Hall: Plane crash was preventable
A cockpit warning system used by only a few commercial airlines might have prevented the deadly Comair jet crash last weekend if the plane had been equipped with the $18,000 piece of technology, a former top federal safety official says.
“To have 49 people burned up in a crash that is totally preventable is one of the worst things I have ever seen, and I’ve seen almost everything in aviation,” Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told the Associated Press.
In Sunday’s accident, a commuter jet at Lexington’s airport struggled to get airborne and crashed after it made a wrong turn and took off from a runway that was too short.
A Runway Awareness and Advisory System made by Phoenix-based Honeywell Aerospace uses a mechanical voice to identify the runway by number before takeoff and warns pilots if the runway is too short for their plane.
The Federal Aviation Administration certified Honeywell’s system in 2003 but did not require its use. Only Alaska Airlines, Air France, FedEx, Lufthansa and Malaysia Airlines have ordered the system for their planes.
Hillsborough, N.C.
Alleged shooter sent warning e-mail
A teenager accused of killing his father and opening fire outside his former high school was obsessed with school massacres and sent e-mail to the principal of Columbine High School in Colorado warning of his attack, authorities said Thursday.
“Dear Principal,” the e-mail read. “In a few hours you will probably hear about a school shooting in North Carolina. I am responsible for it. I remember Columbine. It is time the world remembered it. I am sorry. Goodbye.”
Alvaro Castillo sent the message Wednesday morning, shortly before two students were wounded by the gunfire in the Orange High School parking lot in Hillsborough, authorities said.
Castillo, 19, was quickly arrested, and police found two pipe bombs and two rifles in the van he was driving and four additional pipe bombs at his home.
Columbine Principal Frank DeAngelis did not read the e-mail until after the attack.
Miami
Jet catches fire; no one injured
A jet’s landing gear caught fire on the runway at Miami International Airport after two tires blew out during landing, officials said. No one was injured, and the fire was quickly extinguished.
U.S. Airways Flight 431 was arriving from Charlotte, N.C., with 113 passengers and five crew members when it blew two tires on the runway shortly before noon, airline spokesman Morgan Durrant said.
A small fire ignited in one of the blown-out tires, Durrant said.
The passengers and crew escaped using inflatable slides from the plane’s exits, then waited in a grassy area near the runway. Helicopter footage showed the flames extinguished and the plane surrounded by white foam.