• In addition to last week’s coverage, a photo has emerged from the ramp in Port-au-Prince Airport in Haiti showing a packed ramp with military and civilian airlines alike bringing supplies, volunteers and soldiers to help after their devastating earthquake. Seen in the photo are a China Southern 747-400F, a Continental 757 and much more. Amerijet, seen in the photo, has been sending constant flights from their Miami hub, and Lynden Air Cargo is also a very regular visitor. Aircraft of nearly all types and sizes have made it onto the airfield successfully during the effort, including Antonov AN-124s. Ramp operations are still slow with a shortage of equipment. Many airlines are still bringing tall ladders with which to get on and off of the aircraft. British Airways, however, found another solution (see video below).
• Five people and Continental Airlines will go on trial in France next month for the crash of the Air France Concorde in July of 2000. A piece of wear strip that from a DC-10 engine is believed to have shredded a tire that was ingested by one of the Concorde’s engines, where is crashed just after takeoff, killing all 109 on the plane, and 4 more on the ground. [Telegraph]
• AirAsia has announced that a baby that was born on one of their flights this past week, and his mother, will receive free flights for life. The baby was unable to wait for landing, being born while the aircraft descended through 2,000ft on approach. [ABC]
• To make up for the high cost of transport to its destination, NASA has lowered the price of the Space Shuttle Discovery from $42 million, to a much more family-affordable price of $28 million. In addition, the engines have been removed, and are now being offered for free to whoever is able to haul them.
• An Aeromexico Connect ERJ-145 (XA-WAC) went off the runway in Tijuana on landing in strong wind. No injuries were reported after the plane ended up in the dirt beyond runway 09.
• With the shortage on air-stairs in PAP, British Airways had to come up with a more creative solution to offloading equipment from their 747-400 before their crew timed out. To accommodate this, they decided to give themselves and additional tab of tens of thousands of dollars after blowing a slide…
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