On Oct 25, an Emirates Airlines Airbus A380 en route from New York to Dubai had to shut down a right engine.
Pilots diverted to Kuwait where they made a safe landing.
A replacement airbus was provided to carry the passengers to Dubai. We don’t have information how long passengers waited or if they were provided accommodations during the interim.
Aurora flight HZ-5616/SU-5616 had to return and make an emergency landing at Vladivostok International Airport, Vladivostok, Russia, on December 28.
The Airbus A319-100 was en-route from Vladivostok, to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, when the crew noticed some problem with one of its board computers and decided to return.
The plane landed safely.
All 122 passengers onboard remained safe.
Air New Zealand flight NZ-605 made an emergency landing in Christchurch, New Zealand, on May 20th.
The Airbus A320-200 plane heading from Wellington to Queenstown, New Zealand, was diverted due to a lightning strike.
The plane landed safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Wizz Air flight W6-4351 had to make an emergency landing in Budapest, Hungary, on February 26th.
The Airbus A321-200 plane heading from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Orio al Serio International Airport, Italy, was diverted after the crew received unreliable airspeed indication.
The plane landed safely. All two hundred and four people aboard remained unharmed.
A PHI Air Medical helicopter had to make an emergency landing at West Mockingbird Lane and Irving Boulevard in Dallas, Texas, on October 26th.
The aircraft was on its way to pick up a patient when the pilot reported a possible fuel leak and decided to make an emergency landing.
The helicopter landed safely. No injuries were reported.
“We dispatched a different aircraft to pick up the specialized maternal team and complete the transport… We are grateful that the appropriate protocols were followed and all are safe”, PHI Air Medical said in statement.
It’s difficult for me to comprehend why we cancelled earlier searches. I’m certain we do not have any new technology now that we didn’t already have 2 years ago. The subs used have been gradually fine-tuned, but not significantly in the past two years.
It is common knowledge now that the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute team, running a couple of AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) Remus 6000’s were barely a week into the fourth search when they discovered the location of pieces of the wreckage of the fallen Airbus, flight 447 in an area thought of as an underwater “Himalayas”. Mike Purcell, Senior Engineer of the Woods Hole team, has attributed the discovery to the ability of the Remus being able to submerge to 6000 meters (which means being able to follow the underwater mountain range cliffs, ravines, and slopes); and to the decision to start close to the last known position of the plane.
I do wonder why this was the fourth search; there should have been only one— a single search that continued until the wreckage was found.
Maybe there is no correct time to be critical, and if I am critical, it is not of the search team who did a splendid, if not all but impossible job, in finding the wreckage. It is entirely the human effort that made the difference, because although the AUVs are autonomous, they are not truly intelligent. They had to be daily programmed, and with three units running, this means three times the (sonar) data had to be daily downloaded, processed and analyzed. The team learned how to deal with managing the challenging demersal topography, and reading the visual output which were sonar abstractions that look like etch-a-sketch scribbles. The expert on board analysts had 15 years of experience in interpreting this data.
For the search team, I have only praise.
My point of criticism is for the decision makers, and it is founded on behalf of concern for the families.
We are hearing how well preserved the remains were, due to the temperature and water pressure. We are hearing about how only some of the remains were retrieved.
Why only some?
All the bereaved families should have the right to retrieve their loved ones. All of the families should have the right to place their loved ones in a known and tangible resting place.
It is a chilling callousness on behalf of the planners to advise their team to knowingly leave behind even so much as a single hair, if that hair was known to be that of one of the victims. The decision betrays a chilling callousness; an act of deliberate abandonment. It reminds me of those all fallen into a “deep place…where the sun is silent”, in Dante’s hell. “Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.”
And now, we’re back to where we started, only worse. Many bodies were not recovered. Are they lost forever?
I can all but guarantee you that the future holds some grisly Titanic/Disney-esque treasure-seeking macarbre (or sugared) revisitation of the tragic ground, private touring expeditions seeking out the latitude and longitude, with camera, wallet, and catching net in hand. Movie rights and treasure hunters-a marriage made in hell, or Hollywood.
This is no Dante’s tale. For the bereaved families there will be no poetic justice. They will live knowing forever that their loved ones were found…came this close to being returned…and left behind, if not in the nine circles of hell, then across the oceans in that “deep place…where the sun is silent” and all hope abandoned.
Delta Airlines flight DL-886 suffered a tail strike after landing at LaGuardia Airport, New York, on December 6th.
The incident happened when the Airbus A320-200 plane was coming from Atlanta, Georgia.
No Injuries were reported.
