and turned the Concorde into a flaming projectile that crashed into a motel outside the airport. The structural fragility of the areas damaged in this crash caused all Concordes to be grounded for the time being, and all Concordes ceased flying in 2003. ]]> JetSetCD 2010-12-06T06:29:29-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2010/11/29/82651/982

After much engine trouble up in the air and even more on the ground, it appears that Qantas has finally sent its fleet of Airbus A380s back into the skies around the globe.

Over the busy weekend, flight 31 took off from Sydney to London with no issues, and the airline’s head honcho—Alan Joyce—even hopped aboard to ensure passengers that these planes and his airline are totally safe. ]]> kjb 2010-11-29T10:30:46-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/