Locked outside the cockpit

The situation passed last September during a Transavia commercial flight connecting Hurghada (Egypt) to Amsterdam (Netherlands). During flight the Captain felt the call of Mother Nature and went out of the cockpit to relief the pressure and right after leaving the toilet when tried to return to the cockpit the door was locked and none was responding from the inside. The First Officer fell asleep.

Here is the website of the aviation herald with the details of this unusual episode but really reminding the thematic of the previous post. http://avherald.com/h?article=45cd431c&opt=0

Dead Tired

Have ever thought during a routine flight for how long are the pilots flying? Most certainly not but the probability of that flight is their first of the day is huge. Recently this subject has been in discussion in Europe Aviation Authorities and the new rules and changes to the  present ones didn't had the agree of pilots or pilot associations and pilot unions. Thing is simple, some of the work times such as flight delays flight plan changes on ground and several other reasons now aren't suppose to count as duty time but if you count that time and then put that same pilot in the air probably the pilot as a duty time well beyond the reasonable for a safe conduct of the flight.

European pilot associations requested scientific studies about this matter to be able to present a proposal of duty time restrictions that try to meet both, airline interests and a safe way to fly.

Due to the fact that these studies weren't take into account to the new rules there as been promoted a petition on the Internet to ask for a new analysis of this and to the scientific studies be taken into account as a way to promote safety in cockpit.

Here is the web link to the petition and I ask You to BEFORE sign to read it carefully so that You can understand the Why of this.

The A350 XWB Final Assembly Line: efficiency in motion

Here's a small footage of the Final Assembly Line of the Airbus A350. As I said on previous posts not the most charming aircraft there is but if that's the cost to have efficiency I think that we can handle it like that.

About the Boeing 787 Dreamliner battery issues

TAP passes from 4th to 7th safest Airline even without an accident

According with the updated list from JACDEC investigation center the Portuguese flag Airline TAP passed from the 4th to the 7th position in the safest Airlines in the world and without a single accident or major incident. The reason for this descent was that Emirates, now in 4th position, Etihad Airways, now in 5th and EVA Air in 6th have a younger fleet than TAP. A reason that in my opinion is acceptable as for the number of cycles, flight hours and years of aircraft have an important wight in flight safety.

Credits: Filipe Cardoso

In the upper positions comes Finnair in first with the last accident in 1963, a DC-3 crashed resulting in the loss 22 passengers and all crew Air New Zeland in second and Cathay Pacific in third.

The TAP last accident remounts to 1977 in Funchal Madeira and was due to a runway overrun with a Boeing 727 resulting in the death of 131 people. The Madeira airport at the time had a considerably small runway dangerous cross winds during approach phase and a cliff ate the end of the runway directly to sea. More than 30 years later the airport has been modernized and the runway saw its length grow to almost the double but runway 05 approach is still considered one of the most dangerous approaches in commercial operation worldwide. 

Credits: Jorge Miguel Abreu, Madeira Spotters - Jetphotos.net

One thing leaves me quite happy and that is to know some of the pilots flight attendants engineers and maintenance technicians that work hard to maintain TAP at this high standards and zero accidents since more than 30 years, here's My recognition to all of them as great professionals that they are.

Trainee Pilot Safely Lands Piper Warrior with Missing Wheel at Mangalore...

Here's a story of a young student pilot that lost a wheel of his Piper Warrior main undercarriage and that come to a safe landing with no injuries and as it seems not so considerable damage to the aircraft. This was yesterday in Melbourne, Australia where this student pilot is getting his ATPL in an arrangement between this Autralian flight school and the Chinese airline China Southern Airlines and has about 120 flight hours of instruction.

So True!!!