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Plane Makes Emergency Landing Over Poison Concerns – Passengers Began to Suffocate

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By Fox News. A flight to Dubai made an emergency landing in Volgograd, Russia, an hour after takeoff amid fears that passengers had been poisoned, The Sun reported.

The Ural Airlines flight U6-893 reportedly left from Moscow Saturday carrying 150 passengers. Just over a half an hour after the flight took off, some on board started reporting feeling ill. . .

“All of them had greatly dilated pupils. They were suffocating. The flight attendants were in panic, and the aircraft captain decided to make an emergency landing in Volgograd.”

A female passenger who deplaned in Volgograd told The Sun, “I was woken by a young woman screaming for assistance. She yelled and screamed ‘Help, help!’ because her husband felt ill. He was feeling really bad. He was suffocating and he couldn’t breathe in.”

“His face went the color green. Then a panic swept through the plane,” she continued. (Read more from “Plane Makes Emergency Landing Over Poison Concerns – Passengers Began to Suffocate” HERE)

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Dubai-Bound Plane Makes Emergency Landing Over Cabin Poisoning Fears as Passengers Say They Are ‘Suffocating and Turning Green’

By The Sun. An airliner was forced to make an emergency landing in Russia today after passengers began complaining they were “suffocating” and “turning green”.

Panic swept through the cabin of the Ural Airlines flight from Moscow to Dubai about one hour 25 minutes into the journey. . .

Doctors and paramedics from five ambulances rushed on board the Airbus A321-211, videos show.

Several passengers were taken for urgent medical treatment. Their conditions were not immediately known. . .

Those with children moved them away from the rows blighted by the strange symptoms as people feared a infectious disease was sweeping through the plane. (Read more from “Dubai-Bound Plane Makes Emergency Landing Over Cabin Poisoning Fears as Passengers Say They Are ‘Suffocating and Turning Green'” HERE)

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Plane Explodes into Ball of Flames

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A Boeing 737 plane has crashed moments after taking off from Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport – just one day after more than a third of its fleet were grounded over safety concerns.

At least 100 are dead after the internal Cubana de Aviacion flight, which was carrying 113 passengers and crew, including five children, crashed into a yuca field near a high school, in the Santiago de las Vegas neighborhood, on Friday.

Just four survivors were recovered and taken to hospital in critical condition, according to Cuban media. One has since died in hospital.

Photos of the scene show fire crews attempting to put out the still smoking wreckage of the aircraft which was devastated in the crash. Debris was left scattered across the surrounding area after the explosion. . .

The flight was leased by airline Cubana from a small Mexican airline called Damojh or Global, Cuban state media said. Holguin has some of the island’s most pristine beaches, and attracts tourists.

(Read more from “Plane Explodes into Ball of Flames” HERE)

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Flight ‘Travels Back in Time’ Due to Takeoff Delay, Time Zone Quirks

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A flight managed to take passengers “back in time” to 2017 on Monday.

In case anyone is wondering: no, time travel is still not feasible. This happened due to a takeoff delay, and a quirk in the time zones that define the world.

According to FlightAware, Hawaiian Airlines Flight 446 was originally scheduled to take off from Auckland, New Zealand at 11:55 p.m. on December 31, 2017 (New Zealand time). However, due to a delay, the flight did not take off until 12:05 a.m. on January 1, 2018.

After a flight that lasted nine hours and 10 minutes, it landed in Honolulu, at 10:15 a.m on December 31, 2017 (Hawaiian time).

This happened due to a quirk in the way time is calculated around the world. According to the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Hawaii is in a time zone that is 10 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time. According to NIST, UTC is commonly expressed as the time near Greenwich, England. (Read more from “Flight ‘Travels Back in Time’ Due to Takeoff Delay, Time Zone Quirks” HERE)

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Airline Passenger Caught Smoking, Threatens to Kill

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A Southwest Airlines pilot was forced to declare an emergency on Saturday after a passenger repeatedly told a flight attendant she would “kill everybody” on the plane.

The trouble started after the female passenger disabled a smoke detector aboard Southwest Flight 2943 from Portland, Ore., to Sacramento, and proceeded to smoke onboard, Southwest confirmed to Fox News. After she was caught, the woman created a “disturbance” which was captured on video by a fellow passenger.

“I have a destination for this, I have a destination for myself, and I need to go there,” the woman can be heard saying in footage provided to KOIN 6.

“I swear, if you … land, I will kill everybody on this [expletive deleted] plane,” she shouted. “I will kill everybody on this [expletive deleted] plane!” . . .

The woman, who was later identified as 24-year-old Valerie Curbelo of Sandy, Ore., was physically restrained for the remainder of the flight, according to KOVR, although Southwest has not confirmed those details. (Read more from “Airline Passenger Caught Smoking, Threatens to Kill” HERE)

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Video: Passenger Is Dragged off Overbooked United Flight

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Video of police officers dragging a passenger from an overbooked United Airlines flight sparked an uproar Monday on social media, and a spokesman for the airline insisted that employees had no choice but to contact authorities to remove the man.

As the flight waited to depart from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from a window seat, pulling him across the armrest and dragging him down the aisle by his arms. The airline was trying to make room for four of its employees on the Sunday evening flight to Louisville, Kentucky.

Other passengers on Flight 3411 are heard saying, “Please, my God,” ”What are you doing?” ”This is wrong,” ”Look at what you did to him” and “Busted his lip.”

(Read more from “Video: Passenger Is Dragged off Overbooked United Flight” HERE)

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What Really Happens to Your Body on a Flight

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From oxygen deprivation and cosmic radiation to loss of taste, your body can suffer some worrying effects during air travel. But how can they be avoided? . . .

