Radioactive woman sparks scare in Airport

In these heightened times of high security, especially after planes were used as instruments of mass killing in the WTC attacks, the state of checking at airports is very intense. And the talks of a dirty bomb comprising of dispersal of radioactive substances make checking for radioactive substances a necessary action. So imagine the state of panic at an airport in Vladivostok where a security alarm was set off after detection of radioactive substances:

Authorities evacuated the airport terminal in Vladivostok, in Russia’s far east, after a flight arriving from Seoul set off a radiation alarm.
The alarm was called off when security officials pinpointed the source -- a woman who had just received radiation therapy, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday.

Treating with radioactive substances for medical reasons is not unknown nowadays, so this was not something totally out of the world. However, it may be possible that the airport was not prepared for something like this. Maybe the next time, advance information should be sent so that such panic does not ensue.

Jennifer Lopez sued for dog flight

It is presumed that the rich and powerful (especially celebrities) can get away with anything, but sometimes they run against people who are ready to challenge them. Especially for celebrities, the public is far more likely to accept that a celebrity has been at fault, and the story is also highlighted by the media as a juicy morsel that more people will want to read. Consider this case:

The perception may be that anything goes for private jet travelers, but as Jennifer Lopez is finding out, there are some limits to what you can get away with aboard a private jet. As first reported in the New York Daily News, NetJets flight attendant Lisa Watson filed a suit against the Latin diva seeking $5 million in damages from an alleged bite made by Lopez’s guard dog aboard a flight from Farmingdale, NY to Burbank, CA on July 3, 2006.
According to Wilson, 90 minutes into the flight, the dog attacked her and bit into her pant leg as she walked down the cabin of the Gulfstream G-IV. As she tried to get away, Wilson says she twisted and fell, injuring her back in the process. The injuries she sustained would eventually require surgery, and prevented her from being able to work since the incident.

Being a celebrity gets you many benefits, but also comes with its own problems, as Jennifer Lopez is finding out, and many other celebrities already know.

Over-weight means you are grounded

This must be extremely humiliating. Having to be told that you are over-weight and hence can no longer be an air-hostess. It is always controversial, the conditions that are imposed for certain jobs. So if a person is working as a model, or as an actress, or as a hostess (whether that be in a hotel, or in a cafe, or in an airlines), there are certain conditions that are imposed in terms of looks and youthfulness. It gets further complicated when the organization is a Government run enterprise and rules against discrimination come into play:

Flight attendant Sheela Joshi is 5 feet, 4 inches and 148 pounds. Her employer, Air India, says she is too fat to fly. Joshi, 50, has been an air hostess -- as they are still called in India -- for the national airline for 26 years. But she's been grounded because the airline has done away with its wiggle room on weight.
"Weight is always on my mind," she added. "They can tell you, 'You look overweight. Please go.'" Joshi and 12 other grounded attendants sued the airline for weight discrimination. Air India fought back, saying the employees knew the job requirements when they signed up and didn't express concern. Furthermore, it said, appearance and physical fitness are vital parts of an attendant's job. The Delhi High Court recently sided with Air India in the case.

Always controversial because they play to the thought that you need to be slim to look attractive to passengers, something that US carriers have had to drop because of too many discrimination suits in the past.

