American Airlines is a major airline in the United States headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the largest airline in the world when measured by scheduled passengers carried, revenue passenger mile, and daily flights. American, together with its regional partners and affiliates, operates an extensive international and domestic network with almost 6,800 flights per day to nearly 350 destinations in 48 countries. American Airlines is a founding member of the Oneworld alliance. Regional service is operated by independent and subsidiary carriers under the brand name American Eagle.
An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a long, tube shaped, and jet powered aircraft. The largest of them are wide-body jets which are also called twin-aisle because they generally have two separate aisles running from the front to the back of the passenger cabin. These are usually used for long-haul flights between airline hubs and major cities. A smaller, more common class of airliners is the narrow-body or single-aisle. These are generally used for short to medium-distance flights with fewer passengers than their wide-body counterparts.
The Kegworth air disaster occurred when British Midland Airways Flight 092, a Boeing 737-400, crashed onto the motorway embankment between the M1 motorway and A453 road near Kegworth, Leicestershire, England, while attempting to make an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport on 8 January 1989.
The Boeing 747-400 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, an advanced variant of the initial Boeing 747. The "Advanced Series 300" was announced at the September 1984 Farnborough Airshow, targeting a 10% cost reduction with more efficient engines and 1,000 nautical miles [nmi] of additional range. Northwest Airlines became the first customer with an order for 10 aircraft on October 22, 1985. The first 747-400 was rolled out on January 26, 1988, and made its maiden flight on April 29, 1988. Type certification was received on January 9, 1989, and it entered service with Northwest on February 9, 1989.
Aviation safety is the study and practice of managing risks in aviation. This includes preventing aviation accidents and incidents through research, educating air travel personnel, passengers and the general public, as well as the design of aircraft and aviation infrastructure. The aviation industry is subject to significant regulation and oversight.
The 1985 Manchester Airport disaster occurred when British Airtours Flight 28M, an international passenger flight, was en-route from Manchester Airport to Corfu International Airport. It caught fire on takeoff on 22 August 1985, resulting in 55 fatalities.
Bleed air in aerospace engineering is compressed air taken from the compressor stage of a gas turbine, upstream of its fuel-burning sections. Automatic air supply and cabin pressure controller (ASCPC) valves bleed air from low or high stage engine compressor sections; low stage air is used during high power setting operation, and high stage air is used during descent and other low power setting operations. Bleed air from that system can be utilized for internal cooling of the engine, cross-starting another engine, engine and airframe anti-icing, cabin pressurization, pneumatic actuators, air-driven motors, pressurizing the hydraulic reservoir, and waste and water storage tanks. Some engine maintenance manuals refer to such systems as "customer bleed air".
British Airtours was a charter airline in the United Kingdom with flight operations out of London Gatwick and Manchester Airports.
In aeronautics, an environmental control system (ECS) of an aircraft is an essential component which provides air supply, thermal control and cabin pressurization for the crew and passengers. Additional functions include the cooling of avionics, smoke detection, and fire suppression.
Cabin pressurization is a process in which conditioned air is pumped into the cabin of an aircraft or spacecraft in order to create a safe and comfortable environment for humans flying at high altitudes. For aircraft, this air is usually bled off from the gas turbine engines at the compressor stage, and for spacecraft, it is carried in high-pressure, often cryogenic, tanks. The air is cooled, humidified, and mixed with recirculated air by one or more environmental control systems before it is distributed to the cabin.
British Airways Flight 009, sometimes referred to by its callsign Speedbird 9 or as the Jakarta incident, was a scheduled British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Auckland, with stops in Bombay, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and Melbourne.
A turbine engine failure occurs when a gas turbine engine unexpectedly stops producing power due to a malfunction other than fuel exhaustion. It often applies for aircraft, but other turbine engines can also fail, such as ground-based turbines used in power plants or combined diesel and gas vessels and vehicles.
The Aerotoxic Association was founded on 18 June 2007, at the British Houses of Parliament by former BAe 146 Training Captain John Hoyte, to raise public awareness about the ill health allegedly caused after exposure to airliner cabin air that he claimed been contaminated to toxic levels, by engine oil leaking into the bleed air system, which pressurizes all jet aircraft, with the exception of the Boeing 787.
Aerotoxic syndrome relates to ill-health effects associated with breathing contaminated air in an airliner cabin. Researchers have associated aerotoxic syndrome with exposure to substances such as engine oil and hydraulic fluid. Although researchers have identified correlations between the aircraft occupational environment and symptoms of aerotoxic syndrome, this condition is not an established medical diagnosis because the incidence and aetiology of the condition are still under debate.
A fume event occurs when bleed air used for cabin pressurisation and air conditioning in a pressurised aircraft is contaminated by fluids such as engine oil, hydraulic fluid, anti-icing fluid, and other potentially hazardous chemicals.
Jean-Christophe Balouet was a French palaeontologist. He has collaborated extensively with Storrs Olson of the Smithsonian Institution on palaeornithological research on the extinct birds of New Caledonia in the south-west Pacific region.
A Dark Reflection is a 2015 British independent investigative thriller film directed and produced by former British Airways airline captain Tristan Loraine. Billed as Erin Brockovich meets All the President's Men and as a fact-based investigative thriller, the film is based on the director's own experience as a commercial pilot.
Delta Air Lines Flight 1288 was a regularly scheduled flight from Pensacola, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia. On July 6, 1996, the aircraft serving the flight, a McDonnell Douglas MD-88, was on takeoff roll from Runway 17 at Pensacola when it experienced an uncontained, catastrophic turbine engine failure that caused debris from the front compressor hub of the left engine to penetrate the left aft fuselage. The cause of the engine failure was found to have been a fault in the manufacture of the fan. The failure of the airline to spot the resulting crack in the blade was a contributing factor.
Uni Air Flight 873 was a Taiwanese domestic passenger flight between Taipei and Hualien that suffered a fire following an explosion after landing at Hualien Airport, Taiwan, on 24 August 1999, resulting in 27 injuries and one death.
Susan Michaelis is a former Australian flight instructor and airline transport pilot. She is also a researcher working on the issue of contaminated air on aircraft and the health effects of exposure to heated jet engine oils and hydraulic fluids known to contaminate the breathing air supply on aircraft, often called aerotoxic syndrome. She is a part of the University of Stirling's Occupational and Environmental Health Research group, where she is an Honorary Sensor Research Fellow.
