Brussels Attack Should Prompt New Look at Airport Population

Damage at the airport in Brussels Via Twitter @infos140

A bomb in the departure area of Brussels Airport that killed 11 people this morning is already prompting discussion about how to better secure public areas of airports.

The news site Mashable, is quoting Brussels-based security journalist Brooks Tigner, asking, "if [attackers] are going to target public departures areas, what do we do?" 

Other airports have already answered that question. Among those that have been pro active in protecting the assembly of air travelers is Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport, which has been closed to non travelers for years.

More Than Meets The Eye in Kenya Plane Spotter Arrests

Men from Manchester held by Kenya photo courtesy of The Star

There's something very strange about the news out of Nairobi in which four British men were arrested after taking photos of airplanes at the city's in-town airport.

According to a BBC report, the self-described plane spotters said they had permission to take photos of airplanes at Wilson Airport, but the sight of them with their cameras caused concern among some folk who noticed them, “from the airport bar,” and I’m quoting directly from the BBC report. 

After the men were picked up at Wilson Airport they were taken to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on the far side of the city and incarcerated there for nine days. Stephen Gibson, 59, Ian Glover, 46, Edwin Swift, 47 and Paul William, 47, will have to cough up $2,000 to get out of jail and out of the country according to the Kenya Star newspaper.

During my visit to Nairobi I roamed Wilson Airport on four occasions, once after having a lovely lunch at the colonial-era-styled East African Aero Club complete with photos of famous aviatrix Beryl Markham on the walls and aviation-themed movies playing on the lobby television. I wandered around the property including the guest houses snapping away.

Florence Wilson

It is worth noting these days while we are doing so much talking about women in aviation, that Wilson Airport, was named after Florence Wilson, a British widow and heiress who invested in an airline in the twenties with her lover, the pilot Thomas Campbell Black. 

While Campbell didn’t treat Wilson like a lady, (he left her, the story goes for Beryl Markham), even after he was gone, the business thrived. In 1939, however, the British government absorbed Ms. Wilson’s fleet along with the flying school into its Kenya Auxiliary Air Unit. In 1962, shortly before becoming the independent nation of Kenya, the airfield was renamed to honor Florence Wilson.

In February I transited through Wilson airport several times as I changed planes en route to Keyna’s famed wildlife parks; Amboseli and Maasa Mara. I took photos from inside the airport and out and from inside my airplane and out and I was far from the only one with a camera.

I recorded 5Y-IHO the DeHavilland Dash-8 and ET-AMV, the Cessna Caravan, both of which are being used by the United Nations World Food Program. 5Y-FDK the Phoenix Aviation’s King Air used by the Flying Doctor Service and the arrival of a fancy business jet from which emerged several men acting important and tailed by an entourage of what seemed to be journalists. Helicopter touch-and-gos, pilot pre flights, security screenings, I shot it all without seeing a raised eyebrow.

Kenya is justifiably cautious as it faces a terrorism threat with Somali violence on its eastern border. I don’t know what about this particular band of Brits made them more threatening to the authorities than other camera-wielding travelers. But my photos show there’s more to this story than what meets the eye.

Beautiful hangar at Wilson Airport

United Makes Peace by Reinstating Fired Crew, Qatar Not So Much

Two stories with big consequences for the participants and lessons for the rest of us were in the news this week. After years of fighting their firing for expressing concern about the security of their aircraft, 13 United flight attendants have been reinstated.

You may recall from a previous post on my blog, that in the summer of 2014, the cabin crew on a flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong, grew concerned about disturbing graffiti on the tail of their Boeing 747. Drawn in the grease were two faces and the words "bye bye".

The airlines operations staff dismissed the drawing as a benign prank - not a security issue and tried to dispatch the plane. The cabin crew was less sanguine. Malaysia Flight 370 had disappeared without a trace just four months earlier justifying - to them at least - their edginess.

Quest For More From CNN From MH-370

Full disclosure: The Crash Detectives, my own book on the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370, will be published by Penguin in September. This may have colored my perception of Richard Quest's new book, The Vanishing of Flight 370. Then again, maybe it really is a rehash of CNN's original undisciplined coverage.

Quest, CNN's business correspondent, is well known for his out-sized personality and his "say anything" interview style. But in the book he has produced for Penguin Berkley and timed to the second anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia 370, all his insouciant charm is gone. Without that, Quest's demonstrated ego wears thin long before the reader gets to the book's vanity snapshots section.

