Sadly a 60 year old Captain for Continental Airlines died today as Flight 61 crossed the Atlantic. Doctors onboard were quoted as saying it was a probable heart attack.

Initial autopsy reports being leaked to the press appear to verify the A 330 broke up in mid flight at high speed. Some readers may find the details unpleasant so I will put them on page two.

British Airways, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious airlines, is actually asking their employees to work a month for free.

I was set to write an editorial on the FAA’s lack of response to the Colgan Air incident after reading yesterdays USA Today editorial and response. However; today I was pleasantly surprised to see that new rules are being proposed which will undoubtedly save lives.

After reading the Australian Transportation Safety Board’s (ATSB) preliminary report I don’t see how it can be. The ATSB report identifies spikes in Angle of Attack (AOA) as the cause of the upset of QANTAS (QF) Flight 72, not airspeed. Below is the timeline of QF-72:

After some research I found the story on DEBKAfiles. Here are a couple of quotes I found describing DEBKAfiles; attributed, not anonymous: “most of the information is attributed to unidentified sources.” Forbes

“Without key information from the Airbus A330′s missing data recorders, investigators have focused on the possibility that external speed monitors — Pitot tubes — iced over and gave false readings to the plane’s computers as it flew into thunderstorms.” Why then, after the first 6 flight control events did the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) [...]

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued two Emergency Airworthiness Directives (EAD) involving the ADIRU in December and January. An EAD is different from the bulletin that was issued on the pitot system; an EAD is an immediate requirement as opposed to a recommendation. The Air France pilots union has told its members to refuse [...]

New pictures verify the wreckage found was in fact the tail/rudder assembly. Note the European Union emblem on the file photo of the Air France 330 and the wreckage. There are two things to note: first the tail appears to have failed at the attach points. Second, it obviously did not impact the water at [...]