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Trapped Onboard a Cruise Liner

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:

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Massive Air France A380 Strikes a Little Delta Plane at JFK: The VIDEO

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.

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Flight 1549 / US Airways / Miracle on the Hudson / Chesley Sullenberger / New York City / Accidents / → All Tags

It's the Two-Year Anniversary of the 'Miracle on the Hudson'

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:

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Get A First Person Look at Last Week's Delta Emergency Landing

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.

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50 Years Ago Today, a Mid-Air Collision Brought a United Jet Crashing into Brooklyn

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.

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Continental Airlines is Now a Convicted Concorde Murderer

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.

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Qantas Sends Some of Its A380s Back Into the Skies

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.

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What It's Like to Be Trapped Onboard a Crippled Cruise Ship: a Firsthand Account

Supplies being dropped to the Carnival Splendor

On Monday, the Carnival Splendor cruise ship suffered a small engine room fire, which caused the ship—while some 200 miles off the coast of San Diego—to loose power and call in tugs from the mainland. The ship is now operating on auxiliary power and its 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members have been subsisting on Pop Tarts, croissants, Spam and other relief groceries dropped to the ship by Navy helicopters.

With no phone signals, internet connection or even properly working toilets, the "conditions on board the ship are very challenging."

Although we can't hear the tales of misery from the Splendor guests quite yet, we do know someone who has experienced a similar situation. Kathy, who was kind enough to share her story with us, was stuck onboard a crippled cruise ship for three days as well, albeit a couple decades ago.

Kathy's three days of hell, at sea:

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Qantas' A380s Still Grounded with 'Oil Where Oil Shouldn't Be'

The news surrounding the "uncontained engine failure" onboard a Qantas A380 flight last Thursday hasn't gotten any better over the weekend; the planes remain grounded, after more oil leaks were discovered in other engines. Although they had hoped to have the double-decker superjumbos back in the skies by today, there is now no telling when the issues will be fixed (although we're hoping pretty soon).

The A380s currently grounded belong to Qantas and Singapore Airlines, as they are the airlines operating the plane with the Rolls Royce Trent 900 problem engines. Lufthansa's few A380s also fly with the Trent 900s, but they've only grounded one just to check. The other A380s still flying, from Emirates and Air France, instead have Engine Alliance GP7200s so they aren't necessarily at risk of this same issue.

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No Qantas A380 For You; Airlines Put Planes on Ice During Engine Investigations

Our intimate picture of an A380's Rolls Royce Trent 900 engine

Update 10am EST: Singapore Airlines has also temporarily grounded their 11 A380s.

No, a Qantas superjumbo A380 plane did not crash last night just after takeoff from Singapore's Changi Airport, as some early online reports blared. Yes, a Qantas A380 did meet with trouble when one of its four engines blew, raining debris down on Batam, Indonesia, but thankfully it was able to shut down the engine and safely return to Changi Airport with all 433 passengers and 26 crew unharmed.

Luckily no tragedy occurred as no one was killed or even injured; the only tragedy now is that passengers booked on Qantas may not have a chance to fly one of the fancy double-decker planes as the airline is removing their six from service until the cause of the Rolls Royce Trent 900 engine fail has been determined. For those booked on other airlines flying the A380 still—Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Lufthansa and Air France—you could have a look at our photo gallery on How to Evacuate an Airbus A380, but really we don't think there's anything to worry about.

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Gulp. After UPS Crash, FAA Focusing on Lithium Battery Safety

Back in September, a UPS plane caught fire and crashed in Dubai, tragically killing two American pilots. The FAA has spent the last month investigating and, while they're not certain of anything, they're pointing a suspicious finger at the cargo of lithium batteries that the airplane was carrying in its cargo hold. In response, the safety organization is suggesting that airlines move future lithium battery packages to the area reserved for so-called Class C cargo, which is safer and more fire resistant. They're also proposing more stringent regulations for customers to identify shipments of the batteries.

Apparently lithium-ion and lithium-metal batteries are vulnerable to something called "thermal runaway." Once they heat up past a certain point they can release their energy, heating up more, which causes them to release more energy, until something explodes. If there are a lot of batteries in the same place and even just one explodes, the resulting fire can heat up the rest of the batteries past their own tipping points. That scenario plays out about how you'd expect, which is what the FAA suspects may happened on the UPS flight.

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Emergency Landing at JFK Filmed from Inside the Plane

There is a popular saying that "the future will be blogged." Well, forget that. The future will be completely caught on smartphone video, such as with the emergency landing of a Delta Connection (operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines) jet last night after some of the landing gear failed to deploy. Flight 4951 from Atlanta, Georgia to White Plains, NY made the landing at New York's JFK Airport after the pilot radioed in the issue, and luckily the worst thing that happened was the airplane got a little scratched up.

Two passengers managed to keep their phone cameras rolling while bracing for impact, as the flight attendant repeated a command to "stay down." The regional jet landed on the runway, with the pilot balancing the plane on the remaining landing gear until the final moments, when gravity took over and the wing hit the ground, shooting a trail of sparks, which you can see in the video. All passengers and crew were unharmed and were even able to leave the plane normally, albeit onto the tarmac.

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