Our headline may be hard to believe after a week of wondering what caused AirAsia Flight 8501 to crash into the Java Sea. There was a moment of disbelief on Dec. 28 when news first broke that the plane had disappeared from radar just 35 minutes into its flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.
ET had it right: Flying really is safer
Most of us have heard that most motor vehicle accidents occur close to home. The studies vary on the distance -- 1 mile, 10 miles, 50 miles -- but they all come to the same conclusion. Aside from being especially vigilant, there may be no way to change the results. Unless, of course, you choose never to go home again.
Do you see what I see? FAA regulations by 2015 may be a miracle p2
Continuing our discussion about drones….
Do you see what I see? FAA regulations by 2015 may be a miracle
We have been discussing the increasing popularity and availability of unmanned aerial vehicles -- aka UAVs or drones -- and the Federal Aviation Administration's attempts to regulate their use. The FAA has been slow to develop regulations for UAVs, but, as we said in our Nov. 21 post, the agency should publish rules for smaller (<55 lbs.) commercial drones in the next few weeks. (The federal government does not regulate UAVs used for "hobby or recreational reasons.")
'Spaceline' test flight goes wrong; can NTSB make it right?
In the days since the failed test flight of SpaceShipTwo, the 24-hour news cycle has spawned many predictable and unanswerable questions to experts, pundits and Virgin Galactic LLC founder Richard Branson. The most common has been, "What happened?"
'Spaceline' test flight goes horribly wrong
When the movie "The Right Stuff" came out in 1983, a friend of ours was in the early stages of what would become a lifelong crush on Sam Shepard. Shepard is a playwright and an actor who seems to specialize -- on screen, at least -- in modern cowboys that operate a little outside of the mainstream. His characters have been the silent, observant men of few words, rugged and singular but cultured in their own ways. Or so our friend says.
Flight attendants, airline employees question industry's response to Ebola p2
The controversy surrounding the Ebola virus here in the U.S. ramped up last week when one of the nurses who cared for Thomas Duncan flew from Ohio to Texas when she had a mild fever. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the nurse's symptoms fell well below the threshold in the agency's guidelines but also admitted that she probably should not have been on the plane.
Flight attendants, airline employees question industry's response to Ebola
The world is in the midst of the worst Ebola epidemic in history. The World Health Organization's first statement about the outbreak came in March 2014. Now, a little more than six months later, WHO reports that there have been nearly 9,000 cases and almost 4,500 deaths related to the virus.
Finding the right lawyer after an aviation accident
Following an aviation accident that has claimed the life of a loved one, family members can be left in a state of sadness and bewilderment. However, decisions made during this time can be crucial to the family’s financial well-being, so it’s important that the family have a good lawyer advocating on their behalf.
NTSB's TDA: We're the government, and we're here to help you
It may not have been the worst year, but 1996 was not a good year for aviation. It was the year of the ValuJet crash in the Everglades (110 aboard, 110 killed). There were crashes in Norway and India that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of passengers and crew members. A U.S. Air Force jet crashed in Croatia, killing the 35 people on board, one of whom was the Secretary of Commerce. And, of course, it was the year that TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 aboard.
