Explosion on Northwest Airlines Flight

A 23-year-old Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, apparently tried to light a powdery substance aboard a Northwest Airlines flight before landing in Detroit this afternoon. Initial reports said that a man had tried to light either firecrackers or fireworks but it now appears that it could have been much worse.

There are rumors circulating on CNN and other news networks that he could have terrorist ties.

From CNN:

A passenger ignited fireworks Friday at the end of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan, a Delta Air Lines spokeswoman said.

The passenger was immediately subdued, according to Susan Elliott, spokeswoman for Delta, Northwest’s parent company. The incident resulted in some minor injuries, Elliott said.

A passenger was later placed in custody, the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement.

President Obama, who is spending the holidays in his home state of Hawaii, was briefed on the incident during a secure phone call with aides and “instructed that all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said. The president made no changes to his schedule, Burton said.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement Friday saying that air passengers “may notice additional screening measures put into place to ensure the safety of the traveling public on domestic and international flights.”

Mother, Son Kicked Off Southwest Airlines Flight

UPDATE: Southwest Airlines has apologized for kicking the mother and son off of the flight.

Pamela Root and her son, Adam, were on their way home to San Jose, California (where I live) when they were kicked off Southwest Flight 637 on Monday afternoon. The reason? The child wanted dad, wanted to take off, and was a bit too loud for the crew and passengers.

Usually my kids are great on flights, but I’ve been in this position before. I would guess that the child would have given in once the flight took off, but they were never given the chance. I REALLY hope that Southwest Airlines looks into this, at least to find out more about what happened. Was the child kicked off immediately? Was the mother given a few minutes to settle him down? Was he kicking seats or causing a major disruption (if this is the case then it is definitely justified). I always fly with Southwest and would hate to see this issue not be at least looked into for all of the facts.

While I understand that there are those who will say that the mother and child should have been removed, without all of the details, I would have to disagree just because I’ve been on MANY flights with kids who are unruly like this and I’ve just learned thatit’s just a part of life.

As a parent, I know what it’s like to have a child who can be difficult at times. Like I said before, most of the time, my kids are great on flights. We even get compliments from other passengers who appreciate how good they are, and we always love that! But there are times when they aren’t, I would hate to be removed from a flight because we were having trouble getting them to settle down. Sometimes it takes longer than other times, but eventually, they do relax. Food always helps, their medicine helps too. Keeping them awake through their nap time until the flight is great because many times, they’re asleep before the plane takes off! It may sound funny, but even other supportive passengers can help!

We do our best as good parents to respect those around us. If you want to read about a bad parent, then you should check out my posts on Casey Anthony.

On this issue, feel free to agree or disagree with me. That’s what discussion is for 🙂

From the San Jose Mercury News:

Pamela Root’s 2-year-old son was screaming for the Southwest Airlines plane to “Go! Plane! Go!”

“I want Daddy!” Adam shouted. Over and over again.

Despite her embarrassment, the stay-at-home San Jose mom remained confident that once the plane took off and she fed him, Adam would calm down and take a nap — just as he had on the half-dozen other plane rides with Mom.

The flight crew wasn’t willing to find out.

With her luggage heading back home without her, Root was stuck in

Amarillo, Texas, and forced to buy a portable crib and diapers and stay another night with her parents. Still fuming, she wants Southwest to apologize and compensate her for the flight and things she bought. Adam’s father, Mike Root, a software engineer at Symantec, who was waiting for them in San Jose, is also livid.

Southwest, with its fun and family-friendly reputation, immediately began looking into the matter on Thursday at the request of the Mercury News. Spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said it’s “very rare” to ask someone to leave a flight, and especially “unusual” to remove a crying child.

From the New York Times:

The Oakland Tribune is reporting that a Southwest Airlines crew ordered Pamela Root and her young son off a flight from Amarillo back home to San Jose this week, because the boy was screaming “Go! Plane! Go!”

“I want Daddy!” repeatedly while the jet waited in line for takeoff. Root told reporter Lisa Fernandez that she had seen Adam like this before. Her strategy was to wait to feed him until after the plane took off, she says, which made him a little cranky for a short while, but insured that he would soon calm down and take a nap.

The plane returned to the gate for what the pilot described as “a passenger issue” which was the first Root knew she and her son were being forced to deplane. As she describes it, the conversation with the attendant who escorted her off went something like this:

“We just can’t tolerate that for two hours.”
“He’ll be fine once we take off.”
“We’ve heard that before.”

Wayward Pilots Were on Laptops

Well…it seems that the pilots of the Northwest Airlines flight that overshot its destination by about 150 miles last week have said they were using their laptops and lost track of time and location.

From CNN:

The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000 feet over the Denver, Colorado, area at 5:56 p.m. Wednesday when it last made radio contact, the safety board said.

Northwest Flight 188 had departed San Diego en route to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport carrying 144 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants. Northwest recently merged with Delta Air Lines.

“Using laptops or engaging in activity unrelated to the pilots’ command of the aircraft during flight is strictly against the airline’s flight deck policies and violations of that policy will result in termination,” Delta said Monday in a statement.

Pilot Timothy B. Cheney, 53, was hired in 1985 and has more than 20,000 hours flight time; First Officer Richard I. Cole, 54, was hired in 1997 and has about 11,000 hours of flight time, the report said.

Northwest Airlines Flight Overshoots Airport by 150 Miles

Federal investigators are still trying to figure out why a commercial jet, carrying 144 passengers and five crew members over the northern plains, overshot its destination by 150 miles.

How does something like this happen? Were the pilots really distracted, or were they sleeping.

From the New York Times:

Combing through the plane’s cockpit voice recorder and the data recorder of Northwest Airlines Flight 188, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were looking for evidence to explain why the pilots did not respond to radio calls from air traffic controllers.

After the plane had landed safely in Minneapolis, the crew told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and airport police that “they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness,” the board said, citing information from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane’s cockpit voice recorder could capture any conversation between the two crew members on the flight deck, and the flight data recorder would record any manipulation of the controls. An airline spokesman said he did not know the length of the recording period.