Pictured: A Qantas Boeing 737-838
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Andrei Bezmylov
What: Qantas Boeing 737-800 en route from Cairns to Brisbane
Where: Coolangatta
When: Nov 17th 2009
Who: not available
Why: While en route through questionable weather, the plane was struck by lightning. The flight was diverted to Coolangatta/Belinga’s Gold Coast Airport, landing more than half an hour after the original expected arrival time in Brisbane.
Vias aéreas de Chipre aterradas em Londres
Que: Vias aéreas Airbus 330 de Chipre de Chipre
Onde: Aeroporto de Heathrow
Quando: Segunda-feira, fevereiro 2, 2009
Quem: 104 passageiros
Porque: O vôo de Airbus era uma de muitas vítimas da tempestade de neve a mais má em 18 anos– Centenas causadas tempo de cancelamentos do vôo e de transporte público virtualmente interrompido.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Joey Collura
What: United Airlines Boeing 757-200 en route from Washington to Denver
Where: 157 passengers and 6 crew
When: 7 pm
Who: 157 passengers and 6 crew members;
The individual who was detained is Mohammed al Modadi, a diplomat in the Qatar embassy in Washington, D.C.
Why: When an on board air marshal smelled smoke, he confronted the passenger in the first class bathroom. Mohammed al Modadi, who was apparently sneaking a smoke in the bathroom, declared diplomatic immunity and made a sarcastic declaration regarding Richard Reid.
Modadi was escorted to his seat and rode the rest of the flight flanked by two air marshals.
Two F-16 fighter jets escorted the flight the last 40 miles to Denver where Modadi was taken into custody.
No explosives were found.
In this case, it requires looking closely at the actions. Some logical points are given:
1. Smoking is not allowed.
2. The air marshals were doing their job.
3. There is a time and place for everything. Standing in a plane’s bathroom after smoking a cigarette in a world where real people are really trying to blow up planes is not the place to make a shoe-bomb joke to a nervous air marshal. Even if one is a diplomat. Especially if one is a diplomat.
4. Diplomats are generally expected to smooth over or prevent international incidents, not cause them. (On the other hand, what exactly is Modadi’s job description, and exactly what is he supposed to do?)
5. This time the plane did not blow up.
Anything beyond this is speculation. I am sure the aviation lawyers and the aviation lawmakers will be hotly discussing this event, to see exactly how diplomatic status will affect policy, and playing the “what if” game. What if Modadi was just testing to see what would happen? What if there’s another diplomat biding his time for when we lower our guard, waiting to do this for real?
Whether a diplomat is a political officer to advocate for Qatar interests, a trade officer to advocate for Qatar interests, or a consular officer providing services for Qatar travelers, one can reasonably expect that Modadi’s agenda for today did not include deliberately getting caught sneaking a smoke in the United Airlines lavatory, nearly causing an international incident or providing puppet comedian Jeff Dunham grist for his “Achmed the dead terrorist” character for the next ten years. If Modadi has enough character and charm to jockey his ten minutes of fame into something more, we just may even see him as the new face of the nicotine patch or some other smoking cessation method or remedy.
On the other hand, we can not forget that there are people out there who wait for us to drop our guard so the next suicidal bomber can make his vicious mark.
What: Delta en route from Minneapolis to St Louis
Where: Eastern Iowa Airport
When: July 11, 2012, 6 pm
Who: 150 aboard
Why: The Delta flight was en route from Minneapolis to St Louis when it lost an engine. Pilots diverted to Cedar Rapids Iowa and made a safe landing.
Johnson and Linn County fire crews were reported as first responders. No injuries were reported.
What: Delta Airlines Boeing 747-400 en route from Honolulu to Osaka
Where: 300 nm southeast of Sand Island/Midway Atoll
When: June 17, 2011
Who: 359 passengers, 19 crew
Why: While en route, a windshield cracked. Although they did not lose cabin pressure, the crew decided they had to land while it was daylight. The plane had two birdstrikes and had flap damage also.
The pilots made a safe landing on a 7,900 foot runway on the atoll, Sand Island’s Henderson Field.
Passengers waited on board until a replacement jet was provided within 16 hours. The replacement 747 jet left at 5:00 am before the “sea birds woke up.”
NAM Air flight IN-750 had to return and make an emergency landing at Nabire Airport, Papua, Indonesia, on July 20th.
The Avions de Transport Regional ATR-72-212A flying to Biak, Indonesia, had to return because the crew had to shut one of its engines down.
The plane landed safely.
No one was injured.
Air India flight AI-822 had to return and make an emergency landing in Srinagar, India, on August 26th.
The Airbus A320-200 plane took off for Jammu, India, but had to turn back after the crew reported that they had not received a locked indication for the gear.
The plane landed back safely. All one hundred and forty-five people aboard remained unharmed.
