Every 2.5 seconds, somewhere in the world, a Boeing 737 takes off or lands. The Boeing 737 one of the world’s most popular planes, as well as one of the best-selling. But is it also plagued with dangerous structural problems? Last April, a Boeing 737 taking Southwest Airlines passengers from Phoenix to Sacramento had to make an emergency landing when part of the plane's body ripped, leaving a 59-inch hole in the roof of its cabin. It wasn't the first such incident to take place in a Boeing 737 — and a new investigation suggests it might not be the last.
The FAA recently acknowledged that unmanned aircraft, sometimes called drones, are evolving from military assets into potential tools for all manner of civilian and domestic law enforcement uses. In aviation parlance they're now called unmanned aircraft systems or "UASs" and vary widely in size, shape, function and how they are controlled. UASs can have a wingspan as big as a Boeing 737 or just a few feet, smaller than a radio controlled model airplane. But are they safe? And what do they say about issues of privacy?
Investigators in India recovered the flight data recorder from the wreckage of the Air India Express aircraft, which crashed over the weekend. The plane, a Boeing 737, overshot the runway at Mangalore airport on Saturday and plunged into a valley, killing 158 people, including the crew. There are eight survivors. A team from the United States National Transportation Safety Board will arrive at the crash site today to help with the investigation. The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder reports from Delhi.
A plane carrying 104 passengers crashed at the airport in Tripoli, Libya this morning. A young Dutch boy is the only passenger to survive the crash. For more, we hear from BBC reporter, Rana Jawad, who is in Tripoli.
European officials struck a deal yesterday to reopen most of Europe's air space to plane travel as early as this afternoon, assuming Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continues to subside. This would end the worst peacetime travel disruption in history, a travel crisis that has left thousands of passengers stranded for days and cost the airline industry hundreds of millions of dollars. But in the midst of the chaos and inconveniences, one philosopher took a moment to reflect on what our world would look like without airplanes.
The botched Christmas Day terror attack was only the latest blow for an already-hurting airline industry. Before that, there was the recession, which brought smaller travel budgets for companies and American travelers. That was on top of the soaring price of fuel, which led some airline companies to charge extra to cover the gas bill… Add to the picture the swine flu outbreaks, pension costs and new airport safety measures and you can really wonder: is the airline industry reaching a breaking point?
With us today to answer this question is Robert Crandall, former CEO of American Airlines. He led the company for 18 years in the '80s and '90s.
President Obama said intelligence officials failed to connect the dots to prevent the Christmas Day almost-bomber from boarding a Northwest flight in Amsterdam bound for Detroit. We talk with our Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich about yesterday's meeting between the president and intelligence agencies, and with Michael Hurley, the senior counsel on the 9/11 Commission, about what went wrong and how intelligence officials can better communicate to prevent terrorism plots in the future.
New information released Monday said that the distracted pilots of Northwest Airlines Flight 188, who overshot their landing strip in Minneapolis by 150 miles before turning around and landing safely, were using their personal laptops with their headphones off. For more, we talk with Patrick Smith, airline expert and author of the "Ask the Pilot" book and online column at Salon.com.
Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger shot to fame after safely landing a US Airways plane in the Hudson River last January. He's written a new book about the experience, "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters
"Jeff and I only had 208 seconds from the time we hit the birds and we landed.... Part of my message is that the profession of the airline pilot is a very important one and it's hard. It's not easy."
—Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger on his experience landing a US Airways flight on the Hudson River
More than a month after Air France Flight 447 crashed, there are more questions than answers. The latest report from the French accident investigation agency, BEA, contends that the plane did not break up in midair, but plummeted vertically into the water. However, some inconsistencies in the report are leaving some analysts skeptical. And, with less than 10 percent of the plane recovered and the black box still missing, the mystery of Air France Flight 447 may never be solved. Joining the Takeaway to discuss the crash investigation is Todd Curtis, Aviation Security Analyst and former air safety engineer for Boeing.
Air France flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean 30 days ago, leaving its black box somewhere in the middle of the ocean. The device holds important flight data and signals its location, but only for 30 days. Will the mystery of the crash ever be solved? Joining The Takeaway is Todd Curtis, Aviation Safety Analyst and Director of the Airsafe.com Foundation. He is also a former air safety engineer for Boeing.
After Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, flown by Colgan Air, crashed in Buffalo, New York, earlier this year, a federal safety inspector at Colgan Air said he had reported to his supervisors that planes were flying at incorrect speeds, with a broken radio, and failing multiple attempts at landing properly. That safety inspector is Chris Monteleon, who says his complaints were ignored; he was relegated to a desk job.
Monteleon joins The Takeaway to talk about his experience with Colgan Air. Barbara Peterson, a Senior Aviation Correspondent for Conde Nast Traveller, also joins the show to talk about airline safety.
Family members continue to mourn the loss of the 228 lives aboard Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic ocean on its way to Paris from Brazil. What caused the crash may never be known: French officials have expressed concern that the black box recorders from the plane may never be recovered due to the depth of the water and the mountainous terrain on the sea floor. Captain Patrick Keenan is the U.S. Navy Director of Ocean Engineering and Supervisor of Salvage and Diving and he joins The Takeaway to discuss the challenges of searching for black boxes in deep water.
A memorial service is being held at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris for the passengers of Air France Flight 447, which vanished off the coast of Brazil on its way to France. The BBC’s Adam Mynott is in Paris; he talks to The Takeaway about how investigators will unravel the mystery of the crash.
Air France Flight 447 disappeared off the coast of Brazil Sunday evening and is presumed to have crashed somewhere in the Atlantic. During a press conference, President Nicolas Sarkozy said, “we are facing a very dramatic event, an accident, a tragic accident. The chances of finding survivors at this point are very little.” Search and rescue crews have been trying to locate the plane, which was carrying 228 passengers and apparently lost electrical power after being struck by lightning.
To explain the mechanics and electronics of the Airbus A330-200 is Graham Warwick, Senior Technology Editor for Aviation Week.
"Airlines have become so safe that when you get accidents these days they tend to be unique combinations of chains of events that lead to catastrophic failures."
— Graham Warwick of Aviation Week on the missing Air France jet
Bird strikes. The phrase entered most Americans vocabulary when Captain "Sully" Sullenberg landed an American Airlines plane on the Hudson River after the plane hit a flock of ill-fated geese. Since then, the Federal Aviation Association has proposed keeping information about bird strikes including where and when they happen, secret. Presumably on the grounds that for pilots, hitting a bird is like a car hitting a squirrel. Tragic, but it happens. Yesterday Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood scrapped that. He says the public has a right to know. Bruce Holmes worked on air transportation systems at NASA Langley Research Center. He joins us now with his take on the move towards bird strike transparency.
Hopefully the birds don't take these things too personally:
Contributor's Notes: Paddy O'Connell on the US Airways Hudson River crash
Paddy O'Connell is the host of the BBC's Broadcasting House.
As we go to air, they'll be finishing their news conference on the New York plane crash. There's everything miraculous about it, and something awesome in the skill and bravery of the humans fighting an ailing machine. You know that people will have said, "Have you heard about the plane crash in New York...," open-mouthed at the details. But I wondered if there's space on the blog to chalk up a word for the river itself?
There's a spot on the banks of the Hudson where you can see where the Titanic survivors eventually reached dry land. They were taken to St. Vincent's hospital a few blocks away. On the morning of 9/11, medics stood in the street appealing for public blood donations as emergency vehicles headed downtown. So it's worth taking a moment to linger longer at the banks.
The passengers landed upstream of the totems of America. The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, all a short ferry ride from Wall Street and the World Trade Center. The plane ditched somewhere off West 48th Street, and it seems that in a city that was expecting the worst a sense of relief just swept over people. Named after an Englishman, its Native American name also means "the river that flows both ways." It also earned the name America's Rhine.
The plane hit the water miles downstream of West Point, and of FDR's mansion. He's meant to have said, "All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River."
So this rant might not be news, but would you agree that this news of the plane and its deliverance on the Hudson proves why the history of a city is something best told by its river?
Yesterday’s dramatic crash landing of a U.S. Airways jetliner into New York’s Hudson River, and the equally dramatic rescue, had many people glued to their television screens. Fortunately, no one aboard the plane was killed. But the news that a flock of geese may have caused the crash has a lot of people wondering just how worried they should be about so-called “bird strikes.” For that answer we turn to Patrick Smith, pilot and author of Salon.com’s Ask the Pilot.
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