By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JOSH FUNK and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press
Federal investigators say a runway warning system didn't sound an alarm before an Air Canada jet and a fire truck collided at New York's LaGuardia Airport. The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that the system didn't work as intended because the fire truck did not have a transponder. The plane carrying more than 70 people slammed into the fire truck while landing late Sunday night. The two pilots were killed and several passengers were injured. But most were able to escape the mangled aircraft. Investigators don't know yet whether the two people in the fire truck heard the control tower's frantic, last-second warnings to stop before pulling into the plane's path.
The National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman says heroic actions by the crew aboard an Alaska Airlines flight ensured everyone survived last year when the door plug panel blew out of the plane. But Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday that the incident never should have happened. She says Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration could have done more to ensure the safety of the Boeing 737 Max. The NTSB had already revealed that bolts were never replaced after the door plug was removed during a repair. Homendy now says Boeing's new CEO has made many safety improvements since last summer, but that more needs to be done.
By SHONAL GANGULY, RAJESH ROY and AIJAZ HUSSAIN Associated Press
Updated
Indian investigators have recovered the digital flight data recorder or the black box of the Air India flight that crashed a day earlier. The crash on Thursday killed 241 people on board and at least five people on the ground. Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said that the black box recovery Friday marks an important step forward in the investigation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met with the lone surviving passenger of the London-bound Boeing 787 that struck a medical college hostel when it crashed into a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff. DNA testing was being conducted to identify the victims. More bodies are expected to be found in the search at the crash site.
An official says at least 240 people have been killed in the Air India flight that crashed in Ahmedabad. Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer in Ahmedabad, said Thursday that the dead include medical students who were in a college hostel when the plane hit the building. Indian Home Minister Amit Shah confirmed that a single passenger survived the crash. The Air India passenger plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed shortly after takeoff. Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed and burst into flames near the airport.
A preliminary report into why a Delta Air Lines jet burst into flames and flipped upside down as it tried to land in Toronto has been released. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada's report issued on Thursday said the aircraft's alert system indicated a high rate of descent less than three seconds before touchdown. The agency is continuing to investigate the Feb. 17 crash-landing in which 21 people were hospitalized. All 76 passengers and four crew members survived when the Delta Air plane arriving from Minneapolis burst into flames after flipping over and skidding on the tarmac. The TSB of Canada report says that when the plane's ground proximity warning system sounded 2.6 seconds before touchdown, the airspeed was 136 knots, or approximately 250 kilometers per hour.
All the recent aviation disasters and close calls definitely have people worried about the safety of flying. The midair collision that killed 67 near Washington D.C., was the worst of the recent disasters and near misses. There was also a fiery plane crash in Philadelphia, a plane crash in Alaska that killed 10 and a plane that flipped over upon landing in Toronto. Then this week there was the scary close call in Chicago. There have been other problems, too. But experts still say flying remains the safest form of transportation compared with driving or even riding on a train.
By DAVID KOENIG and WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP Business Writers
Boeing factory workers say they were pressured to work too fast and asked to perform jobs that they weren't qualified for, including opening and closing the door plug that later blew off an Alaska Airlines jet. Those accounts from inside the company were disclosed Tuesday, as federal investigators opened a two-day hearing into the blowout, which further tarnished Boeing's safety reputation and left it facing new legal jeopardy. A Boeing door installer said he was never told to take any shortcuts but everyone faced pressure to keep the assembly line moving.