Dr Richard Dawood, Telegraph Travel’s travel health expert, says the “virtually moisture-free” conditions inside a plane cabin increase your vulnerability to airborne infection. You’re more susceptible to colds and respiratory infection, and viruses which are known to thrive in conditions of low-humidity.

The findings of Auburn University in Alabama in 2014 revealed that disease-causing bacteria can survive for up to a week inside plane cabins, on surfaces such as seat pockets, tray tables, window shades and armrests. Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacteria that could cause infections, skin disease, pneumonia and sepsis, lived the longest (168 hours). Escherichia coli (E. coli), which can cause urinary tract infection, respiratory illness and diarrhoea, was found to survive for 96 hours . . .

Aircraft cabins are pressurised to 75 per cent of the normal atmospheric pressure, a recent study claimed. Lower levels of oxygen in your blood can lead to hypoxia, which can leave you feeling dizzy, fatigued and with headaches . . .

A third of your taste buds are said to become numb at high altitudes, while dryness and cabin air pressure also affect your ears, sinuses and sense of taste, according to the latest research. (Read more from “What Really Happens to Your Body on a Flight” HERE)

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Taiwanese Woman Gives Birth on Plane Diverted to Alaska – Here’s the Possible Reason Why

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A Taiwanese woman who gave birth on a flight to the U.S. in what may have been an attempt to give her baby American citizenship could face a hefty bill for forcing the plane to divert to Alaska.

The insurance firm of China Airlines will decide whether to ask the unnamed passenger to cover the cost of the stopover to ensure the health of her baby, airline media affairs staffer Weni Lee said Friday. The flight made an emergency landing en route from Taipei to Los Angeles on Oct. 8.

Taiwanese media have estimated the bill at $33,000, although the airline said its insurer is still calculating the cost.

The local media have widely reported that the woman evidently wanted to give the child American citizenship. Taiwan’s China Times newspaper’s website said that, before giving birth, she repeatedly asked the cabin crew, “Are we in U.S. air space?” . . .

Alaska state officials say the baby is eligible for U.S. citizenship. A baby born in flight has the right to be a U.S. citizen if that is where the child first arrives, even if born in international air space, said Susan Morgan, spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Social Services. (Read more from “Taiwanese Woman Gives Birth on Plane Diverted to Alaska – Here’s the Possible Reason Why” HERE)

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Pilot Spots Large Object off Reunion, Aviation Authorities Say

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150805141042-07-reunion-island-debris-0730-exlarge-169Nearly two months after debris from the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 washed up on Reunion Island, a large object reportedly floating off the island has piqued the interest of French officials there.

An Air France pilot reported seeing “a white object” floating in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday morning about 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of the French island, said Siva Vadivelou, assistant director of the French Civil Aviation Authority on Reunion.

The Air France flight was at an altitude of 3,000 meters, or about 9,800 feet, the office of the island’s prefect said. Because of the altitude, “it must be a voluminous object for the pilot to see it,” Vadivelou said.

Authorities diverted a merchant ship to the area and flew an aircraft over it at low altitude, but nothing was found Tuesday, according to the prefect’s office.

French investigators said this month that debris that washed up on the island in July — an airplane flaperon — was from MH370, a Boeing 777 that disappeared with 239 people aboard in March 2014 while on a flight scheduled from Malaysia to China. (Read more from “Pilot Spots Large Object off Reunion, Aviation Authorities Say” HERE)

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The X-37b’s Big Brother Revealed: Boeing Bags $6.6m Contract to Do This

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2B21C16B00000578-3186484-image-a-21_1438815284013Boeing has been awarded a $6.6m contract to design a cheap, reusable mini shuttle that can launch military satellites.

The small, planelike craft is known as the XS-1 program—short for ‘eXperimental Spaceplane 1’, and could blast off in 2019 on its first test mission.

It is hoped the craft could quickly launch small satellites that could defend against the growing threat of Russian and Chinese space weapons.

XS-1 could ‘create a new paradigm for more routine, responsive and affordable space operations,’ according to DARPA, the military research arm heading the project.

The XS-1 is an airplane-like vehicle that can fly to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere and quickly boost small satellites into orbit, and then land, refuel, load up another satellite, and take off again within 24 hours. (Read more from “The X-37b’s Big Brother Revealed: Boeing Bags $6.6m Contract to Do This” HERE)

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Feds Say That Banned Researcher Commandeered a United Airlines Jet

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Photo Credit: Wired A security researcher kicked off a United Airlines flight last month after tweeting about security vulnerabilities in its system had previously taken control of an airplane and caused it to briefly fly sideways, according to an application for a search warrant filed by an FBI agent.

Chris Roberts, a security researcher with One World Labs, told the FBI agent during an interview in February that he had hacked the in-flight entertainment system, or IFE, on an airplane and overwrote code on the plane’s Thrust Management Computer while aboard the flight. He was able to issue a climb command and make the plane briefly change course, the document states.

“He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights,” FBI Special Agent Mark Hurley wrote in his warrant application (.pdf). “He also stated that he used Vortex software after comprising/exploiting or ‘hacking’ the airplane’s networks. He used the software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system.”

Hurley filed the search warrant application last month after Roberts was removed from a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Syracuse, New York, because he published a facetious tweet suggesting he might hack into the plane’s network. Upon landing in Syracuse, two FBI agents and two local police officers escorted him from the plane and interrogated him for several hours. They also seized two laptop computers and several hard drives and USB sticks. Although the agents did not have a warrant when they seized the devices, they told Roberts a warrant was pending.

A media outlet in Canada obtained the application for the warrant today and published it online. (Read more from “Feds Say That Banned Researcher Commandeered a Plane” HERE)

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