Flying in the Time of Cicadas

Over the weekend the crew of a Challenger 350 at John C. Tune Airport (KJWN) in Nashville, Tennessee, was having difficulty starting its engines. "We put a borescope down the APU and found it full of cicadas. They blocked the airflow." Cicadas are not terribly selective, and they were apparently attracted to the noise and heat of the APU and piled into the inlet, blocking the airflow. When the technicians evaluated the problem, they were attacked by the swarm. (www.flyingmag.com) Más...

Frontier Airlines CEO urges crackdown of ‘rampant abuse’ of airport wheelchair service

The 1986 Air Carrier Access Act requires airlines to provide a wheelchair for passengers with disabilities at the airport. The problem, though, is that many travelers are faking it, Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said. He said he has seen some Frontier flights where 20 people were brought in wheelchairs at departure, with only three using them upon arrival... some travelers were “using wheelchair support to try to get fast-tracked through the airport.” (www.cnbc.com) Más...

FAA bill would force the agency to craft 'real world' rules for airplane evacuations

If an airplane has to be evacuated, the Federal Aviation Administration says all passengers must be capable of getting out within 90 seconds. But critics say the agency's testing standards have not kept pace with the shrinking size of airplane seats — which means more people jammed into the cabin — or the changing composition of the flying public. U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth argues the FAA's current tests fail to take real world conditions into consideration. (www.npr.org) Más...