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Tag: airplane safety

  • Southwest Flight Diverted After Passenger Attempts to Open Door

    A man’s attempt to exit a Southwest plane while in mid-air left passengers in complete panic Sunday.

    Flight 722-which was transporting 134 passengers and five crew members-was en route to Sacramento from Chicago when it was forced to make an unintended stop in Nebraska due to the disorderly passenger.

    Witnesses say that Joshua Carl Lee Suggs was acting pretty strangely after the flight took off. Some have even associated his behavior with drugs or a mental illness.

    At one point during the flight, he ran to the bathroom and returned to his seat drenched.

    The pandemonium didn’t start, however, until Suggs left his seat and made his way to the back of the plane in an attempt to unlatch the door.

    One eyewitness tells KCRA-TV that she just new something bad was about to happen.

    “You got this bad feeling that [something] wasn’t going right,” said passenger Lori Depalma.”Especially when a bunch of big guys got up and immediately jumped into the aisle and ran to the back of the plane.”

    Three gentlemen made their way to the back of the plane after hearing one of the flight attendants scream for help.

    “We basically tackled the — I don’t want to say gentleman — but the guy who was back there and pinned him down and restrained him,” said Dr. Scott Porter, who assumed at first that the screams were medically-related.

    Passenger Natalie Lee also told the station that she was “glad there were some burly men on the plane” to prevent what could have ended tragically.

    Once the plane landed in Nebraska, Suggs was arrested by airport police officers.

    He’s charged with interference and will face an Omaha, Neb., judge Wednesday.

    The flight eventually arrived safely in Sacramento two hours off schedule.

    The FBI plans to look more into the incident.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Boeing 767s Ordered To Be Inspected By FAA

    Boeing 767s Ordered To Be Inspected By FAA

    Boeing 767s are typically known to be among the safest planes today, and are the most popular planes in the air. The plane’s reputation may be sparkling, but the Federal Aviation Administration is taking no chances.

    The organization is ordering inspections of all Boeing 767s.

    According to a notice submitted by the FAA to the Federal Register this past Monday, there is concern over a potential problem with the rivets in moveable tail sections. Errors here could impact the plane’s ability to climb or descend safely. Not only that, the issues with the rivets could potentially result in a loss of control of the plane.

    The FAA is said to have first made a note of the concern back in 2000. The issue came up when U.S regulators stepped up inspection details in an effort to be more thorough.

    The request is seen as unusual to the point of unnecessary by some due to a lack of previously known errors or crashes related to the rivets in question on Boeing 767s.

    Some airlines have outright objected, saying that the safety demands of the FAA had been met in previous inspections. Despite the pushback, the FAA is unmoved. It has given the order, which will go into effect on March 3rd of this year. Afterwards, airlines have a window of 6 years with which to comply.

    The actual upgrade has been around for several years, as Boeing had already designed a permanent fix to the potential problem. Many airlines have already replaced the parts in question. It’s expected that the order will affect roughly 400 jets.

    As for Boeing, the company said in a statement that dealing with safety issues would be “an ongoing and continuous process” and that it was working closely with the FAA.

    Do you think the FAA is nitpicking or is this a necessary upgrade?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Flight Diverted After Hitting Birds

    Flight Diverted After Hitting Birds

    A plane flight that took off from White Plains, New York on Thursday morning was diverted after being struck by birds.

    Airline Jet Blue today announced that flight 1205 from White Plains to Fort Myers, Florida experienced a “bird strike” shortly after taking off. The flight was diverted as a precautionary measure, in case the animals had damaged the aircraft or its engines during the collision. The plane landed soon after at JFK International Airport in New York City, with no injuries reported.

    Bird Strikes are an all-too-common, but dangerous phenomenon for flights that even NASA has researched ways to prevent. Birds hitting airplanes at high speeds can cause significant damage to aircrafts and jet engines. The FAA states that 121,000 “wildlife strikes” occurred in the U.S. between 1990 and 2010 (and average of around 16.5 per day) and that 23 deaths have been attributed to those events.

  • FAA Reprimands Guy Who Filmed Bird Strike With iPad

    A couple of weeks ago, a Delta flight bound for Los Angeles had to make an emergency landing at JFK airport just moments after takeoff. The plane quickly lost its right engine after striking a flock of birds. The incident was big news, bolstered by the unlikely fact that Vice President Joe Biden’s plane also hit a flock of birds as it was landing on the same day.

    Amateur video of the event soon made its way to YouTube, as New York Times bestselling author Grant Cardone uploaded a short clip of the event. The video, which Cardone shot with his iPad from a window seat, clearly captures both the sight and sounds of the terrifying event.

    Check it out below:

    Now, the Federal Aviation Administration has sent Cardone a letter, scolding him for putting out his device and filming the scene during takeoff.

    Of course, the FAA demands that electronic devices be turned off during portions of any flight because they could interfere with with any number of the airplane’s critical systems. That’s the message they had for Cardone. Part of the letter reads:

    Your failure to comply during a critical phase of flight and an aircraft emergency could have affected the safe outcome of the flight.

    They went on to say…

    We have given consideration to all of the facts. In lieu of legal enforcement action (a civil penalty), we are issuing this letter which will be made a matter of record for a period of two years, after which, the record will be expunged.

    “It’s ridiculous,” says Cardone. “I’ve been on thousands, literally thousands of flights. I’ve flown over 3 million miles – a million of those miles with Delta. And to think that a device, a telephone, or this iPad can take down a plane – to think that…is ridiculous.”

    He also went after the FAA with this funny little jab on Twitter:

    @GrantCardone
    Grant Cardone    #FAA new ruling-Masturbation can crash planes and cause blindness. 17 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    While most airlines ban the use of such devices on flights, the jury is still out on the actual correlation between cellphones and interference. Studies do exist that have asserted a correlation between the two, but causation has been tough (to say the least) to confirm. Some aviation experts have supported the rule, adopting a “better safe than sorry” reasoning.

    I guess the lesson here is if you want to catch some exclusive on-flight video of a crazy aviation event, just be ready for the FAA to be a little pissed off about it.