New York lawyer sues Delta for mistreatment

You know the concept, never mis-treat a lawyer unless you want to be dragged through a whole trial that could be very damaging to the public relations for Delta Airlines. A New York lawyer has filed a case against Delta for causing his vacation to turn into a nightmare, with having to spend a long time in the airport, and being treated very rudely by the staff of the airline. The man had planned a trip to Buenos Aires to celebrate his mom's 80th birthday; instead he ended up spending many days in the airport, being without luggage and being treated very rudely by the airline staff:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York lawyer is suing Delta Air Lines for $1 million, saying his family vacation turned into a nightmare after they were stranded in an airport for days and treated disdainfully by airline employees. Roth, his two teenage children, his wife and mother spent three days in airports, went days without their luggage, were treated rudely by airline employees and were forced to spend $21,000 on unused hotel rooms in Argentina, replacement clothes, and other costs.
After the initial flight from New York was delayed by more than two hours, the family was not allowed to board their connecting flight in Atlanta, Roth said. A Delta employee "literally walked away chuckling that he had left them stranded," he said.
After waiting in the airport for hours, Roth was told the next available flight would depart more than two weeks later. He then booked a flight through a different airline and arrived in Argentina three days later than planned. The family was not reunited with their luggage for more than five days.

This would be yet another horror story about airlines and their staff; unfortunately, there are many such stories that are common place nowadays.

Flight attendant tried to set plane on fire

In a report on how stupid a person could be, especially in this heightened state of tension and worries about terrorism (specifically with relation to aircraft), a flight attendant was angry about his work routine and set fire to paper towels in the aircraft lavatory. He was finally caught, arrested, and fired from his job. Even with all the mercy petitions that he can file and pleas for mercy, he is looking at some jail time:

Court documents said Rojas, of the Twin Cities suburb of Woodbury, told authorities he was upset at the airline for making him work the route. He is accused of taking a lighter with him through the security checkpoint, authorities said. "Rojas further stated that he was preparing his cart to serve the passengers, he set the cart up, went back to the lavatory and reached in with his right hand and lit the paper towels with the lighter," court documents said.
Investigators later found a lighter in one of the overhead bins. Rojas confessed after authorities interviewed him, the complaint said. Compass is a subsidiary of Northwest Airlines, based in Eagan, Minn. Rojas has been fired, said Northwest spokesman Rob Laughlin.

If prosecutors do decide to get tough, Rojas is looking for a long time in the prison, since the maximum sentence for such a crime is 20 years in prison. He will have to get a public defender who can plea-bargain his case.

Flying unsafe planes

In a report that could scare passengers traveling on the budget carrier, Southwest Airlines, an investigation has revealed that the airline carried thousands of people on aircraft that were technically unsafe, on which mandatory safety checks had not been carried out. This carried on for some planes that were flown for 30 months after mandated Government inspection deadlines had passed; in such cases planes are normally grounded till the inspections have been carried out so that passenger safety is never in threat. And what is even more worrisome is that FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) officials knew about this, and yet did not do anything as this could have affected the flight schedules of the airline:

Documents submitted by Federal Aviation Administration inspectors to congressional investigators allege the airline flew at least 117 of its planes in violation of mandatory safety checks. In some cases, the documents say, the planes flew for 30 months after government inspection deadlines had passed and should have been grounded until the inspections could be completed. The planes were "not airworthy," according to congressional air safety investigators.
"The FAA is taking action against Southwest Airlines for a failing to follow rules that are designed to protect passengers and crew," Nicholas A. Sabatini, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety, said in a written statement. Calling it "one of the worst safety violations" he has ever seen, Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, is expected to call a hearing as soon as possible to ask why the airline put its passengers in danger.

The airline in its response did not seem too bothered at these violations, and stated that this did not seem a flight safety issue. One would have thought that an airline carrying passengers would deem passenger safety the utmost, but maybe thinking that a corporate would put profit second is not realistic.

Carrying 5 passengers on a modern flight

Imagine the lap of luxury; you are one of only 5 passengers traveling on a modern fully equipped airliner, with 2 crew members per passenger. Sounds like having your own luxury private jet, does it not ? Well, as it turned out, this was a regular commercial flight across the Atlantic where American Airlines carried 5 passengers (and in their defence, a full cargo load). In a time when there is worry about the environmental impact of the modern jet passengers and the amount of fuel that they burn and pollute the atmosphere with, carrying only 5 passengers means that each passengers is roughly responsible for a footprint of 35.77 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the same as driving a car for 100,000 miles:

