AirSafe.com Air Launches Traveler Ebook Project

After the positive response to AirSafe.com's first ebook, AirSafe.com Baggage and Security Guide, we've decided to launch a new series of ebooks aimed at air travelers, and we'd like to ask for your help.

Like the first ebook, this one will be provided without cost to the traveling public, and will provide air travelers with a valuable resource that will help them avoid or manage many of the common problems they face when they fly.

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Check out the Ebook Project Video

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The Problem
For years, AirSafe.com has provided the traveling public with vital information about airline safety, airport security, and other issues that matter to travelers. But because this information is available exclusively online, it is often out of reach just when you need it most...

• An airline damaged your luggage, and you want to make sure that you ask the right questions and get the right paperwork filled out.
• The gate agent announces your flight is cancelled, and you need to book an alternate flight quickly.
• On the way to the airport, you realize you left your driver's license at home, and you need to know what alternative IDs the TSA will accept.
  
• A TSA agent is conducting what you think is an inappropriate search, and you don't know how to respond to the situation.

All these situations are covered by AirSafe.com, but are not accessible to airline passengers if they can't get online. If passengers had this kind of information in their smartphones or a tablet device, it could be a great help to them.

The Solution
AirSafe.com plans to take the best of its online information and put it into a series of ebooks that anyone can download for free and keep on hand at all times. A traveler in trouble just turns on a smartphone and all the information he or she needs is available in an instant.

The Project
The goal of the project is to use the insights gained from running AirSafe.com to create several ebooks, each of which covers a specific area of common air traveler concerns:

1. Airline Complaints Do's and Don'ts - Will cover the basic rules and requirements that passengers must follow when they file a complaint against an airline, airport, or government agency.
2. Travel with Children - Will include many of the common concerns parents face when flying with infants or children, plus key information for parents whose children need to fly alone.
3. Dealing with common travel issues - This ebook will give very practical advice on how to deal with problems like lost bags, cancelled flights, air rage, and inappropriate behavior by security personnel.
4. Once all three ebooks are completed, a fourth one containing all the content from the first three ebooks will also be published.

How You Can Help
AirSafe.com has teamed up with Indiegogo to ask you to support this project. This project seeks to collect $5,000, and all of the money will be used for professional services such as editing and ebook formatting, in order to ensure that the products will work with all popular ebook devices and smartphones, including the Kindle, Nook, iPad, and iPhone.

Your support will help ensure that these ebooks will continue to be offered for free, and will be able to help travelers for years to come.

Contribute
You can contribute using PayPal or a credit card, and everyone who contributes $1 or more will receive AirSafe.com's thanks, as well as other benefits. Please visit books.airsafe.com for more details.

Find Out More
Visit books.airsafe.com or check out the video above to find out more about this project and more about the work of AirSafe.com.

Introducing AirSafe.com's Wedding Week

June is a very popular month for weddings, and for most it is a happy occasion. If you have to fly to get to that wedding, things may go wrong and spoil an otherwise joyful occasion.

Today, AirSafe.com introduces what we hope will become an annual affair, Wedding Week on FlightsGoneBad.com. This site features complaints submitted to the AirSafe.com Complaint system complain.airsafe.com. Every day until the end of June will bring a new complaint about how a wedding, a wedding anniversary, or a honeymoon was ruined by an air travel issue.

The first complaint, United Partner Airline Issue Ruins Wedding Night is from a new bride who spent Christmas Eve (which was also the night of her wedding) keeping her children from being stranded in a strange airport.

Tune in every day until June 30th for another tale of high stress, missing bags, unexpected charges, and other wedding-related surprises.

Two plane crashes in two days in Ghana and Nigeria

2 June 2012; Allied Air; 727-200; 5N-BJN; flight 111; Accra, Ghana: The aircraft was on a cargo flight from Lagos, Nigeria, to Accra, Ghana, and overran the runway after landing. The aircraft struck a minivan on a nearby road, killing all 10 of the occupants. None of the four crew members were killed.

Because no airline passengers were killed, this is not counted as a fatal event as defined by AirSafe.com.

3 June 2012; Dana Air; MD83; 5N-RAM; flight 992; Lagos, Nigeria: The aircraft was on a scheduled domestic flight Abuja to Lagos, Nigeria, and crashed in a residential area near the airport.

The aircraft was completely destroyed in the crash, and all eight crew members and 139 passengers were killed. The plane reportedly struck a power line and then crashed into at least one apartment building.

This was the 18th fatal crash of an MD80 series aircraft and the first since the August 2008 crash of a Spanair MD82 in Madrid.