Note to Allegiant: Emergency Landings Are Not the Problem

Recently a friend asked me what airlines were the safest to fly. I get asked that question all the time. I find the question challenging in part because of the chasm between risk and perceived risk. 

For example, most air travelers will admit to some anxiety about the safety of their flight, but few worry much about the taxi in which they are speeding to the airport. Travelers are also treated to end-of-the-year news reports about the world’s most dangerous airlines based on fatalities. That’s a false relationship as I’ve reported before.

Sometimes, however, it is obvious what airlines to avoid. I was reminded of that today when I read the latest in the ongoing saga of America’s low cost carrier Allegiant. According to William Levesque in the Tampa Bay Times, a group of investors in the airline are calling for Allegiant to create a special safety committee after a number of emergency landings and maintenance problems that have plagued the airline.

Third World Bathrooms in OneWorld Terminal

Warning to readers:  Photos of toilets appear in this post.

Travelers at the airport hail from many countries and speak many languages but women arriving on oneworld flights into New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport have one word for the condition of the bathrooms in Terminal 8, “Ewwww.”

Aviation Year in Review Has a Star Wars Sci-Fi Feel

Harrison Ford and cast Disney handout photo 

Star Wars dominated the end-of-the-year entertainment news. Harrison Ford, the ageless superstar most associated with the ageless film franchise also arrives on my list of top aviation news stories as I wrap up the year with a look back at 2015. 

Happy Birthday from Syria and Other Places in a Troubled World

One of my Facebook messages today

Not long after my eyes opened this morning I enjoyed reading some of the early birthday greetings posted on my Facebook page. (Don't judge me.) It is heartwarming to be remembered by friends and family of course. Then I noticed something else; the remarkable number of countries from which those greetings came. I counted eleven even before 9:00 o'clock. 

My host family during my 2006 stay in Syria, my daughter’s former boyfriend in New Zealand, an au pair from Spain, a tour guide from Morocco, a pre-teen acquaintance from Australia, an a septuagenarian from Japan, business associates from Norway, Italy and India and fellow aviation enthusiasts from Holland, Sweden and France.

Nice Landing or Scary Takeoff A350 Enters Service With Both

A350 arrives in Brazil photo courtesy TAM

What a difference a week makes. Early this morning, TAM Airlines happily welcomed its first Airbus A350 when it touched down uneventfully in Brazil after a flight from Airbus HQ in Toulouse France. Earlier this week, however, it was quite a different experience when a Qatar Airways charter flight with aviation writers enjoying a look at the fancy new wide body, attempted to leave New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. 

Merry Christmas for U.S. Airlines With Record Profits in 2015

US Carrier profitability takes off

It will be a merry end of the year for North American airlines which will earn nearly $20 billion in profits in 2015, according to numbers forecast today by the International Air Transport Association.  That’s more than half of the $33 billion profit expected to be generated by the world’s passenger carriers for the year about to come to a close.

“North American airlines are way out ahead of the pack and producing good operating margins,” said Brian Pearce economist for the trade association in a presentation to journalists in Geneva. But in an industry more comfortable with and more accustomed to worrying about where the next dollar is going to come from, IATA chief Tony Tyler was quick to put a moderating spin on the news.

Science Shows Metrojet Crash Triggered by a Bomb

The blast that took down a Russian Airbus A321 over the Sinai last month, had to be triggered by a bomb, an experienced explosives expert said today. "If the information about the plane being at 31,000 feet is reliable, it's not a fuel air explosion," Merritt Birky, a former safety investigator with the NTSB told me. Lacking any indication that a missile hit the airplane, Birky's conclusion eliminates the other possible scenario, that the plane came apart mid flight due to an explosion in the plane's center fuel tank.

Prudence and Probable Cause Not the Same Thing in Metrojet Crash

UK Prime Minister Cameron Government photo

All over the news today is the story of the UK and Irish governments canceling flights out of Sharm el Sheikh. British Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters “ a bomb was more likely than not” to have brought down the Airbus A321 flown by the Russian charter airline, Metrojet.

But be cautious about drawing conclusions based on the reaction of government officials concerned about protecting the lives of citizens flying out of the Egyptian resort town. It is the job of Prime Ministers and other political leaders to be prudent and investigate what could have happened to determine if a real threat exists. That's not to say what is worrying them is what actually happened. 

Eyebrows Ascend as Airline Execs Demonstrate Their Plonker-ism

It never ceases to amaze me how often senior airline bosses will prattle on regardless of what they know about the subject. The latest you've-got-to-be-kidding remarks come from Alexander Smirnov, the deputy general director of the airline, Metrojet whose Airbus A321 crashed over Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Sunday. 

