156 People Aboard Pakistani Airliner Crash

A Pakistani airliner has reportedly crashed on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan Wednesday. The plane, a commercial Airbus belonging to Airblue, was carrying 156 people en-route from Turkey. Early reports indicate several fatalities, but also some survivors. Bad weather in the area may have been a factor in the crash.

Libyan Plane Crash Kills 103, Dutch Boy Survives

One Dutch child reportedly survived a fiery plane crash at Tripoli airport in Libya early Wednesday morning. Initial reports put the death toll at 103 people, while one lone survivor, a 10-year old boy walking away with only fractures. The Libyan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus 330-200 enroute from Johannesburg, was full of Dutch tourists before crashing near the airport on final approach.

Air Traffic Control Recording From Recent SFO incident

Check out this summary of the March 27th near-miss aircraft incident near San Francisco International. Following the summary there is an audio recording link of air traffic control (with normal moments of silents between communications), and comments from aviation experts which question how serious the incident actually was and speculation as to who was at fault. Hats off to the flyertalk forums for providing this information.

Breaking News: Yemeni Airliner Carrying 150 Crashes Into Indian Ocean

A Yemeni airliner with 150 people on board has crashed in the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean, a government official said Tuesday. "We don't know if there are any survivors among the 150 people on the plane," the official told Reuters. Read the lastest from Reuters.

Hopes Fade for 228 Aboard Missing French Jet

All 228 people onboard an Air France plane are feared dead after encountering stormy weather late Sunday night over the Atlantic Ocean. AF Flight 447 was enroute to Paris from Rio de Janeiro when it encountered severe turbulence four hours into the flight. Shortly thereafter, a series of automatic messages were sent from the plane reporting electrical faults in the aircraft. No mayday or official communication came from the pilot, but a crew member from a nearby flight reported "bright spots" in the ocean approximately 800 miles from Fernando de Noronha archipelago, in South America.  Authorities are currently scouring the sea looking for the possible wreckage site. 

Turkish Airliner Crashes in Amsterdam, 9 dead

The Associated Press is reporting a Turkish Airliner with 135 people on board has crashed at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The crash occurred on Wednesday as the plane was attempting to land. Early reports show nine death and 50 injuries. Officials on the ground say it was a miracle there were not more deaths. Read More from the AP.

Pilots Landing at Sea-Tac Airport Report Laser Incidents

This past weekend several pilots landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reported someone was shining a green laser light into the cockpits of the aircraft. This annoyance and safety issue is an ongoing issue that has plagued pilots throughout the country.

In the Seattle incidents, all the aircraft landed safely. But according to the Federal Aviation Administration, there have been 148 laser-related incidents this year. Last week a laser incident was reported at San Jose airport.

Aviation officials fear that the laser pointers may one day contribute to a plane accident, as the lights are pointed directly into cockpit windows during take-off or landing phases, the most dangerous part of any flight.

British Airways Plane Crashes At London Airport, Two Injuries

A British Airways regional jet enroute from Amsterdam crash-landed late Friday night at London's city airport. According to officials, the front landing gear on the aircraft failed. 67 Passengers and five crew escaped through the plane's emergency slides. Two injuries were reported.

Multiple Fatalities As Commuter Jet Crashes Near Buffalo

Breaking News: 10:00PM
Initial reports indicate there are no survivors.

A Continental Airlines commuter plane crashed and burst into flames late Thursday in Clarence Center, New York, just outside of Buffalo. Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air was enroute from Newark, when it went down about five minutes prior to landing in Buffalo. The FAA reports the plane was carrying 44 passengers, and 4 crewmembers. Live updates from MSNBC.

Why Chesley Sullenberger III May be the Last of His Kind

Guest Contribution
New York Magazine

By landing his Airbus A-320 in the Hudson River without a single loss of life, Captain Chesley Sullenberger might have officially brought the golden age of the heroic pilot to a close, as automation takes much of the actual flying out of the job and the piloting ranks are filled with fewer Air Force veterans. As one longtime pilot says, “Twenty-five years ago, we were a step below astronauts. Now we’re a step above bus drivers. And the bus drivers have a better pension.”

Sully has been in the business long enough to witness firsthand the domestication of the airline pilot. In the early days, pilots were largely uneducated farm boys or blue-collar kids who left home to become barnstormers. Some might never have spent a minute in flight school or read a flying manual. But as commercial air travel began rapidly expanding, the airlines embraced the image of the heroic captain, the distinguished man in uniform you can trust with your life. The industry paid top dollar for a new generation of service-academy-educated aviators, many of whom had been through Vietnam. This was Sully’s generation. By the seventies, as many as 80 percent of commercial-airline pilots had served in the military. “When Sully first got hired,” says Keith Hagy, the director of engineering and air safety for the Air Line Pilots Association, the pilots’ union, “he probably made a pile of money.”

