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Cruising at 35,000 feet and nearly four hours into what seemed a routine overnight flight to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, an Air France cockpit crew got a stall warning and responded by doing what even weekend pilots know to avoid: They yanked the nose of the plane up instead of pointing it down to gain essential speed. Apparently confused by repeated stall warnings and reacting to wildly fluctuating airspeed indications, pilots of Flight 447 continued to pull back sharply on the controls—contrary to standard procedure—even as the Airbus A330 plummeted toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to information released Friday...

12/20/2007 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- With the help of volunteers from around the base, the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing flight safety office reduced the number of bird strikes on aircraft by 30 percent here in November. They accomplished this through the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard program, which uses awareness and proactivity to reduce the number of bird-strike threats against aviation assets. "We are here preserving the Air Force's combat capabilities," said Master Sgt. Brian Saunders, a flight safety office member." Last year alone $42 million in damage was done to Air Force aircraft from bird strikes." Helping...

A federal jury has ordered American Airlines to pay $400,000 to a computer consultant who was pulled from a flight at Logan International Airport because of security concerns, then denied reboarding even after he had been cleared by State Police. "I felt like I was being treated like a terrorist and there was no way I could prove I didn't do anything or say anything at all," said John Cerqueira , 39, who grew up in Fall River and now lives in Miami. "I'm grateful to the jury for sending the message to American Airlines that just the use of...

Pilot-Tower Tapes Flesh Out 747 Incident That Triggered A Controversy Over Safety A few seconds after a fully loaded British Airways 747 took off from Los Angeles on its way to London last year, one of its four engines erupted in a spectacular nighttime burst of flame. The fire burned out quickly, but the controversy has continued to smolder. An air-traffic controller watching the runways radioed a warning to British Airways Flight 268 and assumed the plane would quickly turn around. To controllers' surprise, the pilots checked with their company and then flew on, hoping to "get as far as...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Prosecutors are investigating the death of a man who was subdued by several fellow airline passengers after he became disruptive on a New York-bound flight, a spokesman said Sunday. William Lee was pronounced dead late Friday after he was removed from the American Airlines flight at Kennedy International Airport. The cause of death had not yet been determined and was under investigation. Lee, 48, of New York, stood up in his seat on American's Flight 4 from Los Angeles and "loudly demanded another beer," airline spokesman Tim Smith said. Flight attendants asked him to wait until...

Local ABC television news reports that an Air France jet is being investigated "for security reasons" at LAX. Apparently they have isolated the jet.

Channel 7 KABC News just reported that there is a Cathay Pacific flight dumping fuel over the ocean in prep for return flight to LAX. Only cause reported is a fire on board. Will update.