Solar Airplane Completes Cross-Country Flight

by Chris Owen on

If you have been following along on the journey of Solar Impulse, the solar airplane that was set to fly across the United States, we have good news: the journey is over after a successful flight from Washington to New York on Saturday.

The two-month, ground-breaking flight started in California and took 14,000 viewers along for the ride in streaming video. The “Clean Generation” initiative flight of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg successfully landed at New York John F. Kennedy International Airport at 11:09 p.m. EDT. Flying across the United States, Solar Impulse was powered only by energy that came from 12,000 solar cells installed on its wings and horizontal stabilizer.Making aviation history, the team of Solar Impulse has come a long way but has even further to go. In 2015, they plan on flying around the world, totally on solar power of course.

The Solar Impulse team will be available to the public at JFK International Airport on Saturday July 13 from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday July 14 from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Developing Story: Airline Crash in San Francisco

by Jess Moss on


A plane reportedly crashed upon landing at San Francisco International Airport today. CNN reports the plane was a Boeing 777 operated by Asiana Airlines.

A YouTube video showed the smoking plane at the crash site.

This has been a busy week for airline collision news, with a close-call near-collision above Michigan and a call for air traffic control changes after a number of near collisions in recent months.

Passengers on the plane tweeted about the crash:

Update: 3:59 PM EST

Initial reports from passengers indicate most people on board did not suffer major injuries.

Update 4:07 PM EST

Local news outlet KTVU is reporting that all flights into SFO are cancelled and roads around the airport have been shut down.

Update 4:11 PM EST

Passengers from Asiana flight 214 are being taken to local hospitals. The flight as en route to San Francisco from Seoul. Initial reports from passengers claim that the nearly 300 people on board the plane are accounted for. David Eun, a Samsung executive, was on the plane and posted updates via Twitter. Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer was scheduled to be on the flight but switched to a United flight to use miles:

Update: 4:34 PM EST

Local news outlet KTVU now reports at least two people were killed in today’s plane crash.

Photos and video of the plane show a large, charred hole in the top of the cabin, and the tail is detached from the body of the plane. Details are still coming in about the crash, while some people speculated its cause on Twitter:

Others reacted to landing at SFO in general:

Update: 5:11 PM EST

Read a transcript or listen to the audio of the communication between the plane and air traffic control when the incident occurred here.

Update: 7:20 PM EST

San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hays-White: “The scene is now secure.”

Hays-White reports 291 passengers and 16 crew on board the plane. There were 48 initial transports from the scene to area hospitals, with additional passengers waiting to be transferred to hospitals. There were two confirmed fatalities. Some passengers are unaccounted for.

Two of SFO’s four runways are back in operation.

The FBI says the crash does not appear to be caused by terrorism.

Airport X-Ray Scanner Radiation No Big Deal, Say Scientists

by Gadling Staff on

The topic of overexposure to radiation via airport X-ray scanners comes up from time to time, mostly by frequent fliers concerned for their health. But in a new study out this week, scientists say travelers absorb less radiation from an airport security scan than just standing around waiting for it.

Using two scanners at the Los Angeles International airport (LAX), a traveler would have to take more than 22,500 scans in a year to be in trouble, concluded a recent test.

“We think the most important single take-away point for concerned passengers is to keep an appropriate perspective,” said Christopher Cagnon, PhD, DABR, the chief of radiology physics at UCLA Medical Center in a Travel Daily News report, adding “the effective radiation dose received by a passenger during screening is comparable to what that same passenger will receive in 12 seconds during the flight itself or from two minutes of natural radiation exposure.”The report came from a study commissioned by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), using Rapiscan Secure 1000 SP backscatter X-ray scanners, once common in major airports but removed mostly over concerns for privacy, replaced by machines that emit even less radiation.

Americans Trying To Bring Guns On Planes At Unprecedented Rate, Says TSA

by Adam Hodge on

More and more Americans are apparently attempting to take airline security into their own hands. In data provided by the Transport Security Administration to the AP, there is evidence of a significant increase in the number of firearms that passengers try to take through TSA screening points in airports around the country.

In only the first half of this year, the TSA seized 894 guns from passengers – 30 percent more than the year before. From 2011 to 2012, the number of firearms seized increased by 17 percent.

Many of these weapons were seized from people who claim they simply forgot they were carrying a gun onto a plane. Airports in the south and west of the United States had the largest reported number of gun seizures.
Some of the stories of the seizures in the AP report are genuine head-shakers. To wit:

Raymond Whitehead, 53, of Santa Fe, N.M., was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey in May after screeners spotted 10 hollow-point bullets in his carry-on bag. Whitehead, who is completely blind, also had a .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver in his checked bag that he had failed to declare.

The TSA found the weapons on the passengers’ person, in their carry-on luggage and even in a boot that one man was wearing on his prosthetic leg. Depending on the gun laws of the jurisdiction where the airports are located, some of the gun-toting passengers were arrested and others were not.

If you think 894 guns in six months is a lot, consider that these numbers don’t include BB guns, spear guns, flare guns, stun guns and other ballistic weapons.

Last month the TSA recently reversed their decision to allow small knives onto planes. They have not made any statements reiterating the ban on firearms.

Jamaica’s Air Traffic Controllers Call In Sick

by Adam Hodge on

Jamaica‘s airports only experienced a small hiccup this weekend as the country’s air traffic controllers staged a sick-out in protest over low wages and mismanagement of the civil aviation authority. The posts were quickly filled by supervisors and managers and there were no reports of flight safety being compromised.

A Jamaican court has since granted an injunction to the Ministry of Labour, ordering the ATCs back to work, though there has been no response from the union representing the protesting workers.

Flights appeared to be operating more or less on schedule, though there were reports from the capital, Kingston, of delays on inbound and outbound flights. There were no delays at Sangster International in Montego Bay, Jamaica’s busiest airport.

The union had said that the sick-out will affect traffic in Jamaica’s airspace over the coming days. However, with the abandoned posts having been taken over fairly quickly by management, the impact of the protest appears to be less than hoped for.