Like A Homing Pigeon, Bird Flu Is Coming Back

The virulent bird flu virus H5N1 might be on the verge of triggering a devastating pandemic, like it did in 1997. The canarys in the coalmine are actually minks, in Spain, which succombed to H5N1 last October. USDA recorded 110 outbreaks in other mammals in 2022-2023. Will it reach pandemic status in either poultry or people? At this point, nobody knowns for sure, but it may be wise to prepare for the worst.

More:

“Tracking the bird flu, experts see a familiar threat — and a virus whose course is hard to predict,” Helen Branswell, STAT

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Image Disclaimer:This blog post is not intended to substitute for the advice of qualified physicians, virologists, epidemiologists, airline reservation clerks, ornithologists, pharmacists, travel agents, or licensed health, veterinary, and aviation professionals. Contact your health care provider if you suspect you have a medical problem, buy only AMA-certified poultry feed, and confirm departure time before going to the airport.

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How to Keep Birds From Hitting Airplanes

Laura Francoeur, Chief Wildlife Biologist for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, explains how they minimize bard-plance collisions at JFK Airport. A Wall Street Journal video.

Related:

“Port Authority Biologists Work to Keep Turtles Off JFK’s Runways,” Lori Chung, NY1

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Boeing Screwed Up 737 MAX, Blamed Pilots

When it became clear that the Boeing 737 had reached the end of its lifecyle and couldn’t compete with newer Airbus A320, the company’s aerospace engineers wanted to design a new model from scratch to maximize performance and safety. Corporation executives, focused on costs and shareholder profits, insisted that they tarted up the old 737 and called it the “737 MAX.” Worse, Boeing facilities, once centralized in Seattle, were now scattered around the country, so designers, engineers, and test pilots couldn’t communicate as readily.

When the “new” 737 MAX planes began falling out of the sky, Boeing executives quickly blamed the failures on “pilot error,” not their own disasterous decisions.

More:

“Boeing knew doomed 737-MAX plane was ‘pig with lipstick’ but still let it fly,” Gavin Newsham, NY Post

“How Shareholder Capitalism Crashed a Plane (Two, Actually),” Moe Tkacik, New York Magazine

“Boeing built an unsafe plane, and blamed the pilots when it crashed,” Peter Robison, Business Live

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Boeing Stops Production of 737 Max 8 Passenger Planes

Boeing has stopped production of 737 Max 8 jets until FAA regulators say they’re safe to fly. Two of those planes crashed, killing 346 people, after FAA regulators originally took Boeing’s assurances that the planes were good to go. De-regulation kills.

More:

“Boeing suspends production of 737 Max model involved in fatal crashes,” Dominic Rushe, The Guardian

Related:

“How Did the F.A.A. Allow the Boeing 737 Max to Fly?” John Cassidy, The New Yorker

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Slide to the flight gate at the airport.

If you spend S$10 a few bucks at the restaurants or businesses at Singapore’s Changi Airport, getting to your flight’s departure gate is fast and easy.  Just take the four-storey-high slide.

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Boeing Finally Grounds All Remaining 737 Max 8 Planes

Many global air carriers stopped flying their Boeing 737 Max 8 airliners after the fatal crash of that model in Ethiopia on Monday, but President Trump (“I like stupid pilots“), who often chats with Boeing’s CEO (a major campaign donor and lobbyist) put it off until late Wednesday. By then, some US travelers scheduled to fly on Max 8s were rebooking.

Boeing had devised a software update for the Max 8 after a similar fatal crash in Indonesia in October, but FAA approval was reportedly delayed by the Trump government shutddown. In the words of the president, “God Bless Boeing.”

More:

“How Did the F.A.A. Allow the Boeing 737 Max to Fly?” John Cassidy, The New Yorker

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Congress Passed an FAA Extension. Here’s Why.

The House and Senate passed a six-month extension for the Federal Aviation Agency this week. Everyone in DC knew they would.

Why?  Self-interest. Senators and members of congress fly into Washington on Tuesday morning and fly home again on Thursday afternoon. They spend most of their time back home on Job One, raising money for the next campaign.

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American Airlines iPad Crash

70 American Airlines flights were delayed last week when an app on the pilots’ iPads crashed. The problem wasn’t with the planes or the iPads but with the software, made by a division of Boeing. According to Re/Code a conflict between two versions of the Washington National Airport map jammed up the software, and the glitch was finally solved by deleting and re-installing the app.

American Airlines has been using Apple tablets in all its planes since 2013, replacing the 35 pounds of reference papers and manuals each pilot used to haul on board for each flight. The airline says going paperless and replacing 24 million pages of documents with 8,000 iPads saves the company 400,000 gallons of fuel each year.

It’s Sad. But It’s Getting Sick.

“World’s first cyber hijack: Was missing Malaysia Airlines flight hacked with mobile phone?” James Fielding and Stuart Winter, The Express

“CNN: Did a Black Hole Make Flight 370 Disappear?” Taylor Berman, Gawker

“Spoon-bender Uri Geller asked by Malaysian officials to locate missing plane,” Sophie Alexander, The Express

“Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Is There a Bermuda Triangle Connection?” Benjamin Radford, LiveScience.com

Body Scanner Alternatives

Air travelers worldwide are protesting the use of full body scanners in airports, and they like TSA’s full-body pat-downs even less. Eternal vigilance is the price we pay in the battle against deadly exploding undergarments, and this public resistance doesn’t leave many alternatives. One of our readers suggested underwear check-in and compulsory use of security-compliant kilts by air travellers. We assume the airlines will charge extra for that.

 

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