The airlines liked military pilots, in part, because “the government had done all that work for them,” says Don Skiados, who has worked closely with pilots for 40 years as a past chairman of the Aviation Accreditation Board International. The military had already tested the pilots’ psychological abilities, emotional traits, knowledge base, reaction time, and ability to make judgments. The only downside of the military background was that the pilots were, by necessity, trained to be risk-takers. “The approach to the mission is that this is war,” says Bob Ober, who worked as a pilot for Pan Am for 25 years and Delta for 10. “We gotta go. It doesn’t matter if certain things are inoperative, we’re gonna take some risks.”

Since that time, pilot culture has done almost a 180. The maverick pilot has given way to the professional—the captain who knows how to put aside his ego and not take unnecessary risks. The change began when the military started downsizing after Vietnam and its talent pool dried up. The pilots of the military made room for a generation of pilots largely educated in flight schools offering four-year degree programs. Candidates racked up flight hours on small commuter planes over Albuquerque and Toledo, not in fighter jets.

The planes also began to change. Where a Vietnam-era pilot could fly more or less by stick and rudder, today’s pilots fly primarily by computer. Sully, for instance, was flying the Airbus 320. On older aircraft, a pilot pulls back on a wheel attached to cables that literally pull the plane up. On an Airbus 320, he pulls back a joystick that sends a signal to the computer’s auto-throttle. If he’s doing it wrong, the computer often corrects him, thrusting if he doesn’t do it soon enough, never stalling if he pulls back too hard. Takeoff has preprogrammed speeds; the pilot just moves a lever into a notch. Practically everything about the Airbus assumes the human factor to be the most dangerous thing about the flight. Incredibly, you can go on autopilot from as low as 100 feet in the air. Although some pilots worry about overreliance on technology and the distractions it can cause, most like a tricked-out plane. Still, there’s no getting around the fact that automation has taken control away from pilots. It’s the same with regard to air-traffic controllers and airline operations. Pilots used to have to navigate themselves; now it’s all done with GPS systems. Pilots used to have more discretion over takeoff times and maintenance decisions; now they’re frequently overruled.

Read on at http://nymag.com/news/features/53788/

Continental Jet Skids Off Runway, Dozens Hurt

A Houston-bound Continental Airlines flight skid skidded off a Denver runway Saturday evening, crashing into a nearby ravine. 38 injuries have been reported, none of which are considered critical according to Denver Airport officials. A small fire associated with the accident was quickly extinguished by airport services. Weather in Denver was cold, but not snowing at the time of the accident. Read more for MSNBC.

Russian Airliner Crashes, Killing 88

An Aeroflot plane crashed in the Russian city of Perm early Sunday, reportedly killing all 88 passengers and crew on board. Witnesses reported seeing the plane hit the ground sharply, perhaps at a 30 or 40 degree angle.

Investigators suspect technical failure was the cause of the crash, and reports from the ground indicate the plane's engines were on fire before the crash. One witness said it look like a burning comet racing toward the earth, followed by a massive explosion. Those killed include 21 foreigners, including one resident of the United States.

120 Feared Dead In Sudanese Plane Crash

(Guardian)
KHARTOUM, Sudan
At least 120 people were feared dead last night after a Sudan Airways plane carrying more than 200 passengers burst into flames shortly after landing at Khartoum airport. The flight, which had stopped at Amman en route from Damascus apparently veered off the runway after touching down in bad weather. Read more

Video of Lufthansa Plane Narrowly Avoids Disaster

Kudos to the cockpit crew for working against strong head winds, and landing everyone safely.Video is of an Airbus-320 trying to land in Hamburg Germany last Saturday. The actual touchdown shows one of the winds nearly making contact with the runway.

United plane backs into another @ SFO, no injuries

From SFGate: A United Airlines Boeing 757 jet that was backing out of a gate at San Francisco International Airport crashed into a SkyWest plane carrying 60 passengers and crew Sunday night in what airport officials called a serious accident. Read More

Air Canada plane makes emergency landing,14+ hurt

While enroute from Victoria, BC to Toronto this morning, a routine Air Canada flight encountered severe turbulence requiring the plane to make an emergency landing in Calgary. Of the 88 passengers on board, at least 14 were injured, including some seriously. Reuters is reporting there may be as many as 40 injured.Developing News.

NASA: 'You don't want to know what we know about flying safely'

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits.

Among other results, the pilots reported at least twice as many bird strikes, near mid-air collisions and runway incursions as other government monitoring systems show, according to a person familiar with the results who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. CBS NEWS