Air Baltic flight BT-9802 returned to Amsterdam, Netherlands, on December 24th.
The Boeing 737-500 plane took off for Riga, Latvia, but had to turn back after the crew failed to retract the landing gear.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Norwegian Air Shuttle flight DY-3195 had to return and make an emergency landing in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 15th.
The plane took off for Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to turn back after the crew suspected a tail strike.
The plane landed safely. There were 108 people aboard at the time; all of them remained unhurt.
United Airlines is offering Boeing 787 Dreamliner is now offering daily nonstop service between Los Angeles International Airport and Tokyo Narita, with 36 seats in United BusinessFirst, 70 seats in United Economy Plus, and 113 seats in United Economy.
UA 787 service will be offered between its Houston hub and Lagos, Nigeria, five days a week, beginning on January 7, 2013.
Royal Flight Airlines flight RL-305 had to return and make an emergency landing at Sheremetyevo International Airport, Russia, on October 8th.
The Boeing 767-300 plane took off for Guiyang, China, but had to turn back due to an issue with the flaps.
The plane landed safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Seventy minutes after a mayday when a cargo of vegetables (peppers and flowers) set off a smoke alarm, Air France flight AF-733 made an emergency landing at Shannon Airport today at 9.55am. The flight was en route from Santo Domingo to Paris with 142 passengers and 14 crew when they diverted.
Emergency services, Shannon based Irish Coast Guard helicopter, the fire department, the RNLI lifeboat at Kilrush, and HSE ambulances were on standby as passengers disembarked via stairs. Passengers are being accommodated in the terminal as they wait for an alternative flight.
No fire or heat spots were detected aboard.
After AF447–the deadliest in the history of Air France–it is always alarming to hear of an issue aboard an AF trans-Atlantic flight. That Air France Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight crashed on June 1, 2009 and led to an exhaustive but successful multi-phase ocean search. On April 3, 2011, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution located the debris field.
While today’s thermal food was both alarming and anti-climactic, it was also a successful demonstration of contemporary aviation accident prevention. We are well familiar with how investigations of safety issues contribute to making flight safer, but rarely do we give credit to crew resource management. How the crew responds to the crisis, (even when it is just a sensitive alert that goes off), how well coordinated and cool-headed the crew is can mean the difference between life and death.
We don’t need to think of AF447, or even Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, to appreciate the integrated clockwork of a well-trained crew; but it does make us wonder if those crews were as well-trained as the one on this jet today, if either of those tragedies might have been prevented.
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What: Azerbaijan Airlines Boeing 757-200 en route from Istanbul Turkey to Baku Azerbaijan
Where: Istanbul
When: October 30
Who: 221 aboard
Why: After takeoff, the cabin filled with smoke coming from a galley oven.
The plane returned to the Istanbul airport and made a safe landing. No replacement was provided. The plane received maintenance, and continued some hours later.
TAP Air Portugal flight TP-843 had to return and make an emergency landing at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, Italy, on October 17th.
The Airbus A321-200 plane took off for Lisbon, Portugal, but had to turn back after the crew needed to shut down one of the engines.
The plane landed safely. All one hundred and seventy-one passengers and six crew members remained unharmed.