"We rule out a technical fault of the plane or a pilot error," the executive said at news conference in Moscow on Monday and adding fuel to the speculation that the Airbus A321  was brought down by a terrorist. "The only possible (sic) could be a purely mechanical external impact," Smirnov said. 

Passion but Few Tears in Amsterdam for Airliners That Fly into the Past

Too often air travel is an antiseptic experience for the passenger as we sit in tile-floored, waiting rooms, our heads down and our minds in cyberspace. It is so rare and so thrilling to actually smell the jet fuel and hear the whine of the engines at the few airports that still encourage a love of the journey. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is one of them and it's the perfect place to reflect on commercial aviation's first century since KLM Royal Dutch is, at 96 years old, the oldest airline still in operation under its original name. (And what a nice name it is.)  

A Soprano-Like Shakedown Squeezes Smisek out of United

Jeff Smisek in happier days

United's boss Jeff Smisek resigned from the airline today, as a probe continues into whether he and other top executives agreed to provide favors for a government official in New Jersey.

In a statement, United says it has been cooperating with a federal investigation and in fact, that the airline had conducted its own probe into whether David Samson of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey demanded the airline reopen a route to Columbia, South Carolina in exchange for the go-ahead on several airport projects at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Wing Flap Should Elevate MH 370 Investigation

The section of wing found on Reunion Island in the South Indian Ocean last week came from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, or at least enough of a positive identification was made today for the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to announce he's satisfied.

While not a surprise to anyone who has seen or read the news since the part was found on a rocky beach, Razak’s statement is a six foot bit of certainty in the still-mysterious disappearance of the Boeing 777 on March 8, 2014.

High but Not So Mighty American Dreamliner Damage Photos

Updated Thursday August 6th with news from inspection in Dallas

Radome damage

Glass half full: This American Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner, returned to Beijing safely after flying into a hail storm at 26 thousand feet (ish) after takeoff on July 27. All 209 passengers and a crew of 13 were able to continue on the way to Dallas albeit on a different airplane and with a delay.

Glass half empty: Travelers had the beejeebies scared out of them during the encounter. Passenger Dallas Rueschoff told a reporter, "We were going sideways, up and down...we dropped a good few hundred feet at least."  Or as a 787 pilot I know characterized it, "I bet that was a hellava ride and I'm glad I wasn't there." Then there is the damage to the brand new $200+ million airliner.

Egg Heads Unlikely Malaysia 370 Heroes in the Bamboozle Era

In the past I’ve referred to them as the kids who couldn’t get a date for the prom. Now, I bet the engineers at the British satellite communication company inmarsat will be the coolest kids of summer if the portion of an airplane found in Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean turns out to be from Malaysia Flight 370.

Jonathan Sinnatt, director of corporate communications for inmarsat said the company is not making any comment – certainly not before a determination is made about whether the 6 foot long piece of what appears to be part of a wing, is actually from the missing Malaysia Boeing 777.

Beauty Takes The Runway on A350 Tour (Just Don't Look Too Close)

F-WWCF the Airbus A350 MSN #2 in Newark on Thursday

The Airbus A350 XWB that flew into Newark Liberty International Airport this week on another stop on its tour of the Americas looked awfully pretty parked out on the ramp by Signature Aviation Services. But like many of us gals in the prep stage of a special event, one should not look too closely or the hairclips and Spanx might be visible.

Delta 747 Replacement Not Ready for Prime Time

N671US in Shannon days ago. Photo courtesy Kevin Corry

This just in: The Delta Air Lines Boeing 747 N664US which was heavily damaged by hail on a flight to Seoul Korea last month will return to the United States late this week but it appears her flying days are over. This Queen of the Sky, I am told, is headed for Marana Aerospace Solutions, a enormous boneyard for retired airliners north of Tucson, Arizona. For more on this story, read on.


This post has been updated with more information about the process of taking an airliner out of desert storage.

First its Arizona retirement was interrupted when it was called back to work to replace a hail-damaged sister ship during the busy summer travel season. Then the Boeing 747 N671US had to make an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland. 
Today I learned through a passenger scheduled to fly on this same jumbo, that his flight from Detroit to Narita was delayed due to problems with pressurization and air conditioning. The plane, you guessed it, N671US.  Two hours late, travelers did finally depart for Narita, but not on N671US, it was swapped out for another aircraft, presumably one in better shape.