Bad Week for Airline Passengers

Since the full moon had begun to wane, there had to be some other external force effecting air travel this week. Here are the headlines from msnbc.com yesterday:

Piece of airliner dislodges… hits passenger window;
Pilot’s gun fires on US Airways jet; and
747 blows 4 tires, aborts takeoff from LAX

The first incident involved a US Air Boeing 757 traveling from Orlando to Philly. A piece of the wing skin approx. 17 inches square blew off and struck one of the passenger windows near the back. No one was injured and no damage was done to the plane, but it was taken out of service for inspection. Emergency workers on the ground near Annapolis were notified that the piece of plane may have landed in their area.

The Air Marshal Service and The Transportation Security Administration are investing the “accidental discharge” US Airways jet pilot’s federally issued gun. US Air said at no time were any passengers or crew members in any danger, but one has to wonder how they would know that since they have yet to determine why the gun went off.

And lastly, a Qantas Boeing 747 with over 230 passengers had 4 tires blow on takeoff and was left stuck on the end of the runway. An emergency light indicated the blown tires and the pilot terminated the takeoff. Everyone was safely evacuated from the plane, and put on later flights to Sydney, Australia.

Luckily, there were no major accidents and also no injuries as a result of these incidents, but they most certainly scared some of the travelers on those planes.