Posted on 05/03/2012 6:45:02 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
Remember that bird strike in April that forced a Delta flight to make an emergency landing? The actual incident was caught on video by author Grant Cardone, who is now on some FAA "you're a troublemaker" list because he shot that video when his iPad was supposed to be turned off.
Cardone was on CNN this morning to discuss the letter he'd received from the FAA's Supervisory Principal Operations Inspector regarding the incident.
Reads the letter: "Your failure to comply with flight attendant instructions during a critical phase of flight and an aircraft emergency could have affected the safe outcome of the flight... We have given consideration to all of the facts. In lieu of legal enforcement action (a civil penalty), we are issuing this letter which will be made a matter of record for a period of two years, after which, the record will be expunged."
"I don't think I'm above the law or anyone should be," said Cardone. "I've flown over 3 million miles, a million of them with Delta, and to think that a device — a phone or this iPad... to think that any of these devices could take down a plane is ridiculous... "If truly these devices are that dangerous, then the FAA has the responsibility to ban them."
He didn't exactly respond to host Soledad O'Brien's point that, regardless of whether or not phones present a danger to the flight, Cardone did disregard the instructions of the flight attendants. But he did express concern that the FAA letter is overly vague about the implications of having this scolding on file for the next two years
"What I'm concerned about is what watch list am I on... Am I now a terrorist?" Cardone asked. "Am I going to get double-screened? They just need to clarify what the deal is."
Time to run up the BS flag.
I stopped turning off my cellphone and reader years ago. I promise you the crews don't turn theirs off. How many times (if you fly) have you watched a stewardess texting after they take their seats for landing?
North Korea is actively jamming GPS navigation signals. Have airlines suspended flights to South Korea? No. I’d say that’s more hazardous than the theoretical problems associated with relatively low-powered personal electronic devices in the cabin. But since North Korean actions are outside the reach of the airlines, the FAA or... (you get the idea!)
FAA is forgetting for whom they work....
...thinks they’re above the law simply because they don’t believe their device poses a danger.
New York Air Controllers Slept, Watched Movies, U.S. Says
Alan Levin, ©2012 Bloomberg News
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
(Updates with New York data starting in second paragraph.)
May 8 (Bloomberg) — Air-traffic controllers in the New York area slept on the job, watched movies, left work early and repeatedly violated safety rules, a U.S. investigative agency told the White House and Congress.
Controllers at the facility that monitors traffic around New York, the busiest U.S. metropolitan flight corridor, also used “careless and casual language” with pilots, leading to at least one serious incident of planes getting too close, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, said today in a letter.
If you want your luggage to get stolen fly into NYC. If you want to lax operating conditions in the tower or at a TRACON that might lead to an inflight collision or near miss just fly into or near the NYC area.
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