Greenhouse gas pollution from jet aircraft comes mainly in two forms: carbon dioxide emissions from burning jet fuel, and condensation trails, or "contrails," which typically form behind aircraft when they encounter atmospheric temperature and air pressure conditions that allow water vapor or ice crystals in the air, or vapor from jet engine exhaust, to condense.

A few more clouds in the sky might not seem like a big deal. But clouds warm temperatures because they, too, reflect space-bound heat back towards the Earth's surface. Aviation contrails — which are essentially artificial clouds — contribute more to human-propelled climate change than all the CO₂ pollution created in the history of fuel-powered aviation, according to a 2011 study published in Nature Climate Change.

So Dr. Emma Irvine, a meteorologist at the U.K.'s University of Reading, and colleagues decided to examine what the climatic trade-offs would be between re-routing flights to avoid contrail-friendly conditions - called "ice-supersaturated regions" or ISSRs - and the increase of heat-trapping CO₂ pollution a longer flight would create.

The equation (or "framework" in scientific terms) they devised, says Irvine, shows that "you can add extra distance on to a flight to avoid making a contrail, but still reduce overall climate impact of the flight."

One reason is that Irvine and team decided to exclude altitude changes from the re-routing equation – important, she says, because different jets fly most fuel-efficiently at different altitudes.

Another is that the amount of CO₂ a jet engine emits is determined by not just distance, but also fuel flow, which varies depending upon type of aircraft. The smallest jets, which have the slowest fuel flow and the lightest weights, can travel between 4 and 10 times further by distance (depending on whether one is considering the impacts on a 20, 50, or 100-year time horizon) to avoid ice-supersaturated regions, according to Irvine's equation, and still have less global warming impact than if they took the contrail-forming route instead.

The largest jets, which burn fuel at a much faster rate, showed much less flexibility between extending distance and emitting more CO₂, vs encountering ice-supersaturated regions and forming a contrail. Even looking at a 100-year time horizon for impact, very large jets could not travel more than three times the distance of their original routes before the CO₂ harms outweighed the advantages of avoiding contrail formation.The researchers do note several unknowns in using this strategy to cut aviation's global warming impacts, including whether we can develop "highly accurate forecasts of ISSRs where potential contrails form," or assess accurately the climate change effects of a potential contrail. There would also be "air traffic control and other operational and economic considerations."

"Nevertheless, despite the uncertainties," they conclude,

the calculations presented here indicate that once a metric (and time horizon) choice has been made, guidance can be given as to whether it is beneficial to divert to avoid contrails. So for example, adding 100 km distance to a flight to avoid making a contrail would seem beneficial for many of the cases presented here, and other parameter choices...could allow significantly longer diversions.

Irvine's research appears in the latest issue of Environmental Research Letters.

Click here for more of Popular Science's aviation and drones coverage.

SEE ALSO: These 30 National Landmarks Could Be Destroyed By Climate Change

Join the conversation about this story »

ATLANTA (Reuters) - When an airline cuts back on the number of "hubs" in its system, for an affected city the economic pain can be deep and wide.

As Nashville discovered, it can take years of adjustments to come to terms with an airline's decision to pull back. Yet the Music City showed it is possible to recover and prosper again.

Following its example, other former hubs are recruiting new carriers, consolidating facilities and finding alternate uses for their land to ensure their stability.

While credit ratings for Cincinnati, St. Louis and Pittsburgh airports fell when they lost their hubs, since then all three airports have cut costs and taken other steps to restore their ratings, said Seth Lehman, senior director of Fitch Ratings.

"It took several years for the airports to improve the things that they can control," Lehman said. "Even at their lower levels of traffic, they were finally able to right-size their costs, and their ability to be competitive seems stronger now than when they were de-hubbed."

For cities, cuts in air service have made it more difficult to lure conventions and leisure travelers, sent corporate headquarters packing and hurt business in general.

And just as airports have found ways to survive, Nashville demonstrated how a city itself can survive.

When American Airlines stopped routing connecting flights through Nashville International Airport in 1996, passenger numbers plunged to 7.1 million that year from a record 10.3 million four years earlier. Airport revenue fell 1 percent in the first year, though the impact on the economy - a center for music and healthcare - was broader.

Among the flights American discontinued was a nonstop to London, making European travel more difficult for the local business community.

