Plane with 92 passenger skeletons lands 35 years later, pilot still at controls

"God only knows how a skeleton managed to land it..."

via Weekly World News

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Steampunk novel cover? — Bristol Boxkite airplane flies over Stonehenge

By Jack Brummet, Old Ways Ed.

A Bristol Boxkite airplane over Stonehenge, circa 1910.  This seems like it needs to be on the cover of a steampunk novel.

click to enlarge

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Photo: Commuting

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Photograph: Traveling by air

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The New New Patdown & The TSA uproar

By Jack Brummet
All This Is That Social Mores Editor

I've written quite a few times over the last three years about TSA and their various security procedures. Mostly I've probably been dismissed (perhaps rightfully) as a crank. 

I've flown about 170 times in the last four years, and every single time (except two--both at John Wayne Airport in Orange County), I've set off the metal alarm in the scanners because of the stainless steel femur that was installed in my leg 15 years ago. [Note: this doesn't apply to my travel in Europe and Asia, where I have never been singled out]. Setting off that metal-detection alarm means you are subjected to a close personal inspection.   I've been patted down a couple hundred times times now.  First, they would go over your whole body with a wand.  And then they would give you a close pat-down, focusing on theareas that set off the alarm on the wand (like your hip, and the zipper on your jeans). 

No one really thought a lot about it when it was just those of us with joint replacements getting pulled out of the security line and frisked.  But now...the uproar has begun because it's everyone.  You either need to pass through the machine that sends an image of your naked body to a friendly TSA guy or gal, or if you would prefer not to be seen naked you get to have a close personal pat-down.

I just had the opportunity to undergo the "new New NEW pat-down" the day after the revised and aggressive security regulations took effect.  Look, it's not not actually invasive, but it is extremely close, and they've have very definitely Cranked Up Their Act.  They've seriously ratcheted up the pat-down we've had to endure these last ten years.  On the other hand, they now forgo the wanding...which always seemed a particularly inept follow up measure.   And as a side-note, they've also become extremely friendly and apologetic about the procedure.  To be fair, I've always just grinned it and beared (Bore?) it, and avoided getting visibly cranky about it.  The TSA guys didn't make the rules, and in all my dealings with them, they've been pretty OK.  Normally I smile and say no problem and try to get through it as quickly as possible, since I almost never arrive at the airport more than 45-60 minutes before my plane leaves! 

With all of the time I've spent with TSA folk (including two times when I got the total invasion, about which, see below), I have been able to ask questions...and I usually try to get them talking about dry runs or how they profile people, which is of course about the last thing they will talk about.  I've always had the best luck with them asking for their cranky customer stories.  And they all have millions.  I've seen dozens of tantrums and shocking disrespect towards the TSA guys--and you know, in my experience, there is roughly a 90-10 ratio of good guys to assholes in the TSA--which may well surpass the ratio among the citizenry at large.

The total invasion consists of a mortifyingly close evaluation of all your gear (and your whole act..the people I've talked to those two times definitely seemed like profilers), which happens all at random according to the TSA stooges.  I had three books.  They thumbed through each and every page, and shined a flashlight down the spine of the hardcover.  They took out my iPad and brought it back to a special area, along with my BlackBerry, a Nintendo DS, and two USB flash drives.  They turned every piece of clothing inside out, squirted fluids from liquids I had (contact lens solutions, witch hazel, SFP 15 sun blocker, India Ink --for drawing)  for what?  testing?  They invite you to repack, once they've inspected every item, inside and out.

This article has links to about a dozen earlier stories of life and times with the TSA.

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Asleep at the wheel? Stoned? An Northwest Airlines jet misses runway by about 150 miles

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a runaway 'plane flight Wednesday night where Northwest pilots approaching Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in an Airbus A320 overshot the airport by around 150 miles. They had to circle back to land. To the panic of the air-traffic controllers, they also lost radio contact. Controllers knew the plane hadn't crashed, but there was no response for an alarming period of time. The NTSB is trying to figure out exactly what really happened up there.



It happened on another plane recently, as well.



According to the Associated Press, the crew claims they were distracted by a heated debate on airline policy and lost track of where they were. Really?


Were the pilots momentarily abducted?

Northwest had another snafu this week when their crew on a 767 from Brazil to Atlanta landed on the taxiway instead of the runway.
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All This Is That Hero of the Year: Sully! Chesley Sullenberger's amazing qualifications for pulling off a miracle

The Pilot who landed his disabled jet in the Hudson yesterday and then helped get everyone off the plane (even walking up and down the plane twice and looking under every seat) is truly an American Hero. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III is a captain for American Airways with over 40 years of flying experience. But get this. . .of all the people who could have flown that plane, he may have been singular in that he was the best trained of almost any pilot for an emergency. He is a scholar of air disasters, and even has a company that teaches and consults on air safety.

From the SRM web site, read his amazing qualifications:

SRM Founder Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III is a captain for a major U.S. airline with over 40 years of flying experience. A former U.S. Air Force (USAF) fighter pilot, he has served as an instructor and Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) safety chairman, accident investigator and national technical committee member. He has participated in several USAF and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident investigations. His ALPA safety work led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular.

