Man jailed after faking being a Qantas aircraft engineer

by Jeffrey White on

I’ve got another Qantas story that came across my desk recently.

The BBC is reporting that an Australian man is behind bars and facing two years in jail after it was found that he had faked being a Qantas engineer for 10 months

The guy’s name is Timothy McCormack, and he admitted to some 42 different charges of deception, including forging an engineer’s license.

He was caught posing as a supervising engineer checking some 30 Qantas 747 airplanes at Sydney airport.

A Sydney judge said McCormack put thousands of passengers’ lives in jeopardy.

Qantas has been plagued with safety concerns this year, with several high profile incidents involving its aircraft. No word yet whether McCormack is being tied to a specific incident…

Continental plane slides off runway in Denver, catches fire

by Jeffrey White on

A Continental 737 aircraft taking off from Denver yesterday either slid or crashed, according to reports, into a ravine off the runway before catching fire, injuring nearly 40 people.

The Associated Press is reporting that the 107 passengers on board the Houston-bound flight were evacuated via emergency slides. Thirty-seven were rushed to area hospitals with a variety of injuries, none of which are being reported as life-threatening.

There were no deaths in the incident.

Emergency responders on the ground put out the fire quickly.

Authorities are not saying what caused the botched take-off, though a National Transportation Safety Board team is reportedly heading to Denver to investigate the incident.

All Continental Airlines says is the aircraft “exited” the runway prior to take-off. There are conflicting reports that the plane actually had taken off before crashing into the ravine.

The incident shut a part of Denver International down for approximately 45 minutes.

Sign up with T-Mobile, get free companion airfare

by Grant Martin on

Up for a contract renewal for your mobile phone? Desperate for a cheap plane ticket? T-mobile might have your answer.

If you sign up for a two-year contract with the wireless provider, they’ll give you a free companion ticket to any seat that you buy. The offer is fairly flexible too: there are no blackout dates, tickets are good through 2010, you can earn frequent flyer miles and you can fly on any airline.

But there are also restrictions. The biggest one that I can discern is that you have to book your original ticket through a T-Mobile partner’s proprietary search engine — through which I hear you can’t get the “best” prices on all flights. As an example, one member at Flyertalk pointed out that a transcontinental flight was quoted between $600-$700, nearly twice that of which you could pay during a good fare sale.

Still, if you do your homework and find out that it’s economical to book the companion ticket, it may be worth looking into. You can check out T-Mobile’s promo page here while the Frequently Asked Questions page is here.


Many inexpensive last minute holiday airfares do exist

by Jamie Rhein on

You’ve probably noticed the stories about how airfares have dropped and air traffic is down. Two weeks ago, I flew from Copenhagen to Columbus on two airplanes that were not full. The Continental flight from Copenhagen to Newark was empty enough that most people had seats between them.

The flight from Newark to Columbus was even more roomy. The row in front of my daughter and me was empty, and we had that hoped for seat between us as well.

With less people flying that means more competition to entice passengers to fly. My mom is heading to New York City for the holidays. This past May, she took the bus because of gas prices and soaring airline costs. Her ticket plane ticket would have cost almost $400 at the time.

She thought about the bus again until last night when I searched for airplane tickets on a whim. There were several options for a $166 airfare when I used the variable date function. Delta and Northwest were the least expensive flights, but the flight she wanted was on Delta to LaGuardia which she prefers over JFK. Flights into Newark, at least the ones I saw, were more expensive.

Not only was she able to score a flight to the airport of choice, she also was able to get flights that are direct and leave at the times she preferred. At first, it looked like she’d have to leave at 6 a.m., but after going to another day of departure, an early afternoon flight to New York appeared. She also wanted to book a return flight later in the day than what originally appeared. Again, further looking found the exact flight out of LaGuardia.

After using Travelocity to find choices, I went directly to Delta’s web site to book the ticket. The amazing detail is that she’s leaving on Monday, just days from booking the ticket. Cheap flights so close to departure used to be unheard of.

So, if you’re thinking of going somewhere for the holidays, look into flying. It may be far less expensive than you thought. These are the days of deals. To find the best ones, look for flights during the week. My mom is flying out on a Monday and back on a Wednesday. In this case, the direct flights were less than the flights that went through another airport. I am amazed.

Pilot tells passengers “I am not qualified to land the plane”

by Josh Lew on

A Flybe Airlines flight from Cardiff to Paris had to turn around because of fog at Charles De Gaulle Airport. The fog did not force the airport to close. Rather, the pilot, a man with 30 years of experience, had never completed low-visibility training for the particular aircraft that he was flying.

Passengers on the flight were stunned when, 20 minutes shy of De Gaulle, the pilot got on the PA system and, instead of announcing the imminent arrival, said the following:

‘Unfortunately I’m not qualified to land the plane in Paris. They are asking for a level two qualification and I only have a level five. We’ll have to fly back.’

And fly back they did. The bizarre incident is nothing if not humorous, but I doubt the passengers on the flight were amused.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said that such a situation was rare, but not unheard of. “There are different classifications of aircraft and when an aircraft is updated, pilot’s who have flown an older version have to completely retrain.”


Think that pilot pulled an unusual stunt? What he did is nothing compared to the stunts these girls pulled.