Aviation News

Betty Ong, a 14-year veteran flight attendant for American Airlines, is considered a national hero for her bravery on 9/11. She called the airline reservations center and relayed critical information about the five hijackers who took over Flight 11 and terrorized the passengers and crew.

“My name is Betty Ong. I’m No. 3 on Flight 11. The cockpit is not answering their phone. There is somebody stabbed in business class,” said Ong, in a calm voice on a recording of the 23-minute phone call. “Our first-class passengers, our first-class galley flight attendant and our purser’s been stabbed. And we can’t get into the cockpit. The door won’t open.”

Her sister, Cathie Ong-Herrea, said it was comforting for the family to be able to know what her sister was doing in her last moments. The family heard the tape during a private airing in January 2002.

“When we listened to Betty’s voice tape, she was calm, very professional, and she was just relaying information from the flight attendants,” Ong-Herrea said. “I cried because I was very proud of her.”

Originally from San Francisco, Ong, 45, had lived in Andover with her fiance Robert Landrum for about a year before she was killed when the plane slammed into the World Trade Center.

Ong wasn’t scheduled to be on Flight 11. She had picked up an extra shift before going on a trip with her sisters to Hawaii the following week — a trip that never happened.

“That morning I was supposed to meet her in LA to talk about the trip,” Ong-Herrea said.

Today, the family keeps Betty’s legacy alive through the Betty Ann Ong foundation. The foundation’s goal is to serve as a helping hand for overweight and obese children, because Betty believed that having a positive self-image and self-confidence at an early age was crucial to the development of a well adjusted individual, according to the foundation’s website.

“I do feel like I am a lot stronger today than I was five years ago because of our work with the children in honor of Betty,” Ong-Herrea said. “Working with the children is very therapeutic because I see Betty’s spirit in them.”

Also, Ong-Herrea often shares her family’s experience at events and ceremonies in her memory.

But the loss of her sister can still be tough.

“There is not a day that goes on when you turn on the TV or radio and hear about post-9/11 and pre-9/11,” Ong-Herrea said. “Every year on Sept. 11, it all comes back. It becomes ingrained in the fabric of your everyday being.”

Betty was a lover of life and people, sweet, caring, and she loved children, her sister said. She was also an avid collector of Beanie Babies and Barbie dolls, a collection the family still has.

She loved her job and loved the passengers,” Ong-Herrea said.

Ong-Herrea recalls coming to Andover in 2001 to collect Betty’s possessions. Many of the children in the neighborhood told Ong-Herrea that they looked forward to Betty returning from her flights to hear her stories, she said.

“It was important for her to spend time with the kids in the neighborhood,” Ong-Herrea said. “We’ve heard many stories about her after she died, and we are very proud of her.”

Lori Weeden of Andover, who worked with Ong at American Airlines, remembers her as being very professional, well-organized, kind and patient.

She said the legacy of all the airline workers killed on 9/11 needs to be remembered as time passes, and continued through their work.

“Otherwise, it would tarnish their memory,” Weeden said. “It would allow the bad guys to win.”

source: http://www.eagletribune.com

The US aviation regulator on Friday proposed a $US590,000 fine for Alaska Airlines for allegedly operating a Boeing 737 jet on more than 2000 flights when it had failed to meet safety regulations.

The penalty follows a ceiling fire on the aircraft when it was parked at Anchorage Airport on January 18 last year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.

“The fire was caused by chafed wiring that had resulted from improper installation of a hose clamp,” it said, noting that the aircraft’s manual includes “an explicit warning” about proper installation of the hose clamp.

“Maintenance work has to be performed precisely and correctly every time,” added FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt.

The plane had conducted 2107 flights in breach of regulations, according to the FAA, and Alaska most recently performed maintenance in the burned area in August 2008, said the statement.

The airline, which has 30 days to respond to the proposed fine, subsequently discovered the same problem existed on nine other B-737-400 aircraft in its fleet and took action, the FAA said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au

Fighter planes were scrambled, bomb squads were called, FBI command centers went on alert and police teams raced to airports today, but in the end two separate airline incidents were caused by apparently innocent bathroom breaks and a little “making out,” federal officials said.

In the first incident, a pair of fighter jets were scrambled to escort an American Airlines jet into New York’s JFK airport after the pilot became spooked by passengers’ frequent trips to and from the restroom.

The precaution turned out to be unnecessary as federal air marshals aboard flight 34 from Los Angeles to JFK were able to resolve the situation when the passengers complied with their instructions, police officials said. The pilot then radioed that the situation was under control and the plane landed safely. Three male passengers were questioned upon arrival, but no charges were filed against them, authorities said.

The incident occurred around the same time that a second pair of fighter jets hit the skies to monitor another plane – this one a Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to Detroit – after two passengers aboard that plane were “allegedly behaving suspiciously,” according to the FBI spokesperson in Denver, Dave Joly. The plane was met in the Detroit airport by law enforcement and taken to a remote area for a security screening, but no explosives were found, Joly said.

Instead, the “suspicious behavior” was two people “making out” in the bathroom mid-flight, law enforcement sources told ABC News. Three people were taken into custody for questioning, Frontier Airlines said in a statement, but no arrests have been made in that case either.

The incidents come as the nation observes the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in which four passenger planes were hijacked. Nearly 3,000 Americans perished in that attack.

source: http://abcnews.go.com

NBC Dallas-Fort Worth is reporting that a source at the airport told the station that a “suspicious” bag, which housed a printer, was the cause of concern.

PREVIOUSLY: Two men were pulled from American Airlines Flight 1316 in Dallas on Wednesday morning over security concerns, the airline told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

After beginning a lengthy security re-screening, the airline opted to cancel the flight, which was bound for Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. rather than dispatching it with an excessive delay.

The carrier has not yet said what raised suspicion about the men, though NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reports that a passenger observed what he or she thought was suspicious behavior and then alerted the crew of the single-aisle plane that was scheduled to depart at 10:40 a.m.

American Airlines spokesman Ed Martelle told the Huffington Post that there were “some security concerns aboard the aircraft before it left the gate” and added that “there was one individual who flagged” the suspicious activity.

Martelle also told the Huffington Post that the plane’s passengers would be re-routed to Washington on Wednesday, though he could not confirm whether the two men were part of the re-booked group.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com