Related
Fatal MD80 series crashes
Fatal 727 crashes
Crash rates by model
Recent plane crashes

Falling hot metal chunks from a 777 engine hit Toronto suburb

28 May 2012; Toronto, Canada; Air Canada 777, flight AC001: During or shortly after takeoff, an Air Canada 777 taking off from Toronto's Pearson International Airport developed serious engine trouble which caused the liberation of several pieces of metal and led to a shutdown of its right engine. While several cars on the ground were damaged, no one on the ground was injured. After dumping excess fuel, the flight crew returned safely to the airport about 90 minutes after taking off. None of the 318 passengers and 16 crew members were injured.

Map of airport area

Canadian investigators who interviewed the pilot were told that there was loud bang from from one of the engines when the aircraft was about 1,000 feet above the ground. Several witnesses near the airport also heard an exceptionally loud takeoff, and noticed either smoke, flames, or debris coming out of one of the engines.

Several pieces of metal from the right engine came down in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto that is adjacent to the airport. At least four vehicles at a gas station were hit and damaged by debris, including one car that had its rear window smashed. One witness stated that the debris was too hot to touch.

Car damage and chunk of engine

Incident investigation
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will be investigating this incident, along with representatives of Air Canada and the engine manufacturer General Electric (GE). Early findings indicate that there was no damage to the front end of the engine, indicating that a bird or other object was not likely the cause of this engine failure. The Safety Board plans on releasing a written report about this incident.

While parts separated from the engine, this event is considered to be a contained engine event because the liberated pieces exited through the tail pipe of the engine and did not penetrate the engine case. Although uncontained engine failures are considered more potentially hazardous to people in or near the affected aircraft, this Toronto incident shows that even contained engine failures have the potential to be potentially fatal to people on the ground.

Photo: Rick Madonik, Toronto Star
Airport Map: National Post

Dr. Curtis interviewed about bird strikes by Columbia University

Earlier this month, Lars Vercelli of the Columbia University School of Journalism interviewed Dr. Curtis about his thoughts on bird hazards to aircraft, and about ways to reduce bird strike risks from a proposed garbage facility near New York's LaGuardia airport.

Over the course of ten days in mid-April 2012, there were several serious incidents involving birds colliding into planes across the US (including a strike described in an earlier AirSafeNews.com story on a passenger who recorded a bird strike with an iPad). While no one was harmed in these strike events, these incidents brought renewed attention to this ongoing aviation concern.

The two videos below incude the report broadcast by Columbia News Tonight, as well as additional comments from Dr. Curtis.

Columbia News Tonight report


Extended comments from Dr. Curtis

Additional bird stirke resources
AirSafe.com bird stirke information page
BirdStrikeNews.com
Bird Strike Committee USA

Bird Strikes and the FAA Rules on Passenger Electronics

On April 19, 2012, Delta Flight 1063, a 757 flying nonstop from JFK Airport in New York to Los Angeles, was forced to return to JFK and make an emergency landing after its right engine experienced a bird strike shortly after takeoff.

One of the passengers, New York Times bestseller Grant Cardone, happen to have been using his iPad to make a video when he caught a glimpse of the flock of birds involved in the strike.

Grant Cardone video of bird strike

Cardone caught the incident on his iPad, despite the fact that electronic devices like iPads are supposed to be turned off during that part of the flight.

The video has gotten Cardone in trouble with the FAA and he's recently received a warning letter letting him know that a record of his rule infringement will be kept for two years. The letter reportedly stated that the FAA will not penalize Cardone so long as he has no other infractions over the next two years.

Why the FAA approach makes no sense
The current FAA regulations on electronic devices were developed in an era when there were few, if any, personal electronic devices on board. It is a safe bet that the average passenger has more than one device with them when they travel. The chance that a frequent flyer will forget to turn off an iPhone, Kindle, iPad, laptop, video game, etc. at least once is likely close to 100%.

Instead of sending threatening letters, it would make much more sense for the FAA to get together with the aviation industry and the flying public and create a set of new regulations that take into account both common sense and the reality that electronic devices will likely become much more popular in airline cabins. This is a point of view emphasized by AirSafe.com creator Dr. Todd Curtis in a May 3, 2012 interview on Washington, DC radio station WTOP.

Related information
Using personal electronic devices in flight
Bird strik hazards to aircraft
WTOP interview with Dr. Curtis on May 3, 2012
Protecting your laptop when you fly

Rebroadcast of Discovery Channel's 'World's Scariest Plane Landings'

is scheduled to be on The Discovery Channel show 'World's Scariest Plane Landings,' which features AirSafe.com creator Dr. Todd Curtis, will be rebroadcast today in the US at 4pm EDT. Times may vary by cable broadcaster and time zone, so check your local listings for times in your area.

Discovery channel promises that the audience will "Experience the most frightening moments in aviation, with incredible footage and first-hand accounts from those who survived - the terrified passengers inside the planes and skilled pilots inside the cockpits."

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