News Archive

The Airblue Airbus A321 that crashed yesterday, killing all 152 people on board, was doing a circling approach to runway 12 at Islamabad's Benazir Bhutto International Airport.

The "aircraft was [doing] a visual circling approach to land at runway 12, it was not in a holding pattern", Airblue CEO, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, says in an email to ATI.

The rule is 90 seconds. No matter how large or small an aircraft may be, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that aircraft manufacturers demonstrate that full occupancy, which includes passengers and flight crew, is able to exit an airliner safely within those allocated 90 seconds. Even Airbus's A380, the 555 passenger double-decker jet, demonstrated it was capable -- see video here. Yet these tests are simulated and do not reflect real-life events. Passengers on-board simulated evacuations are well-briefed and prepared for the simulation. What about on everyday flights? Do passengers pay enough attention to safety demonstrations? Can you trust the person sitting next to you in an emergency?

Jumbo-sized airliner orders came back into fashion on the first day of the 2010 Farnborough airshow as Boeing and Airbus led the charge to seal new deals. Other leading airframers, including Embraer, Sukhoi and Bombardier, followed suit in a wave of new business reported throughout today’s edition of Farnborough Airshow News.

In a bid to encourage more environmentally friendly travel and bolster its coffers, Germany will reportedly begin charging airline passengers up to 26 euros ($33) for flights taking off in the country.The travel industry is howling in protest at a report today from the Associated Press, which obtained a draft bill that calls for a 13 euro surcharge for flights up to 1,553 miles, and 26 euros for longer flights.

Resembling a space rocket, with its pointed nose and the engines fixed to the back of the fuselage, the regional jet is perhaps the most beautiful airliner in the sky.

Regional jets became hugely popular during the late 1990s and early 2000s, especially in the US and Canada.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Airport workers in Riyadh found a human body on the landing gear of a flight from Beirut early Saturday, after a man apparently tried to hitch a ride on the Saudi-owned Nas Air jet, aviation authorities said.The body was discovered when a maintenance worker went to inspect the right rear landing gear of the Airbus 320 after it landed at Riyadh's King Khaled International Airport on the flight from Lebanon, the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement.