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A cat escape caused a four-hour delay for an Air Canada flight Thursday as airline staff in Halifax struggled to get the feline from its hiding place in cockpit wiring. (Jan. 27) [Associated Press]

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. - Three women were escorted off a New York bound flight at Palm Beach International Airport Monday afternoon by airline staff and Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies. The women claim they did not do anything wrong and that a flight attendant on board was the only one behaving poorly. The women -- a lawyer, a therapist and a retired travel agent -- were complete strangers until they were seated near one another on AirTran Flight 1451 to White Plains, New York. They were buckled in and ready to take off when they said a male flight...

ALEXANDRIA — Holiday travelers may receive enhanced pat-downs at the hands of Transportation Security Administration agents in the next few days, but TSA failed to enforce a key foreign pilot screening process that could have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For several months in 2010, TSA and Department of Defense contractor Mantech International Corp. failed to enforce the Alien Flight Student Program, which performs threat assessments and background checks on more than 38,000 non-citizens learning to fly every year. "This hasn't come back to bite us yet, but it only has to be one time," said one source with...

Former President George W. Bush gave a wonderful speech today in Shanksville, Pennsylvania for the 10 year anniversary of 9-11. It was one of his best. The audience including Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton gave him a standing ovation.

A Southwest flight carrying 115 passengers from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to BWI Airport was diverted to Nashville International Airport due to a passenger's "suspicious behavior," an airline spokesman said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the way for the new Boeing 787 to take its first commercial flight. Both the FAA and European regulators certified the plane for flight on Friday. Boeing plans to deliver the first 787 to Japan's All Nippon Airways in September. The airline plans to fly it for the first time as a charter on Oct. 26 and begin regular service Nov. 1. Delivery is about three years late.

This is pretty cool- click on pic: At the link above you see the actual cockpit of the US Space Shuttle Discovery- note insulation panels installed over windows for re-entry- guess they get a little warm. Last week's final mission -completing 30 years of manned Shuttle flights- was completed by the Atlantis... some facts about the craft: The Space Shuttle was the first orbital spacecraft designed for reuse. It carried different payloads to Low Earth Orbit, provided crew rotation for the International Space Station (ISS), and performed servicing missions- the first one went up in the early days of the Reagan Administration,...

A passenger on a United Airlines flight had to be tied up and gagged and the flight diverted after he refused to come out of the bathroom and then turned violent when confronted by staff. The United Airlines flight 944 to Frankfurt, Germany, from Chicago was diverted to Cleveland on Friday night after the flight attendant found that the large man had been in the bathroom for almost 30 minutes and refused to come out. When he eventually did he started screaming at the flight attendants and put one in a headlock before wrestling him to the ground. That is...

Chicago-To-Germany Flight Diverted Because Of Unruly Passenger July 8, 2011 6:05 PM Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. (Photo provide by a passenger) Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. CHICAGO (WBBM) – Some Chicagoans have quite a story to tell about a flight from O’Hare to Frankfort, Germany that was diverted Friday to Cleveland when a passenger was found hiding in the bathroom and went ballistic when he was confronted. Joe Shulfer of Woodstock...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man got a big surprise on a commercial flight from Seattle to Anchorage, Alaska, when he was stung by a scorpion while sitting in his plane seat. Jeff Ellis of West Linn said he was trying to sleep on a red-eye Alaska Airlines flight June 17 when he felt something in his sleeve and tried to brush it away. He said he felt the crawling again, looked down and saw the culprit. "I picked my hand up and said, 'Oh, my God. That's a scorpion,'" Ellis told KPTV. He said he grabbed the scorpion...

Police are questioning how a strange object got on a Delta Airlines flight that arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport from Minnesota. Authorities told The Star-Ledger of Newark the object was wedged between seats 21B and 21C. No one had been assigned the seats. The object had the body of a clear pen, with an electrical button trigger and a nail and alligator clip protruding from it. A battery was held by electrical tape, and next to it was a flashlight top.

Just crossed wire. No more info yet. Something is definitely up today. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2716882/posts

They are the sort of striking images that wouldn't look out of place in a scene from a sci-fi movie. However, one of these could soon be the face of modern aviation with the unveiling of a new generation of passenger aircraft. NASA has revealed three concept designs for quiet, energy efficient aircraft that potentially could be ready for flight as soon as 2025. Three companies - Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Company - came up with the designs and, at the end of last year, all three won a contract from NASA to research, develop and test...

White FlightPresident Obama’s path to a second term may rely on states shaped by the same social forces he embodies. By Ronald Brownstein Friday, January 7, 2011 | 6:05 a.m. By any standard, white voters’ rejection of Democrats in November’s elections was daunting and even historic. Fully 60 percent of whites nationwide backed Republican candidates for the House of Representatives; only 37 percent supported Democrats, according to the National Election Poll exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Not even in Republicans’ 1994 congressional landslide did they win that high a percentage of the white vote. Moreover, those results may understate...

Tampa International Airport's main runway is closed for repairs due to changes in the earth's magnetic pull. "Who over-thought this? And why?" asked one passenger, waiting for a flight. "It's a joke," said another. But it's no joke. Runways are aligned according to points on a compass and scientists say the Earth's magnetic North Pole is constantly shifting. That means Tampa's main runway is now six degrees off. The discrepancy could cause pilots to lose their sharp focus. "When a pilot navigates he needs to find which is the correct runway to land and takeoff on," said Airport Director Robert...

When Brooks Anderson boarded a Spirit Airlines flight from Chicago to Ft. Myer's, Fla., to spend Christmas with his family, he said he didn't expect to be standing for the next two-and-a-half hours. "I was in an aisle seat and I clearly didn't fit into the seat at all," he said. "I couldn't even stuff myself in there." The 25-year-old is 6'7" and as he tried to squeeze his knees under his chin, his tall frame proved to be too big to fit into Spirit's tiny coach seat. "This is the most crammed I've been by far," Anderson said. Even...

An Air Malta flight from London Heathrow was forced to return to the terminal after a passenger started praying and chanting in the aisle just before take-off. The man got to his knees on Tuesday and started chanting in Arabic and ignored instructions by cabin crew to return to his seat...Passengers panicked when they heard the man chanting, and he had to be restrained by passengers and crew...

A month after the mangled body of a North Carolina teenager was found in a quiet Milton neighborhood, Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said yesterday that evidence indicates he stowed away in the wheel well of a plane and fell from the sky as the landing gear came down on the approach to Logan International Airport. A shirt stained with what appeared to be grease used in airplanes and believed to be Delvonte Tisdale’s was recovered yesterday, along with sneakers, scattered along the flight path, Keating said. The items were found about a half-mile from where the 16-year-old’s body...

PARIS (AP) — The French government said Thursday it will conduct a fourth search for the flight recorders of an Air France jetliner that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris 18 months ago. All 228 people aboard Flight 447 died, and families of some victims have demanded that France not give up the hunt for the flight recorders — and answers about what caused the plane to plunge into the ocean during a large thunderstorm on June 1, 2009. Transport Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet and Junior Transport Minister Thierry Mariani said a fourth search...

PHOENIX - A flight attendants union with 2,000 members is upset over what it calls "invasive pat-downs" recently implemented by the TSA. "We're getting calls daily about peoples' experiences, our members are concerned," said Deborah Volpe, Vice President of the Association of Flight Attendants Local 66. Volpe confirmed that the union is offering advice to its flight attendants, who mostly work for Tempe-based USAirways, involving the security moves. According to a union email obtained by ABC15, it tells flight attendants if they opt out of using the body scanner through security and are required to undergo a pat-down to ask...

A flight attendants union with 2,000 members is upset over what it calls "invasive pat-downs" recently implemented by the TSA. "We're getting calls daily about peoples' experiences, our members are concerned," said Deborah Volpe, Vice President of the Association of Flight Attendants Local 66. Volpe confirmed that the union is offering advice to its flight attendants, who mostly work for Tempe-based USAirways, involving the security moves. According to a union email obtained by ABC15, it tells flight attendants if they opt out of using the body scanner through security and are required to undergo a pat-down to ask the pat-down...

Of all the great and amazing aerobatic tricks performed at the Chico Air Show I attended last weekend, there is probably none that I was more fascinated with then a stunt performed by a pilot who stood his plane on end in the air while holding it in place.  My only problem was I forgot to record it with my video camera.  I was so enthralled by the many performances that I also never interviewed any of the performers like I wanted to.  So I decided to return on Sunday morning and see if I could catch up with...

Okie dokie, so let me get this straight. On Sunday, it was hot enough here in Charleston that I burned my feet on the sidewalk outside our apartment while walking our dog.  A few hundred miles to the west, in Birmingham, Alabama, the high temperature reached near ninety degrees despite rain.  At the airport there in Birmingham, a Muslim gentleman from Detroit, Michigan named Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi arrived to catch a flight.  He was flying to Amsterdam, connecting once at O’Hare International in Chicago. Despite being in the deep South in late August, al Soofi wore such bulky...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Adam Goldstein was a whiz-kid MIT engineering student with an enviable network of tech contacts and a decade of industry experience. He also had a lofty dream: To reinvent Internet flight search. So he called up his old friend, Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman, and embarked on a summer project. It culminated in this week's launch of Hipmunk, which drew instant acclaim for its new approach to an old but still daunting search challenge: matching travel shoppers with flights. Hipmunk arranges flights on a colorful, user-friendly grid, letting browsers evaluate their options in a blink. Just days...

A flight attendant on a Southwest Airlines flight took custody of a baby girl after the child was slapped by her mother on Monday, the Albuquerque International Sunport police told ABC News. Officials say the mom appeared to be frustrated and may have slapped the baby. When the plane landed in Albuquerque, the family was met by police. A Southwest Airlines spokeswoman told ABC News the local authorities were called "out of precaution for the child." The parents were questioned by police and released to continue to their final destination.

Seven puppies die after American Airlines flight landsCHICAGO - American Airlines has launched an investigation into what caused the death of seven puppies aboard a flight that landed in O'Hare International Airport Tuesday morning. American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said 15 puppies were aboard Flight 851 that left Tulsa, Oklahoma at 7:30 a.m. and arrived at O'Hare shortly about an hour and a half later. "We're not certain if the puppies died during the flight or later, because we still have to talk to the employees who handled them. We plan to do that today," she said. "They may...

PARIS (Reuters) - French police have arrested an Air France stewardess on suspicion of stealing thousands of euros in cash, cards and jewelry as passengers slept on long haul flights, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Police investigating thefts over several months on flights between France and the Far East picked up the 47-year old attendant identified as Lucie R. after she landed from Tokyo on Friday, Le Figaro said. "Her bank accounts showed an absurd gap between her lifestyle and her declared income," the newspaper quoted a police investigator as saying. Police launched an investigation in January after about 4,000...

PITTSBURGH -- A big name comedian made a stop in Pittsburgh this weekend, but according to TMZ.com, it was for all the wrong reasons. The website said a private jet carrying comedian Dave Chappelle had to make an emergency landing Friday night at Pittsburgh International Airport. According to TMZ sources, Chappelle was on a private flight from New Jersey to Ohio, where he lives. TMZ said the flight was forced to land in Pittsburgh when Chappelle “freaked out,” refused to put his seat belt on and repeatedly walked into the cockpit, bothering pilots.

We have all heard about the idea of flying cars for years. The popular cartoon "The Jetsons" made a whole generation of kids grow up thinking about robots as maids and flying cars in the future. Well, a few Japanese companies have been working hard on getting robots that can entertain men and and there has been more then a few inventors that have toyed with creating a car fly. Now we have the Terrafugia company that has invented the Transition ® Roadable Aircraft, or "Flying Car". They have even received approval from the FAA to fly their Transition....

SAINT-DENIS, Reunion -- Sixteen-year-old sailor Abby Sunderland is homeward bound - though her plane flight back to California isn't the homecoming she originally imagined when she set off in hopes of sailing around the world. About two weeks after her rescue at sea, Sunderland departed Sunday from the French island of Reunion, off the southeastern coast of Africa, en route to France, then on to California.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa, June 18, 2010 – The newest flight surgeon in the Iowa Air National Guard's 185th Medical Group only just recently joined the military, but his family is very familiar with military life. Air Force Maj. (Dr.) Glenn Harden, a physician from Sioux City, Iowa, is sworn into the Air National Guard at the 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City, May 1, 2010. Harden will work as the flight surgeon at the wing’s medical clinic. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Oscar Sanchez  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Air Force Maj. (Dr.) Glenn Harden entered...

Boeing's X-51 WaveRider has made aviation history by completing the longest ever supersonic* combustion ramjet-powered flight. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew for almost three and a half minutes in the skies off the southern California coast on Wednesday, reaching an altitude of about 70,000 feet and hitting hypersonic (Mach 5) speeds. The X-51 WaveRider scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is being developed for the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The goal of the program is to create a free-flying, scramjet-powered vehicle capable of operating continuously on...

MONTREAL (AP) -- Canadian authorities identified Monday a man arrested on an Aeromexico flight from Paris to Mexico that was forced to divert to Montreal after U.S. authorities refused to let the plane use U.S. airspace. Abdirahman Ali Gaall was arrested Sunday at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, said Robert Gervais, an Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada spokesman.

In one of the many new age music albums, there is a song called "Fly Away" and the constant refrain is "Fly Away, Fly Away, Fly Away," and the refrain really describes what you can do with this new invention. The catch is of course with this, you can only fly away in your imagination. TFT INSTRUMENTS Company has designed a new flight simulator that can be used for entertainment (with both movie studio sets/movie productions), airports, and shopping centers.

BAGHDAD – A U.S. Air Force captain here is working with the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority to allow Iraqi air traffic controllers in Baghdad to monitor and communicate with aircraft flying in airspace throughout the country."Air Force Capt. Kurando Mensen, Air Component Coordination Element-Iraq, inspects a Very Small Aperture Terminal dish at a civilian Iraqi airport, March 17, 2010. The VSAT system will eventually allow Baghdad to monitor and communicate with aircraft flying anywhere in the country. U.S. Air Force photo." The Very Small Aperture Terminal System (VSAT) supports a radio communication instrument allowing remote communication and navigation stations across...

Eight men aboard a Delta flight subdued a man who was threatening to blow up the plane Friday. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (April 23, 2010)--Tampa Bay Rays broadcaster and former major league manager Kevin Kennedy said he was among a group of eight men who subdued a man who threatened to blow up a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to Florida.

A Delta Connection flight from Rochester, N.Y., to Atlanta was canceled after an altercation between two flight attendants. According the news Web site YNN Rochester, the flight was operated by Pinnacle Airlines. YNN quoted a passenger, Steve Mazur, who said the two female attendants "got into a fistfight on the plane. The pilot decided to kick everyone off the plane.” “They told us we had to get off the plane because stewardesses were fighting,” another passenger, Corey Minton, told the Web site. A spokesman for Pinnacle Airlines said the flight attendants will be kept off the job until an investigation...

Two held after aircraft toilet fire in China's Xinjiang Reuters Sat Jan 30, 2:37 am ET BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese police have detained two people after a domestic flight from the restless western region of Xinjiang was forced to turn around when a passenger set fire to toilet paper in the washroom, state media said on Saturday. The official Xinhua news agency said the China Southern flight was bound for the central Chinese city of Wuhan. "The crew of the flight CZ6939 ... discovered the passenger's behavior some time after take-off," Xinhua said, citing Xinjiang police sources. "Two passengers, including...

After several days of denying eyewitness reports of a second man from Northwest Flight 253 being arrested following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of the plane by a Nigerian passenger linked to al-Qaida, the chief U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer in the Detroit area has admitted another passenger was taken into custody. Ronald G. Smith sent an e-mail to the Detroit News, the paper reported, apologizing that the information provided to federal investigators by two attorneys aboard the plane had not been made available earlier.

1:52 PM CST, January 1, 2010 ST. LOUIS (AP) — A United Airlines Express flight returned to St. Louis as a precaution because of an unspecified "security concern." United Airlines spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says there were no incidents during the flight, and it redeparted at 9:30 a.m. Friday after the issue was resolved. She says Flight 7445 was headed from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport to Chicago's O'Hare Airport when it was called back by the airline around 8 a.m. McCarthy provided no details about the security issue and referred questions to Go-Jet, the regional carrier that operated the flight. But...

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Officials say a Somali national tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month with powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that together could have caused an explosion. The hallmarks bear chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner. Police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise says the suspect was arrested before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight departed. It was scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai.

One would have thought historical experience had made it crystal clear that free markets are superior to government planning. Both Obama and Bush intervened in the free market with bailouts, new burdensome regulations (as if regulation didn't help cause the current crisis), and stimulus packages that have failed beyond a reasonable doubt. Why have they failed? For the same reason government planning has failed everywhere else it has been tried. There is no one person or bureaucracy that can predict all the billions and billions of both rational and irrational decisions within in a free market or society every day....

In interviews following the attempted bombing of a Detroit bound airliner, Secretary Napolitano hit the airwaves to reassure the American people. On Sunday, Ms. Napolitano commented, “The system has worked really very, very smoothly over the past several days.” Presumably, since the comment was made on Sunday, the last several days would include the time at which the bomber boarded his flight in Amsterdam, and

Officials now say tragedy was only averted on Northwest flight 253 because a makeshift detonator failed to work properly. Share Man accused of attempt to blow up plane was sent on mission by terror leaders. Bomb experts say there was more than enough explosive to bring down the Northwest jet, which had nearly 300 people aboard, had the detonator not failed, and the nation's outdated airport screening machines may need to be upgraded.

EVERETT, Wash.—Boeing Co.'s long-delayed 787 Dreamliner made its first flight on Tuesday morning under cold, cloudy skies, marking a milestone for the company's marquee commercial jetliner program that is running more than two years behind schedule. The first Dreamliner test aircraft rolled down runway 34 Left at Paine Field at 10:28 a.m. and smoothly lifted off, heading northbound. Thousands of people, including hundreds of Boeing employees, plane enthusiasts and media, gathered at the airfield, which is also the site of Boeing's wide-body jet factory, where the Dreamliners are assembled.

(Editor’s Note: Doug Hagmann’s popular site, the Northeast Intelligence Network is currently under transition to another server and will be back online later today.) It happened again on Wednesday, December 9, 2009, less than a month after the incident aboard AirTran Flight 297. United Airlines Flight 227, scheduled to depart Denver International Airport at 1:50 pm Wednesday for Los Angeles was disrupted when several passengers who were described as Middle Eastern in appearance, confirmed by this investigator to be a group of Muslims traveling together, were removed from that aircraft due to suspicious behavior that originated in the terminal and...

This story has not made headlines and may never be told by the lying media but we are trying to get the following account out to the public. It is important to know Homeland Security is NOT taking care of its job and seems to be more concerned about political correctness than passenger safety. This was sent directly to us from the individual who had the experience.  The information has been verified.  Here is the story. One week ago, I went to Ohio on business and to see my father. On Tuesday, November the 17th, I returned home. If you read the papers...

Police say a woman went to great lengths to make sure her boss didn't miss his flight Wednesday -- she called in a bomb threat. Her delay tactics weren't taken lightly. Police on Thursday arrested Claudia De La Rosa, 31, of Sunny Isles Beach, on a charge of false report of planting a bomb. Here's what happened, according to the arrest affidavit. On Wednesday, a call and e-mail came into Miami International Airport, saying in Spanish there was a bomb on an American Airlines plane. It listed the flight number and departure time. ``The flight was delayed while MDPD searched...

WWII Vets Take To The Sky For Flight Of Honor101 Local Veterans Visit WWII Memorial UPDATED: 9:31 pm EDT October 3, 2009 GREENSBORO -- With family and friends looking on in anticipation, 101 local veterans took to the sky Saturday morning for a daytrip visit to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. These were the men and women who 65 years ago stormed the beaches in France, battled at sea, liberated Paris, marched to Berlin and served on the home front, all to squash the surge of tyrannical Nazism and preserve freedom in the world. The veterans, now...

9/3/2009 - KABUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Test pilots, engineers and ground crews from Alenia North America performed an initial test flight of the first of 20 programmed Afghan C-27A "Spartans" recently in Italy. The medium-sized tactical military transport remains on schedule for delivery to Naples in late September. Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan is currently refurbishing these C-27As, which will be added to the Afghan National Army Air Corps' fleet in November. Currently, the Afghan National Army Air Corps operates seven refurbished Soviet-era fixed-wing aircraft that are familiar platforms to the aircrews and maintenance personnel. The transition to the...