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What: Albanian Airlines Boeing 737-300 en route from Tirana’s Mother Theresa International Airport in Albania to Bologna Italy
Where: Bratislava
When: Jan 17th 2010
Who: 110 passengers
Why: After boarding a flight from Tirana Albania to Bologna Italy, passengers were actually flown to Bratislava Slovakia. Disgruntled unpaid crew members flew their paying passengers to Bratislava (instead of Bologna) in protest for not receiving wages, or at least that is what the crew told the passengers.
Albanian Airlines leases the plane from Air Slovakia, and the Czech pilots are employed by Air Slovakia. Air Slovakia denies owing wages, and claims that the diversion was due to technical problems. Albanian Airlines says they knew of nothing technical wrong with the plane (which is also technically grounded in repairs with Bratislavan maintenance.)
Meanwhile, passengers alerted the media as soon as they arrived in Bratislava that the crew reported they had diverted (hijacked? passengernapped?) the plane because of unpaid wages. Passengers were put up in hotel accommodations in Bratislava (I’d have liked to see the accommodations!) and were supposed to have departed Monday. It is not reported whether or not the crew was put up with accommodations in jail.
George’s Point of View
Is this starting to sound like an episode of Wings, only with everyone in the cast speaking in a Tony Shalhoub version of a Bratislavan accent?
And you can be very proud that not once did I make a snide, uncalled-for reference to “brat” and “slave” and “protesting” “unpaid” pilots. Well. Maybe once. We do believe in pilots getting paid–but we also tend to prefer pilots who take passengers to their expected destinations.
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Video captured by a passenger shows the liquid first trickling and then streaming down the aisle, soaking the carpeting.
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Middle Tennessee sees no shortage of car break-ins, but plane break-ins are more rare. However, the Metro Nashville Airport Authority told News 2 a suspect was taken into custody in Missouri for st…
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Federal officials say the two people aboard the cargo plane reported the fire moments after takeoff and requested to return to the Fairbanks airport.
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A federal aviation official says one of the two pilots of an airplane that was laden with fuel reported a fire on board shortly before the aircraft crashed and burned
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Nearly four years after a civilian skydiving aircraft collided with a Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey sitting on a San Diego runway, the U.S. government has settled the civil case after suing the businesses involved for damages
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The single-engine plane crashed just after 10am on Wednesday morning on a secondary runway near Terminal 1 at the North Carolina airport.
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An All Nippon Airways aircraft carrying a total of 211 people landed safely at an airport in Hokkaido in northern Japan, despite smoke emitting from one of its wings.
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Two people were feared dead after a rare cargo plane crashed in the far north of the United States on Tuesday, troopers in Alaska said.
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Two people are feared dead after a plane crashed in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Tuesday.
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It is not known yet how many people were on board.
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The plus-size passenger refused to give up an extra seat on a plane to a toddler.
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Report says Russia may be behind GPS interference over Baltic Sea since last August
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Emergency services were called to Sunshine Coast Airport after reports there was smoke coming from the cockpit of a Bonza plane on Tuesday afternoon.
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VH-EBN (pictured) is the first of Qantas’ A330-200LR aircraft to be upgraded with Viasat-capable wi-fi antennae, and is expected to finish its three-week retrofitting this week. The remainder of Qantas’ international widebody fleet will be progressively refitted over the next couple of years.
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MANILA – Two Philippine Navy (PN) aviators were killed after a training aircraft they were flying crashed in Cavite province on Thursday. In a statement, PN spokesperson Commander John Percie Alcos said the Robinson R-22 trainer helicopter with tail number NHT-421 tried to make an emergency…
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Debris and damage left behind more than two months after a plane crashed on Interstate 75 in Collier County.
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Social media does enable those who have had their proverbial 15 minutes of fame to get an extension.
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An alligator caused some trouble after it decided to wander onto the runway at MacDill Air Force Base Monday morning.
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A Cessna 120 single-engine plane took off from the Talkeetna airport after 2 p.m. on Sunday. The pilot lost power shortly after takeoff and was able to steer the plane…
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