The announcement over the plane’s speaker seems as much a part of the
routine before takeoff as the demonstration of how to buckle a seat
belt: Please turn off all electronic devices.
Other work
Interfering With Flight?
By CHRISTINE NEGRONI
Published: January 17, 2011
But some passengers invariably ignore the request, perhaps thinking that
their iPods or e-books do not count. And really, does it matter if the
devices are left on? The answer, it turns out, is that sometimes it may.
Read the full article here
Read the full article here
Helicopter EMS Operations -- At What Cost
BY Christine Negroni and Dr. Patrick Veillette
The authors explain the special challenges in air medicine through a comprehensive and statistical analysis of EMS helicopter accidents, incidents and events in the United States from 1985-2007
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERESafety Crisis in EMS Aviation Demands
Prompt Attention
BY Christine Negroni
Ronnie Helton had just
begun work as a flight nurse when he died in the crash of an air
ambulance in Colorado in
2007. His body was returned to his mother, still living in their
home town of Southside,
Alabama. “For four months I couldn’t stop crying,” said his mother,
Patty Smith a real
estate broker in Alabama. “I would stay in my son’s bed and I wouldn’t leave
his room.” READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE
A Fire Risk That Clears Security
BY Christine Negroni
Published October 26, 2009
Battery fires in
personal electronic devices can be scary.
But if a battery ignites on a plane, the risks are much greater. With more
people traveling with an assortment of portable electronics — sometimes a plane
has more devices than passengers — fires are occurring on airliners with
increasing frequency. PDF
Where Hospitality Is an Oasis
BY Christine Negroni
Published: Sunday January 19, 2003
Six months earlier, I had never heard of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, population 2.7 million, a West African nation of fishing and iron mining, where the Atlantic ends and the Sahara begins. I'd been invited on an expedition to recover the wreckage of a BOAC airliner that made a forced landing in the desert in May 1952. The 18 people aboard, including a baby, had been stranded in one of the harshest environments on earth.
BY Christine Negroni
Published: Sunday January 19, 2003
Six months earlier, I had never heard of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, population 2.7 million, a West African nation of fishing and iron mining, where the Atlantic ends and the Sahara begins. I'd been invited on an expedition to recover the wreckage of a BOAC airliner that made a forced landing in the desert in May 1952. The 18 people aboard, including a baby, had been stranded in one of the harshest environments on earth.
Deadly Departure
By Christine Negroni
In a matter of seconds, the men in the cockpit realized they were going to die. In the minute that passed before the plane hit the water, fifty-seven-year-old pilot Steven Snyder was probably astonished that the Boeing 747, a plane he knew intimately and trusted completely, was failing him. Oliver Krick, the twenty-five-year-old flight engineer on the verge of becoming a commercial airline pilot was likely feeling a different and unfamiliar emotion. For the first time in a life filled only with accomplishments, Oliver Krick felt helpless.
Thirteen minutes into the flight, the plane was still climbing out of New York airspace. There had been an explosion closely followed by a disorienting tempest of unrecognizable sounds. The force behind the noise shook the flight deck. When a quick fog of condensation filled the cockpit, the men grabbed for their oxygen masks and set the control knobs to the emergency position to begin a flow of pressurized oxygen. Pilot training always includes time in a flight simulator practicing for in-flight emergencies, but there's no practice for the situation that was facing the pilots of TWA Flight 800. They did not know it, but the plane had split apart.
With Video, a Traveler Fights BackUnited Airlines learned its lesson the hard way that David Carroll was not just another customer. After baggage handlers at United broke his guitar last summer and the airline refused to pay for the $1,200 repair, Mr. Carroll, a Canadian singer, created a music video titled “United Breaks Guitars” that has been viewed more than 5.8 million times. United executives met with him and promised to do better. PDF
Modern communication technology allows even those with little important to say to transmit real-time information about where they are and what they are doing. But last month, when Airbus jets from Air France and Yemenia Airways crashed into the ocean, taking their black boxes into the deep with them, neither aircraft could send its data and cockpit voice recordings to a secure place on the ground. PDF
Fired Flight Attendant Finds Blogs Can Backfire
Published: November 16, 2004
ntil two weeks ago, Ellen Simonetti worked as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines,
doing her best to project the image of a stewardess from a bygone era.
"In the past people expected flight attendants to be young and
attractive," Ms. Simonetti, a 29-year old blonde, said from her home in
Austin, Tex. "Maybe I represent the flight attendants of the past."
But it is Ms. Simonetti's very 21st-century activities that she says prompted Delta management to ground her, suspending her from flying in September and then firing her a month later. PDF