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☆ Virginia plane crash: First responders say aircraft left 'crater' with few recognizable pieces of wreckage
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Elizabeth Wolfe Natasha Bertrand Haley Britzky Pete Muntean Brian Todd Lauren Koenig Lauren Mascarenhas Cnn | Elizabeth Wolfe | Natasha Bertrand | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —Four first responders who arrived at the scene of Sunday’s fatal private plane crash near Raphine, Virginia, told CNN the plane left a “crater,” and they believe it impacted the ground at a very steep angle. First responders said the crash site is amid steep, mountainous terrain that is difficult to reach on foot. We were obviously freaked out a little bit,” Chuck Martin, who felt the boom in Fairfax County, Virginia, told CNN affiliate WJLA. No survivors found in the wreckageSearch and rescue teams assemble before going to the site of Sunday's plane crash near Montebello, Virginia. John Rumpel, whose wife Barbara is listed as the president of the company, told CNN they own Encore.

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CNN —Hundreds of Southwest Airlines flights were delayed after technical issues that prompted the airline to temporarily halt its operations on Tuesday morning. The Federal Aviation Administration initiated the ground stop at the airline’s request, citing “equipment issues.” The ground stop was soon lifted, and in a tweet at 11:35 a.m. Southwest had delayed 1,820 flights or 43% of its schedule as of just after noon Tuesday, according to FlightAware. Southwest called the latest problem “intermittent technology issues” in a social media post to customers. Several took to social media to complain about delayed flights.

☆ Live updates: East Palestine, Ohio train derailment Senate hearing
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Chris Isidore | Aditi Sangal | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

In the lead-up to a Senate committee hearing on the toxic train derailment that spilled chemicals in the Ohio town of East Palestine last month, a bipartisan group of senators is introducing a new bill aimed at shoring up rail safety. The Railway Safety Act of 2023 will be introduced by Republican Sens. Vance of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Democratic Sens. It has a provision requiring “well-trained, two-person crews aboard every train.” And it boosts the maximum fines for rail carriers for wrongdoing. Data compiled by the nonprofit OpenSecrets show that Norfolk Southern, the company involved in the Ohio derailment, spent $1.8 million on federal lobbying last year.

☆ NTSB: FedEx plane was only 150 feet off ground when disaster was averted
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

The NTSB’s initial findings confirmed earlier reports that it was the FedEx pilot, not air traffic controllers, who detected the problem and told the Southwest plane to abort its takeoff. NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy previously told CNN she believes the two planes came within 100 feet or less. “It’s a big concern for us.”The report said the Southwest plane was racing down the runway, picking up speed to take off, when the FedEx pilot warning came. The Southwest plane did take off, and veered sharply to the right as it became airborne. The FedEx plane veered to the left as it aborted its landing to avoid a possible collision.

“The Learjet pilot read back the instructions clearly but began a takeoff roll instead,” the FAA said in a statement. The NTSB says neither airplane was damaged and nobody on board was hurt. The FedEx plane, meanwhile, climbed as its crew aborted their landing to help avoid a collision, the FAA said. Air traffic controllers had “noticed another aircraft crossing the runway in front of the departing jetliner,” the FAA said in a statement. Audio recordings detail swift action by an air traffic controller kept the airplanes from colliding as they drew closer.

CNN —The first tool that mechanic trainees at Maryland’s Vehicles for Change program pick up is not a wrench, but a pair of virtual reality goggles. The virtual-first training program is an unconventional solution to a real-world problem: a significant shortage of qualified automotive technicians. Maryland's Vehicles for Change program is using VR to help train more mechanics and address a nationwide mechanics shortage. In the early days of the pandemic, doctors and nurses used VR to train for treating patients with Covid-19. And some schools have used VR to expand the classroom beyond its physical walls, particularly as demand for remote education exploded during the pandemic.

☆ Investigators probing a possible near-collision between two aircraft on an airport runway in Austin, Texas
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( Pete Muntean | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: 1 min

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CNN —The US Transportation Department said it is in the early stages of an investigation into the Southwest Airlines holiday travel meltdown in December. The probe includes an examination of whether Southwest is scheduling more flights than it can handle. “DOT is in the initial phase of a rigorous and comprehensive investigation into Southwest Airlines’ holiday debacle that stranded millions,” a spokesperson for the department said. Various Southwest employees will also receive additional “gratitude” pay for working through the meltdown. DOT is also probing whether Southwest executives engaged in unrealistic scheduling of flights which under federal law is considered an unfair and deceptive practice.

☆ Human error more likely in JFK near collision after alert system failure ruled out
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Pete Muntean | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: 1 min

NTSB spokeswoman Sarah Sulick told CNN interviews related to the investigation are ongoing, a detail that has not yet been reported elsewhere. Investigators will be able to listen to the radio transmissions, which have already been recorded and preserved. Those recordings would also reveal if the American pilots heard the instructions completely from the air traffic controllers and if so, how they apparently became confused. If the voice records inside the American cockpit are preserved, they may depict a detailed conversation about the aircraft’s on-the-ground movements. In this incident, radio recordings show controllers instructed the American pilots to place a phone call to officials at the tower to address the “possible pilot deviation” from the assigned route.

