Polish Plane LOT Flight 16 Makes Crash Landing In Poland

                    

The Boeing 767-300 with 220 passengers aboard touching down with no
landing gear as emergency crews await

                                     
The LOT Airlines plane was carrying 230 people when it was forced to make a crash landing in Warsaw after an electrical failure meant the landing gear could not be deployed, TVN24 reported.

Video footage showed the plane touching down without landing gear. It slid along the runway on its belly before grinding to a halt. Emergency services rushed to put out a small fire, the report said. The plane circled over the airport in the Polish capital for more than an hour but could not get the landing gear to work due to the fault. The pilot then dumped fuel before warning passengers to prepare for an emergency landing. Passengers have spoken of their relief after the landing. "I was praying for the pilot not to lose control because we started to make circles over the airport. It was terrible," passenger Teresa Kowalik told the Daily Mail. Another passenger Joanna Dabrowska, 29 revealed how some of the passengers apparently feared the worst. "People were saying their final farewells to each other and some were sobbing," she said.
All aircraft due to land were diverted to other airports, and emergency vehicles prepared for the landing. Some roads around the airport were closed. The Boeing 767-300 with 220 passengers aboard travelling from Newark (in the United States) made a successful emergency landing after its landing gear failed to deploy. The plane landed safely on its belly on the runway which had been sprayed with special fire retardant substances to prevent sparks on touchdown. All the passengers disembarked, no one was injured," Chorzewski added. After the plane stopped, passengers exited the plane using inflatable emergency slides to the runway where emergency crews were waiting for them. Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski thanked the crew, particularly the pilot, for the safe landing and hailed passengers for their "efficient co-operation at a very difficult moment". The pilot, identified as Tadeusz Wrona, had 20 years of flight experience on Boeings in addition to his background as a flight planner. "He managed the landing perfectly," LOT chairman Marcin Pirog said. Wrona circled the aircraft near Warsaw for more than an hour, to burn off excess fuel stocks before the landing. Two Polish F-16 military fighter jets escorted the plane in line with routine procedures, an air force spokesperson told the Polish PAP news agency. Warsaw airport has suspended all flights until Wednesday morning in connection with the incident. An Iran Air Boeing 727 arriving from Moscow made a similar emergency landing on October 18 in Tehran after a landing gear failure. None of the 116 passengers were hurt.

Source: News Limited

Image: ATP
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Video: Iranian Pilot Saves 113 Lives, Then Receives Suspension

In what is being hailed as a "miraculous" landing, an experienced pilot successfully landed a Boeing 727 aircraft with 113 people on board after the landing gear in the nose jammed on approach. The crew did not receive a down and locked indication for the nose gear and aborted the approach. Following unsuccessful troubleshooting the crew decided to divert to Tehran's Mehrabad Airport where a low approach confirmed the nose gear was not extended.

Pilot Hooshang Shahbazi managed to keep the nose of the plane tilted upwards as it cruised down the runway before gently setting it down once the plane had lost enough speed, ultimately saving the 94 passengers and 19 crew members on board the flight that originated from Moscow. However, instead of accolades from his superiors, Tehranian officials grounded him for two months pending an investigation.

Authorities, wary of drawing attention to the condition of their aging fleet, have allegedly tried to keep the incident under the radar to avoid international scrutiny despite the heroic outcome. The decision to ground the pilot is clearly not properly justified.

Source: Sympatico News


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Video: Boeing

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Pan Am The TV Series Now On ABC

Pan Am Flight Crew-TV Series ABC

ABC’s high-flying period piece debuted early September 2011. Lots of mixed reviews so far, overall it’s a show that many will enjoy. But does Pan Am capture the glamor and romance of jet age travel, or simply imitate the success of a certain other 60′s shows?

Pan Am follows the lives of four stewardesses (not flight attendants) and one pilot, all crewing a brand new jetliner in 1963. Pan American is the biggest airline in the United States, the pilots are gods among men and the stewardesses are icons of freedom and grace. Behind the veil of marketing, the women are subjected to supermodel standards of beauty, which combine with a difficult and nerve-wracking career to set them all on edge. In reality, the pilots… are basically extremely well-trained playboys.

Image: Pan Am TV Series ABC

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Americas "NexGen" Air traffic System Has Yet to Take Off

The government is trying to modernize the nation's air traffic control system, but cost overruns, software problems and management concerns are making some wonder whether the so-called "Next Generation" system may take another generation to complete.

FAA Video of the NexGen Air Traffic System

The radar screens in the nation's aircraft control towers are based on technology dating to World War II. Many of the routes airliners fly were laid out at a time pilots followed bonfires for navigation at night.

The promise of NextGen, as explained in a video on the Federal Aviation Administration's website, is to bring all that into the 21st century.

"You will appreciate the increased safety, environmental benefits and reduced delays as the Next Generation Air Transportation System is adopted," the video says.

What sounds so whizzbang in the video isn't really all that different from the satellite-based GPS navigation systems many Americans have in their cars, but adopting that technology to the airline industry has been a challenge.

The Transportation Department's inspector general reported that one of the key software components of the system is running more than $300 million over budget and might not be fully phased in for another five years.

Airlines, too, have been investing in elements of the new system. One, in particular, would enable aircraft to land in a more efficient, fuel-saving manner — better than the way planes land now.

"You can actually feel it, where a plane will lose altitude and it will drop, say 5,000 feet, and then it will stay steady for a while at the same altitude and then it will drop again," says Steve Lott with the Air Transport Association, the airline industry lobbying group. "It's this stepped landing approach that is not particularly efficient, and using satellite technology, we can have a smoother landing."

Lott says the airline industry wants the FAA to allow more use of the advanced navigation procedure, for which many aircraft are now equipped. The deputy administrator of the FAA, Michael Huerta, told a congressional panel recently the agency is working on making that happen.

"In the year ahead, what we really want to do is focus on how can we improve the quality of these procedures, and how can we see the very real benefits associated with reduced fuel consumption, reduced time and corresponding environmental benefits as well," he says.

But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says until Congress approves a long-term bill for the FAA, the NextGen program will remain in a holding pattern.

"We're stuck in mid-air because of the fact that Congress won't pass an FAA bill. As soon as they pass a bill, we've got a big, bold vision for Next Generation technology," he says.

The government's share of the NextGen program is estimated to be more than $20 billion. That's another big concern of its supporters — coming up with that cash at the same time the government is desperately looking for ways to cut spending.

Photo: Flickr/gTarded


Source: NPR


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British Airways -2011 Advert: To Fly. To Serve.

Source: British Airways


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Bombardier's New CRJ, The CRJ-1000 Nex Gen

Source: Bombardier


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SilverCrest Corporate Movie

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