Tag: Airline Safety View All Tags
Tags: Airline Safety / Qantas / Airline Hell / Airline News / → All Tags
Qantas Blames 'Cosmic Rays' For Last Year's Roller Coaster-Like Flight
We have a pretty decent respect for Aussie airline Qantas, with its better-than-average safety record and generally trouble-free flights (of course, we're not impressed by the recent beer ban on some flights, but it probably was in the name of safety, so who are we to complain). And now we can feel a little better about last year's mid-air drama over Western Australia, because investigators are blaming cosmic rays.
You might vaguely remember that in October last year, a Qantas flight from Singapore made an emergency landing after some rollercoaster action: it suddenly plunged 650 feet, got back up again then fell 400 feet. This led to some serious passenger injuries (no deaths, though) and a whole lot of serious questions. At the time, a lot of people were blaming passengers using laptops and other electronic devices.
Tags: Airlines / Airline News / Airline Travel / Airline Safety / Special Panels / Department of Transportation / Roy LaHood / → All Tags
A Very Special Panel Will Try Really Hard to Fix the Airline Industry
It's been a tough couple of decades for the airline industry, but things are finally looking up, thanks to a "special panel" created by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The AP reports that Transportation Secretary Roy LaHood said Thursday that the panel will come up with a plan to fix the industry, which has suffered billions of dollars in losses amid slackened demand, fluctuating oil prices, and cutthroat competition.
Tags: Airline Safety / Travel Journalism / Media / Airline News / Safety / → All Tags
No CNN, Airplanes Are Not A 'High-Risk Environment'
Apparently there aren't any cute blond girls who've gone missing overseas lately, so someone at CNN got assigned to write up this tripe:
On a recent Southwest Airlines flight, a man dropped his pants and exposed himself to the female passenger sitting next to him, then punched her, according to an FBI affidavit. The plane was in midair, and the naked man reportedly grew angrier, screaming uncontrollably and shaking his fist in the air... 'Now people are more hyper-vigilant on what occurs on aircrafts,' said Ron Koziol, assistant section chief for the FBI's violent crimes unit, who calls airplanes a 'high-risk' environment.
Did you hear that? He shook his fist! Not only did he shake his fist, but he shook it in the air! If you continue reading this Woodward and Bernstein-like expose, you discover that there are 80 similar incidents every single year. We did some back of the napkin number crunching and concluded that, if you board a plane every morning for the next 365 days, you have a .00001% chance of seeing something that we have to deal with every single night on the way home from the bar.
Tags: American Airlines / Airline News / Airplanes / Airline Safety / → All Tags
Skin Scratches Ground Some American Airlines Jets
American Airlines is in a little bit of trouble with the FAA. Last week the airline starting checking out the aluminum skin on some of their Boeing 737 planes for scratches, dents, and other damage. Apparently the gate agents responsible for the jetways aren’t always the best drivers and these bridges sometimes rub the planes the wrong way. The FAA is concerned because American didn’t notify them of these issues in a timely manner.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the carrier waited a few months before spilling the beans to the FAA, and only started to review all planes with this potential issue after the FAA told them to do so. American Airlines claims that issues with one plane donn’t make a trend; however, they are cooperating with the inspectors.
There’s about 80 planes that need to be checked out, and all of the inspections should have been wrapped up over the weekend. Three planes have been taken out of service for further service so far, so double check your flights before heading to the airport today—just in case there are a few cancellations sprinkled throughout their schedule.
Related Stories: [Photo: wbaiv]
· FAA Probes American Air Over Boeing 737 Maintenance [WSJ]
· American Airlines Needs More Cash So We'll Pay More To Check Our Bags [Jaunted]
· Airline News coverage [Jaunted]
Tags: Airline Safety / Indonesia Travel / Garuda / Dangerous Travel / European Union / → All Tags
Indonesian Airlines Take Action Against Their Bad Reputations
Airlines coming out of Indonesia don't exactly hold the best safety reputations—even the large national airline Garuda gets its bumps and scrapes in the headlines far too often, and you might remember that the European Union, which is a bit fussy about unsafe airlines, banned every single Indonesian airline in the middle of 2007.
Things are looking a little bit better than they have in the past. The EU has just lifted the bans on four of the airlines (including Garuda) and that's inspired the Indonesian government to throw a bit more money and attention at airline safety.
The Indonesian transport minister says his goal is to get all Indonesian airlines off the blacklist by the end of the year, and he's had this smart idea about recruiting more aircraft inspectors and aviation safety managers. Hopefully this means it won't be long until we can get more cheap flights to island paradise Bali and even expect to get there and back safely.
Related Stories:
· Indonesia Aviation to Improve Safety Image [Business Traveller]
· Bali Boosts Its Airport But Skips New Shops [Jaunted]
· EU Blacklists Siem Reap Airways And Others [Jaunted]
[Photo: Tango-Sierra]
Tags: Airline Safety / Airline News / Airlines / Airline Seatbelts / Amsafe / → All Tags
Airlines To Get Safer (And Pricier) Thanks To In-Flight Airbags
We’re afraid the new batch of increased airline fees might not be the last of them (for the year!) as new airline safety rules could bring about even more fee to offset costs.