"Flying virtually empty planes is an obscene waste of fuel. Through no fault of their own, each passenger's carbon footprint for this flight is about 45 times what it would have been if the plane had been full," Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner Richard Dyer said. Because of a mechanical malfunction, AA flight 90 was 14 hours late leaving Chicago's O'Hare airport on February 8. Though most passengers made other arrangements to London, five lucky passengers unable to be rebooked made the 6,400 kilometer (4,000 mile) flight in business class, with two crew members per passenger.
"With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights," says American Airlines' European spokesperson Anneliese Morris. "However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly to the U.S. on the same aircraft." Morris was quick to point out that despite the staggeringly low passenger count, the flight did carry a full cargo load.

The answer from the airline was expected, but one wonders as to how seriously does the airline business consider the environmental impact of their business ?

Airline pilot fired for buzzing Washington airfield

A commercial jet is a very big craft, consuming a large amount of fuel per minute. At the same time, pilots have a sense of being all-powerful, and especially when they are not carrying passengers, are not averse to being adventurous. Well, a pilot had to pay for his sense of adventure when he did an unsolicited fly-by at a US airfield (a fly-by is when a pilot takes the plane very close over the runway without landing). The Chairman of the airline was on the plane at this time:

Cathay spokeswoman Carolyn Leung said the pilot was dismissed last week because he did not seek or obtain approval for the fly-by, which has been done several times before at air shows with the airline's permission.
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported Sunday that the airline's chairman, Christopher Pratt, was on the plane when the pilot, Capt. Ian Wilkinson, swooped back over the Boeing plant shortly after taking off.

Finding mice aboard a flight

Imagine being on a long flight, in pretty close quarters (it's a packed flight after all). You are dreading the confinement, the claustrophobic environment, and the odd passenger in the seat next to you; what could make it worse is if you find mice next to you. Well, such a story could really happen:

BEIJING - Eight baby mice were found aboard a United Airlines flight from Washington but tests showed they were free of dangerous viruses, the Chinese government said Thursday. The mice were found by a cleaning crew in Beijing after the flight arrived Sunday, according to the airline.
The mice were found in a pillowcase in a bin for unused pillows, said Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for Chicago-based United. She said no passengers were on board at the time. "Our customers on this flight were always safe and unaware of the situation," Urbanski said.

Unaware is the correct word. If rats can breed aboard a flight, then one does not know about the safe part.

Pilot ejected from his own flight

Imagine getting on an airplane and watching the pilot behave in a very animated way on the phone while getting on. Imagine further trying to talk to the pilot about it, and being abused by the pilot. This happened to the passengers of a Northwest Airlines flight with 180 passengers on board. Based on this, FAA authorities and the police were called, who promptly took the pilot aside and began questioning him.
The FAA officals in turn called the airline authorities who removed the pilot from the flight and took him to airline headquarters for further questioning. The flight was cancelled, and the passengers could only suffer as they had to re-scehdule their plans; that too on a Easter weekend when family related plans would be on the minds of a number of passengers.
Read the story here.

Baby in X-ray

In an accident, a woman put her 1-month grandson through an X-ray machine at the Los Angeles International Airport. This was obviously an accident, and I am sure that this would have happened due to the hustle and bustle at the X-ray machine where the woman would accidentally have put her baby on a tray.
In a sign that security workers are actually looking at the contents of the baggage, one of the X-ray personnel noticed the shape of a child on the carry-on baggage check and pulled the child out. Doctors determined that no harm done.

Airlines to connect Ipods to screens

There is an article on TheRegister that around 6 airlines have signed an agreement with Apple to fit iPod docs onto seat-back screens. So users will be able to charge their iPods while in the air, and also be able to see videos stored on Ipods onto the 'slightly' bigger screen of the seat screen. Not yet specified which class of passangers will be able to use this, but this can be a major hit with the iPod carrying community.