Working with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists, he coauthored a paper on error inducing contexts in aviation. He was instrumental in the development and implementation of the Crew Resource Management (CRM) course used at his airline and has taught the course to hundreds of his colleagues. Sully is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy (B.S.), Purdue University (M.S.) and the University of Northern Colorado (M.A.). He was a speaker on two panels at the High Reliability Organizations (HRO) 2007 International Conference in Deauville, France May 29-31, 2007. He has just been named a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Face scans at airports are coming to the U.K.; it will happen here

A face recognition system will scan faces to match them against the biometric

chips on passports in England. Photograph: Image Source/Getty

In the United Kingdom, a new level of scrutiny is about to be added to the other indignities air travellers suffer from. I have been on roughly 80 different airplanes in the last 16 months, and have written here fairly extensively about the airlines and airport security, and the indignities to which we are subjected as we try to get from one place to the other[1]:

According to the U.K. Guardian:

"Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal.

"From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports.
Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports.

"But there is concern that passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automated gate. To ensure no one on a police watch list is incorrectly let through, the technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of "false negatives" - innocent passengers rejected because the machines cannot match their appearance to the records.

"They may be redirected into conventional passport queues, or officers may be authorised to override automatic gates following additional checks. "

[1]

Aviophobia: Pilot's gun discharges on US Airways flight
Blown by the TSA again/Aviophobia once again
Aviophobia, Part 26
Airport Screeners Miss Fake Bombs 75% Of The Time
Aviophobia, Part 22
Poem: Landing, or, Aviophobia, Part 26
Aviophobia Update
Hello Austin! Goodbye Fear of Flying!
A confession: How I slipped through the NSA metal detectors. . .with some heavy metal!
Fear Of Flying, Fear of Dying
Poem: Falling
Poem: Notes On Flying
One More Reason Why I Am Scared Sh**less To Fly: Video Of Fixing A Jet's Wing With Duct Tape
Airline passenger restrictions, hip replacements, and why the Executive Branch goes unmolested, while I am scanned, probed, poked and patted down
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The day I was blown by the TSA: new security measures being deployed

If you ever saw the movie Total Recall, you've seen airport security as it will be. As The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, walks through a tunnel an X-ray machine projects his skeletal frame onto a wide screen in an nearby control room.

Returning to the USA last week from Mexico, our plane landed in San Francisco, where we would go through customs (and security). In Mexico, the security at the airport could best be described as perfunctory. Yeah, I set off the metal detector as I always do, but instead of the frisking, questions and patdown, I just got a quick pass with wand. No liquids out, no computer out, no shoes or belt or jacket off. It was almost like the old days.

In San Francisco, going through the gauntlet to get back to the US, I was placed in an entirely new (to me) machine. It's an extremely sleek and futuristic looking booth. I told my traveling partners it looked like something the Nazis might have dreamed up in 2000, if they'd been around. This booth smells you!

You step inside. The doors silently slide closed and the machine begins blowing air around you and directing jets of air at spots on your body. It stops, analyzes the air for explosive residue, and flashes a little green light to say you can proceed. I was blown by the TSA.


The Sentinel non-invasive walk-through scanner that can screen
more than 400 people per hour for explosives or for narcotics
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The "TB Dude" Speaks Out

The T.B. Dude And Wife

Everyone's up in arms about the TSA/the border inspector who allowed the TB "typhoid Annie" into the U.S. Especially me. And all the 80 year olds with his replacements. . .as the drug smugglers and others waltz right up the jetway. As I stepped onto the 737 in California last night, I had been frisked and patted down 12 times by the TSA times this month alone (due to my stainless steel femur).[1] And yet this guy, teeming with deadly cooties gets passed right onto the plane. Even though the "system" had flagged him as a risk:

An Associated Press article today said: "A globe-trotting Atlanta lawyer with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was allowed back into the U.S. by a border inspector who disregarded a computer warning to stop him and don protective gear, officials said Thursday. The inspector has been removed from border duty."

From ABC News: Andrew Speaker has asked for forgiveness from the airline passengers he exposed to a rare strain of tuberculosis, and told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview that he has a tape recording of a meeting with health officials that he claims will confirm his view that it was all right to travel in his condition.

Germs Lurk on Planes, Trains and Buses

Tuberculosis -- Are You at Risk?

"He says he wants everyone to know how he made the decision, why he felt so strongly that it was not endangering anybody else and [is] also asking forgiveness of those onboard who are now having to be tested," Diane Sawyer said after spending an hour with the TB patient and his wife, Sarah Speaker, at the National Jewish Research Center in Denver, where he is currently in isolation.

"He talks at length about the decision first of all to go abroad, to hold his wedding abroad, and … there is a tape recording of the meeting that he had with health officials, and they say it confirms completely their view that it was all right for him to travel," Sawyer said.

You can see a video of Diane Sawyer on her interview here.

[1] Let me also note that I have now been patted down and frisked by the same TSA agent in Newport Beach three different times. He stands out in my mind, because of all the searches I get, his are the most, shall we say, extensive or intensive? This guy is thorough, and I started wondering this time if he doesn't enjoy his work a little too much?
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