☆ Aging, outdated technology leaves air travel at risk of meltdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

As early as 2012, the FAA decided it wanted to replace aging legacy voice switches used in air traffic control communications with new, internet-based communications technology. Trying to integrate old systems with newer ones — always in real time, because the global aviation industry never sleeps — can also create its own opportunities for catastrophic mistakes. Many more things can go wrong than you might expect — highlighting the sheer complexity of the aviation industry, and underscoring how there isn’t a quick easy fix for IT-related travel disruptions. But it has had lasting effects on FAA technology. That bureaucratic myopia is its own cause of today’s technological malaise in the aviation industry.

☆ FAA is years away from upgrading the system that grounded all US flights
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Pete Muntean | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

The Notices to Air Missions (NOTAM) database failure triggered the FAA to implement the first nationwide stop of air traffic in more than 20 years. “The core operating system for the database has been around since the 1990s,” the source said. “Regardless of the improvements made to the system in recent years, it still has the heart of an 89-year-old man.”CNN has reached out to the FAA for comment on updates to the NOTAM system to date and its modernization timeline. Late Wednesday, the FAA continued to downplay the possibility of a cyberattack as the root cause of the system failure. “The FAA needs more funding,” Kirby said in an on-stage interview before aviation leaders.

☆ Elon Musk is under federal investigation for another Tesla tweet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Pete Muntean | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Federal regulators want to know what Elon Musk meant in a Tweet about disabling driver alerts on Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” driver assist system. On December 31, Musk replied to a tweet by @WholeMarsBlog that said “users with more than 10,000 miles on FSD Beta should be given the option to turn off the steering wheel nag.”“Agreed, update coming in Jan,” Musk replied. NHTSA says the issue falls under the agency’s existing investigation into the performance of Tesla’s driver assist systems. “The investigation opening was motivated by an accumulation of crashes in which Tesla vehicles, operating with Autopilot engaged, struck stationary in-road or roadside first responder vehicles tending to pre-existing collision scenes,” reads the summary of the investigation which opened in June. The federal inquiry into the tweet was first reported by the Associated Press.

☆ House Dems to Buttigieg: ‘Much more needs to be done’ following Southwest meltdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Pete Muntean | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Washington CNN —House Democrats overseeing airlines are telling Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to come down harder on Southwest Airlines for stranding millions of passengers over the holidays. “We believe much more needs to be done,” more than two dozen Democrat members of what will be the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure wrote in a letter to Buttigieg shared with CNN. The members have technically not yet been seated in the absence of a new speaker of the House, and the letter was not written on committee letterhead. The airline says it is urgently issuing refunds to passengers for canceled flights and extra expenses they incurred as well as reuniting them with their lost bags. “Refunds and other types of compensation policies quickly become meaningless if there’s not a clear mechanism or platform for passenger redress,” the letter states.

☆ Frontier Airlines no longer has a customer service phone line
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Customers who need flight information or want to make changes to travel plans can no longer call Frontier Airlines and speak to an agent, the company confirmed to CNN Saturday. Customers seeking help or information from the carrier must deal with an online chatbot, social media channels or WhatsApp. Customers who call the customer service phone number now are greeted with an automated message that says, “At Frontier, we offer the lowest fares in the industry by operating our airline as efficiently as possible. We also have a chat service available 24/7.”Its low-cost flight competitors, Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Airlines, still use call centers staffed by live agents. It’s no wonder Frontier wants to get rid of customer service over the phone.

☆ United pilots reject contract as airline negotiations ramp up
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Greg Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN Business —A shortage of airline pilots is leading pilots at America’s largest carriers to push for better pay and benefits. The union representing United Airlines (UAL) pilots said Tuesday its members rejected a tentative contract, voting 94% against the deal. It accused management of delays and said pilots deserve better now that the airline is profitable again. American’s pilots may soon consider a tentative agreement between their union — the Allied Pilots Association — and the airline, Tajer said. The votes by United and Delta pilots are not the only way airline contract negotiations have spilled into public view.

☆ Delta pilots say they’re willing to strike, but no impact to Thanksgiving travel is expected
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Pete Muntean | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN Business —Delta Air Lines pilots intensified their push for improved pay by insisting they will strike if they do not get a new contract. With 96% of members participating in an Air Line Pilots Association union vote, 99% of Delta pilots “authorized union leaders to call a strike, if necessary, to achieve a new contractual agreement,” the union said. Delta pilots say they are working under an outdated contract from 2016. “Delta pilots are not on strike, so this authorization vote will not affect our operation for our customers,” a Delta spokesperson said in a statement. “Delta and ALPA have made significant progress in our negotiations and have only a few contract sections left to resolve.

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