From the New Europe: Drunk passenger causes emergency landing

by Iva Skoch on

You would think that crews would generally know how to handle a drunk passenger without having to land the plane first. Apparently, some drunks are harder to handle than others. Especially when they use the T word repeatedly.

A Lufthansa passenger jet had to make an emergency landing in the southern Polish city of Katowice earlier today after a drunk, unruly passenger began shouting that he was a terrorist, Reuters reports. The middle-aged, Russian-speaking passenger offered no resistance when an anti-terrorist squad boarded the plane to remove him. He is supposed to be questioned “once he sobers up.”

After a one-hour terrorist break, the Lufthansa Airbus A320 with 118 people on board peacefully continued its journey.

KLM pilot gets lost flying over India

by Anna Brones on

When you take a road trip, you have a map to help you find your way. When you fly, you have a lot of fancy controls and tracking devices; but you still need to have a general idea of where you are going. Apparently that was not the case for the Dutch pilot of a KLM flight that flew from Amsterdam to India this weekend. The flight was destined for Shamshabad — Hyderabad’s new airport which just opened on Saturday — but because the pilot knew nothing of the airport, he diverted and flew to Delhi and then on to Mumbai, creating a detour of about 1500 miles, according to the Times of India.

The pilot apparently was not aware of the new airport, and was flying in the direction of the old facility Begumpet. Traffic control directed him to Shamshabad, to which the pilot’s response was “What’s Shamshabad?”

In the pilot’s defense, he did say that he was not willing to land at the new airport because he had not received the “notam” (notice to airmen) about the Begumpet closure from KLM corporate headquarters. Still, there is no denying the fact that he did get a little lost. Maybe our in-house pilot Kent Wien can weigh in on the situation and tell us if it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

[Via Today in the Sky]

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US Airways pilot’s gun discharges while in flight

by Grant Martin on

If there’s one thing that fires people up besides shirts with the F word on it, it’s guns.

At issue is whether or not pilots should be allowed to carry weapons in the cockpit. While it’s a definitive way to reinforce security at 30,000 feet, the presence of a firearm onboard increases the potential for accidents — and disaster.

That’s what happened last Saturday when a US Airways pilot’s gun accidentally went off in the cockpit during the flight. Nobody was injured and the aircraft landed safely, but wow, they were lucky.

Suppose that bullet went through the front window instead of somewhere into the fuselage. At that altitude could the pilots withstand explosive decompression? Would the entire cabin decompress and the pilots be killed?

According to the TSA, the pilot in question was trained under the Federal Flight Deck Officers program and last certified in November. Details are still sketchy on how the firearm was stored and what caused it to discharge in the cockpit, but I’m pretty sure that with the safety on and without a bullet in the chamber a weapon shouldn’t accidentally fire.

I suppose if it were up to me and on my flight, I would prefer the pilot to have a gun and thwart a terrorist at the small risk of having an accident. While flight deck doors are locked from the inside these days and any instigator would have a really difficult time getting access, the extra layer of security does supply a grain of comfort. I’m glad everyone was safe on the US Airways flight.

Take fifty bucks off any $250 Southwest flight with Paypal

by Grant Martin on

Paypal seems to be trying to get some clout in the financial market. Last week I found a deal where they were offering 50$ off NWA flights booked with their proprietary online money tool. Unbeknownst to this blogger, it looks like they also kicked off the same promo for Southwest Airlines passengers. You need to book before March 27th, and the logistics all work in the same way that the NW deal does.

Check out Southwest’s promo page for additional info.

What they don’t mention on the site is if there are any restrictions on date of travel, so for now you might be able to get away with booking tickets late in the year using the code. So if you need to book anything through the summer (say, for the Fourth of July) when ticket prices are higher, you can plan ahead and jump on this deal now.

If you decide to wait in hopes that the ticket prices will go down, you’re playing a risky game. Tourist and traveler season is over the summer and you’re going to have a hard time finding tickets at reasonable rates. Best book your tickets now.

See Paula? Not all WN news is bad.

Photo of the Day (3-23-2008)

by Catherine Bodry on


No, this is not from the set of Lost. And no, this is not a shot of a plane crash-landing on a tropical island. But it sort of looks like it, doesn’t it? Matt.Hinsta captured this scene on the island of St. Maarten. He titled the photo “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” and writes that the beachgoers got “a rush as Air France flight 488 from Paris (operated by an Airbus A340-300) passes over their heads before touching down on runway 09 at Princess Juliana International Airport on Friday, March 21st, 2008.” He also points out that the woman on the far left is facing the wrong way. No word on whether this type of landing occurs 5 times an hour or once a week, but it seems pretty extreme, based on the vacationers’ body language.

Have any crazy travel photos you’d like to share with the world? Upload them to Gadling’s Flickr pool and we’ll consider them for our Photo of the Day feature.