Aviation News

TAM

A BRAZILIAN airliner has made a forced landing after a passenger had a “psychotic attack”, entered the cockpit and assaulted a pilot, crew members and passengers who tried to subdue him, witnesses say.

The TAM Airlines jet was en route from Montevideo, Uruguay to Sao Paulo when a man who some passengers said was wearing a TAM identification badge got into the cockpit because the door was open. Shortly after, the plane dove to the right, causing passengers to scream and the pilot to yell for help over the speaker system.

“All of a sudden shouts were heard from inside the cabin, and two stewardesses came out asking for help and grabbing a young man by his feet,” one unidentified passenger told Uruguay’s El Pais newspaper.

“The people quickly jumped on top of him, the guy fought back furiously, biting and hurting a half dozen people.

“In a kind of collective action they were able to immobilise him, tying him to a seat.”

Uruguay’s Industry Minister Roberto Kreimerman was on board the Saturday afternoon flight, leading a trade delegation that was on its way to China. He told Uruguayan newspaper El Observador that when the plane veered sharply, passengers started screaming, fearing for their lives.

The jet safely landed at the Porto Alegre airport in southern Brazil about 20 minutes after the incident with the man subdued in the rear of the plane, a police spokesman said. The suspect was arrested by federal police and taken to a mental care facility.

TAM confirmed the incident in a brief emailed statement, but offered few details.

Flight 8047 “landed at the Porto Alegre airport because of an uproar on board. … The incident is being investigated by authorities, with the collaboration of the company,” the statement read.

An airline spokeswoman in Sao Paulo would not confirm if the cockpit was breached nor if the attacker was a TAM employee, as passengers told newspapers in Brazil and Uruguay.

“It seemed as if we were in a movie about the 9/11 attacks,” passenger Matias Velazco, a former journalist for El Observador, told the newspaper.

He said it took about 10 minutes for crew members and passengers to subdue the man.

“Four of them tried to hold him down and they couldn’t. One tried to give him an injection to sedate him, another hit him and still they couldn’t control him,” Velazco said.

The suspect was eventually tied up with plastic handcuffs, taken to the rear of the plane and pinned into a back seat.

The unidentified passenger who spoke to the El Pais newspaper said that “the man injured various passengers, biting them and hitting them. Luckily that was the worst that happened, but it could have been a tragedy.”

Federal police inspector Luiz Daiello told Porto Alegre’s Zero Hora newspaper the suspect had “suffered a psychotic attack” while on board. The man calmed down as the plane was landing.

But Daiello said once federal police tried to take the man into custody, he became violent, and had to be subdued with a stun gun before being taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation.

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Drunk passenger convicted of airline abuse

A New Zealand man who swore at airline crew and refused to fold away his tray table on an international flight has pleaded guilty to two aviation charges.

The man was charged following a flight from Fiji to Auckland in July last year.

The Hamilton man had been drinking on the flight and refused to follow crew instructions as the plane prepared to land in Auckland.

He’s appeared in Manukau District Court today where he was convicted on both charges.

Each charge carries a fine potential fine of up to five thousand dollars – but due to his remorse and because he spent a night in police custody, he's been discharged without further penalty.

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Qantaslink B717

PILOTS flying a Qantas regional service with more than 100 passengers wrestled with shaking joysticks warning of an aerodynamic stall during two botched landing attempts at Kalgoorlie after they unwittingly programmed the flight computers with wrong data.

A slip-up by the captain, unnoticed by the co-pilot entering the data, meant the plane’s weight was calculated to be almost 9.5 tonnes lighter than it really was, investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau found.

That mistake meant the settings for landing angle and speed were wrong for the task, twice triggering automated ”stick shaker” warnings to alert pilots to an impending aerodynamic stall – when the plane is no longer aerodynamically stable and in danger of dropping from the sky.

CHICAGO — Good news for budget-minded travelers: There’s no proof that flying economy-class increases your chances of dangerous blood clots, according to new guidelines from medical specialists.

Travelers’ blood clots have been nicknamed “economy class syndrome” but the new advice suggests this is a misnomer.

The real risk is not getting up and moving during long flights, whether flying coach or first-class. Sitting by the window seems to play a role, because it makes people less likely to leave their seats, the guidelines say.

Still, even on long flights, lasting at least four hours, the risk for most people is extremely low and not something to be alarmed about, said Dr. Gordon Guyatt, chairman of an American College of Chest Physicians’ committee that wrote the new guidelines.

The group, based in Northbrook, Ill., represents more than 18,000 physicians whose specialties include lung disease and critical care. The guidelines were released online Tuesday in the group’s journal, Chest. They’re based on a review of recent research and other medical evidence on deep vein thrombosis, blood clots that form deep in leg veins.

Flights lasting at least eight hours are riskiest, the guidelines say.

Muscles in the lower legs help push blood in the legs and feet back to the heart. Sitting still for extended periods of time without using these muscles puts pressure on leg veins and blood “tends to sit there,” which can increase chance for clots to form, said Guyatt, a researcher at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. These clots can cause leg pain, swelling and redness, and can be life-threatening if they travel to the lungs. They can be treated with blood-thinning drugs, but may cause permanent damage to leg veins.

Most people who develop these clots have risk factors, including obesity, older age, recent surgery, a history of previous blood clots or use of birth control pills.

The average risk for a deep vein blood clot in the general population is about 1 per 1,000 each year. Long-haul travel doubles the chance, but still, the small risk should reassure healthy travelers that they’re unlikely to develop clots, said Dr. Susan Kahn, a co-author of the new guidelines and a professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal.

Traveling by bus, train and car may also increase the risks, the guidelines say.

Besides taking a stroll down the aisle during flights, doing calf exercises including flexing and extending the ankles while seated can help prevent clots, Kahn said.

The guidelines recommend these precautions and use of special compression stockings only for people at increased risk for clots. They advise long-distance travelers against using aspirin or other blood thinners to prevent blood clots.

source: http://health.heraldtribune.com

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