United Airlines flight UA-67 had to return and make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport, Ireland, on May 27th.
The Boeing 757-200 took off for Chicago, Illinois, but had to return shortly afterwards due to an engine issue.
The plane landed uneventfully. All 108 passengers and 9 crew members remained unhurt.
ExpressJet flight EV-3945 made an emergency landing in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on September 5th.
The plane heading from Newark, New Jersey, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was diverted after the crew reported a fuel imbalance.
The plane landed safely. Everyone aboard remained unharmed.
United Airlines flight UA-957 had to reject takeoff from Geneva, Switzerland, on February 3rd.
The Boeing 767-300 plane was accelerating to takeoff for Newark, New Jersey, when the crew rejected takeoff due to a bird strike.
The plane was towed to the apron.
Wizz Air flight W6-2927 had to divert and make an emergency landing in Budapest, Hungary, on November 7th.
The Airbus A320-200 plane flying from Ljubljana, Slovenia, to Charleroi, Belgium, was diverted due to a lightning strike.
The plane landed safely. Everyone aboard remained unharmed.
The airline arranged a replacement plane for the passengers.
Regarding the Gol jet that collided over the Amazon rain forest with an Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet owned by ExcelAire Service Inc. of New York: The GOL InvestigatIon has determined that the pilots of a New York-based executive jet had placed the transponder and collision avoidance system on standby before colliding with the Boeing 737 operated by GOL Linhaus Aereas Inteligentes SA on Sept. 29, 2006.
The Legacy landed safely but everyone on the GOL jet died.
Flight controllers failed to alert pilots that they were on a collision course and also did not notice the transponder was off.
The on duty flight controllers and the two U.S. pilots – Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino have been indicted. They could get up to three years in prison.The pilots deny turning off the transponder. They claim to have been flying at the altitude designated by the air controllers.
ExcelAire says that “the transponder issue is a distraction from the true cause of the accident, which is an air traffic control system that put two airplanes on a collision course for about an hour.”
Turkish Airlines flight TK2659 made a priority landing at Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 14.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Sivas, Turkey, when an asthma patient passenger fell ill mid-air. The pilot then contacted the air traffic control, saying “Our asthma patient passenger has low blood pressure. We have doctor in the cabin. Doctor is frequently checking the blood pressure. If it possible we would like to land on as soon as possible sir.”
The plane landed uneventfully. It is believed that the patient’s condition had become better during landing.
July 9–The FAA is issuing an Airworthiness Directive (AD) that requires operators of Boeing 757, 767, and 777 airplanes to either inspect or replace certain flight deck windows. The AD only affects the forward viewing windows, not the side windows.
Operators have two options: Begin inspections within 500 flight hours and then continue at intervals that are specific for each of two window designs OR install a new, redesigned window. The inspection takes about an hour.
The AD is aimed at preventing smoke, fire or cracking of the inner layer of the forward viewing window caused by loose electrical connections that are used to heat the window to prevent ice.
Over the past two decades, there have been 11 reports of fire or flames on 757 (five events), 767 (three events), and 777 (three events) airplanes. Improper installation resulted in loose, improperly torqued or cross threaded screws that can contribute to overheating and arcing. The most recent incident was a May 16, 2010 emergency landing by a United 757 at Dulles International Airport.
The FAA proposed the AD in March 2008. The agency received extensive comments and determined additional 757 service information was needed from Boeing. That in-depth review identified unique issues on the upper electrical connections on 757s which will be addressed in a separate AD so as not to hold up the fix for the lower electrical connector issue which constitutes the majority of the service problems identified to date. Although there have been no fire events on 747s, the FAA plans to propose an AD this fall since those later model airplane windows are similar.
This AD affects 1,212 U.S. airplanes out of 2,619 worldwide. The estimated cost for the inspections is $103,020 total for U.S. operators. The window replacement is optional and would be an additional cost.
