Contact photographer John Farmington
What: Delta Airlines Boeing 767-300 en route from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Kiev (Ukraine)
Where: returned to New York
When: May 3rd 2009
Who: 212 on board
Why: The crew listed “operational reasons” but listed no details. They turned back over Moncton,NB and returned flying at lower altitude.

Contact photographer Wim Callaert
What: Delta Airlines Boeing 767-300 En route from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Rome Fiumicino
Where: Bangor,ME
When: May 4th 2009
Why: En route, the plane lost all air data computers and had lost most of the flight instruments, and requested to return to the airport of origin. Instead, they diverted to Bangor Maine. A replacement plane completed the flight. Fortunately, all that was suffered was a delay of nine hours.

George’s Point of View

This caught my eye mostly because two Boeings flying out of NY’s JFK were both listed as having “technical difficulties.” I wanted to doublecheck and see if they were the same plane.

Not the same plane.

The first incident with the undisclosed technical difficulty involved plane registration registration N182DN.
The second incident, the one with the data computer problem, involved plane registration N196DN.

I find myself curious to discover what is coincidence and what is not. It may not be the same plane; but it is the same airline, the same model plane. Is it the same flight crew? Same procedures? What about the equipment? Is there something here to discover?