Beginning this October new federal rules require that airline seats be even safer in a crash than they currently are. Commercial aircraft must have seats able to withstand the force of about a 30 mph head-on car crash or about 16 times the force of gravity. We’re big fans of more safety, but aren’t most accidents a little more intense than that?
Tags: Airline Safety / Airline Safety Videos / Air New Zealand / Thomson Airways / → All Tags
Airlines Getting Creative With Pre-Flight Safety Videos
Airlines have developed a suspicion - from where, we have no idea - that we passengers aren't really listening to their pre-flight safety instructions. Apparently they feel that their prerecorded soliloquies about emergency doors and water landings are being adhered to with something less than rapt attention.
In response, they're going out of their way to get passenger eyeballs onto video monitors. Virgin America changed up the game first with their cartoon safety instruction video which has tongue-in-cheek humor and shows a cute girl with a bad nicotine habit and a nun that is more plugged in than a 13-year-old boy.
And how could we forget Deltalina? In fact, we really wish we could forget the image of her botoxed face telling us to put on a seatbelt.
Now, everyone of course knows about Air New Zealand's new naked safety video, which we covered while it was being produced. The final commercial is currently inching its way toward 4 million views on YouTube. Reasonably attractive but suitably everyday male and female attendants in body paint. It's viral magic.
Tags: Airline News / 777 / Delta / British Airways / Boeing / Airline Safety / → All Tags
NTSB Orders Fix on Rolls Royce-Powered 777s
Lately we’ve been pretty hot and heavy about Boeing’s 777 plane, especially since that’s the bird that Branson and company have chosen to launch V Australia. However, apparently there’s some trouble with the 777 engines, and federal regulators want airliners to take a look at what’s going on. If you’re planning a trip down under on V—don’t worry—their 777s use engines from General Electric.
Tags: Celebs Who Twitter / MCHammer / Celeb Travel / Virgin America / Airline Safety / Twitter / → All Tags
McHammer Uses TwitterTime To Talk About Airline Safety
Celebs have invaded Twitter! Celebrities Twittering is a social media perfect storm. This elite sect of Twitterati is extremely thumbnail photogenic, well-trained in innovative ways of seeking attention/letting it all hang out, and most importantly for us travel geeks, constantly traveling the world. This week we're looking at who's Tweeting what from where. Any Celeb Twitterers we should follow? Let us know.
MC Hammer won over our geeky hearts during Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration last month when he was Twittering on the ground during the festivities. (Mad thanks to Ellen for telling us about it.) This month he's won us over again by tweeting in-flight from his Virgin America flight from Boston.
35,000 ft in the sky.... over Toronto ...-60 degrees... but um... I'm cool ! Virgin America...oh boy ! This is how we do it !!!!
Hammer even gave a shout-out to Virgin America a few minutes later, proving that he has mastered the @ reply. Something, we can't say for many people on Twitter.
Tags: Airline Safety / Flight 1549 / American Airlines / → All Tags
Women and Children First on American Airlines 767s
Here's an entry for the history of ironic coincidences: Just two weeks after US Airways Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson River, necessitating the emergency use of the aircraft's life rafts, American Airlines has confessed to having not enough life raft space for all passengers on their Boeing 767s.
It's a true Titanic case; first there must be a disaster in order for safety procedures and equipment to get the closer examination they need. Although American claims that this admission has nothing to do with the "Miracle on the Hudson," it nonetheless means that the airline must keep the affected flights below capacity so that should a water landing occur, everyone will be have a personal little spot on the rafts. Usually the 767s fly Transatlantic to Europe and over the Gulf to Latin America, so it's not like this is a small issue.
How will they fix this, you wonder? Not by redesigning the airplane or removing seats, because that would mean extra spending and loss of revenue, but by installing larger life rafts. American's 767s may soon have some seriously spacious safety rafts, but it will be longer than that before we can get the Titanic comparison out of our head.
Related Stories:
· American Airlines, short of life raft space on Boeing 767s, will limit passengers [Star-Telegram]
· American Airlines coverage [Jaunted]
· Flight 1529 coverage [Jaunted]
[Image: vidiot]
Tags: Airline Safety / Airlines / Travel News / → All Tags
US Carriers Set Inconceivable Safety Record
US carriers have gone more than two years without a single fatality as a result of a crash, a safety streak unprecedented in aviation history made even more impressive by the fact that they hauled 1.5 billion passengers over the past 24 months.
USA Today reports that in the history of US aviation, even going one year without an accidental death is rare, and the newspaper went to an MIT professor for this soundbite:
"While it doesn't mean risk is now non-existent," [Arnold] Barnett says, "it certainly means they have done a fantastic job at keeping all these threats at bay."
Barnett calculates that it's more likely for a young child to be elected president in his or her lifetime than to die on a single jet flight in the USA or in similar industrial nations in Europe, Canada or Japan.
Of course, Spanair Flight 5022 was a European flight and resulted in 154 fatalities; the cause of that MD-82 crash is still under investigation.
But because aviation accidents are so unbelievably rare, there's no safer way to get where you're going. Yet another reason that we should remember that for all its indignities, flying is amazing.
Related Stories:
· Airlines Go Two Years with No Fatalities [USA Today]
· Funky Flight Safety Videos on Virgin America [Jaunted]
[Photo: Dave Malkoff]
