Mesa Settles Aloha Lawsuit, Wants to Use Aloha Name
Mesa wants to use the name of its now vanquished rival, Aloha, on its airplanes. There are so many reasons this is a bad idea, it’s not even funny.
Continental’s November Traffic Performance Shows Ominous Signs
Even Continental’s revised unit revenue estimates were too high for reality. The airline delivered a very anemic performance that should concern everyone.
Southwest Holds Capacity Steady, Sees Traffic Decline Sharply
Holy cow. Southwest’s capacity was steady, but it’s traffic fell off a cliff. There’s no question demand is heading down quickly.
Delta’s Self Serving Objections to the Continental/United Antitrust Application
Surprise, surprise. Delta isn’t happy about United, Continental, Lufthansa, and Air Canada’s proposal for world domination. They may say they’re standing up for the consumer, but I’d bet otherwise.
What Will Southwest Do With Its LaGuardia Slots?
Southwest has secured 7 flights a day to LaGuardia. Now everyone wants to know where they’ll go. That decision says a lot about how they view New York.
Delta Says Fuel Savings Can Offset 20 Percent Drop in Traffic
Delta released some very interesting numbers on the value of the drop in fuel prices. If you ever doubted it was huge, this will prove it to you.
2 comments on “This Week on BNET (Dec 1 – 5)”
brazilian investigation shows that the american pilots Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino turned off the TCAS in the plane crash in brazil in 2006. they turned off and more than 150 persons of the GOL plane where killed. ()
now tell me one thing, if a brazilian pilot turns off the TCAS in US and more than 150 americans where killed, what the american press would say?
the american pilots where called HEROES by the american press.
what kind of HERO is this???
Markus – Your comment is completely off topic, but I will address it here anyway. For those who aren’t completely up on this, I would recommend a very good in-depth Vanity Fair article on the Gol accident.
As with any accident, mistakes were made all around. The pilots didn’t notice that their Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and transponder were turned off. This could also be blamed on the manufacturer for not making the warnings more clear. On the other hand, the Brazilian air traffic controllers also failed in their duties to keep the aircraft apart and to properly respond to radio calls. The only people who seem to be without cause here are sadly those who perished, the Gol pilots and everyone onboard.
Now would I call the pilots heroes? No. They did a very good job of landing a severely disabled aircraft, but I don’t think that makes them heroes. But the important thing here is whether or not anyone had criminal intent. As I said in a previous post, had the pilots deliberately flown a plane into a skyscraper, then yes, they should be treated as criminals. But instead we have what we find in most aviation accidents. Many small things added up to create a horrific accident. There was no criminal intent, and the pilots should not be treated as such in the interest of safety. In the US, they would not be treated that way regardless of nationality.
Instead, we need to all learn from this accident and ensure that something like it never happens again. If you’d like to consider further discussion, I ask that you move it back to a relevant thread:
http://crankyflier.com/2006/12/08/brazilian-federal-police-earn-cranky/
[Updated 12/8 @ 1028a to fix link to Vanity Fair article]