"The loss of the London flight was a big blow," said Tommy Lewis, senior vice president of growth initiatives for Emdeon Inc, a Nashville-based provider of healthcare payment management services with 4,000 employees.

Despite the long odds, Nashville handled 10 million passengers last year, a recovery fueled by an economic revival that has made the city a prime destination for businesses and leisure travelers. Still, it took almost 20 years and the persistent efforts of airport officials, for Nashville International Airport to regain the lost ground.

 NOT TOP BANANA

As U.S. airlines merged in recent years, many found they didn't need as many hubs, said William Swelbar, an air-travel researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"It has been a major contributor to the financial turnaround of the U.S. airline industry," he said of hub closures.

But for many U.S. cities, the industry's good fortune has come at a cost. The United States had 63 large and medium-sized hub airports in 2013, down from 68 in 2005, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The loss of hub status can hurt an airport's ranking for passenger traffic. Memphis International Airport, a hub shuttered by Delta Air Lines last year, tumbled to 59th in passenger boardings in 2013 from 34th in 2005.

And for some cities, airport cutbacks have taken a wider toll.

In 2012, Chiquita Brands moved its headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina, a US Airways hub, after Delta cut flights at the fruit company's former base in Cincinnati. Chiquita said the importance of air connections contributed to its decision.

COURTING AIRLINES

Though airports in St. Louis and Cincinnati lost as many as half their connecting travelers after being downsized, they have managed to claw back some of the lost passenger traffic. That has led to higher parking and rental car revenue.

Lambert St. Louis International Airport officials studied passenger travel patterns and worked with Boeing Co and other local employers to identify cities that most needed connections after American announced the closure of that hub in 2009. The effort paid off: In 2010, Alaska Airlines launched nonstop flights to Seattle after Lambert officials showed 260 local people traveled to the Pacific Northwest daily.

Similar initiatives helped secure more flights at Lambert, which is now served by 11 airlines, up from seven when American was dominant.

Lambert also leased unused land for a compressed natural gas fueling station, bringing in rent and pumping fees. Operating revenue rose 6 percent in 2013 and 5 percent in 2012.

"We’re not going to see these huge swings of 100 flights added in a year, but I think we can continue to steadily grow as the economy here is growing," said Lambert Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge.

 DESTINATION NASHVILLE

American's hub closure in Nashville pushed political, business and tourism leaders into action.

"It hurt our ego," said Butch Spyridon, president of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau. "And it certainly didn't enhance our sales ability" for conventions or tourism.

The airport lobbied airlines, and city leaders launched marketing campaigns that played up Nashville as a desirable place to live and operate a business since there is no state income tax, Spyridon said.

Nashville's willingness to offer business incentives paid off, attracting such corporations as Nissan Motor Co Ltd, which moved its North American headquarters to the area from California in 2006.

New carriers came to the airport, with Frontier beginning flights in 2004.

As American scaled back, Southwest Airlines added flights and lowered fares, making Nashville more attractive as a travel destination, Spyridon said.

Though Southwest didn't initially provide flights to as many markets as American had served, it expanded over time. Southwest is now the largest carrier in Nashville with about 86 daily departures.

Today, Nashville's airport offers 380 flights, more than when it was at its peak as a base for American in 1993. Expanding entertainment, technology and healthcare industries have made the city a top U.S. market for job growth.

Standard & Poor's and Moody's raised debt ratings on revenue bonds issued by the airport this year, citing declining debt levels, passenger and population growth.

"What we learned from American and we continue to learn from Southwest is that if we can continue to create the demand, they will come in and meet that," Spyridon said. "All the groundwork was laid from adversity."

Nashville still doesn't have a nonstop to London, however, something Emdeon's Lewis pines for.

"We would love to restore that service," he said. 

(Reporting by Karen Jacobs in Atlanta; Editing by Alwyn Scott)

Join the conversation about this story »

Air New Zealand will no longer show an in-flight safety video that many called sexist and offensive to women.

"Safety in Paradise" was released in February in conjunction with the Sports Illustrated 50th anniversary. It features five swimsuit models including Christie Brinkley, Jessica Gomes, Chrissy Teigen, Hannah Davis, and Ariel Meredith.

The four-minute spot shows the five models frolicking on a tropical beach, demonstrating typical air safety tasks including buckling a seatbelt, inflating a life vest, and putting on an oxygen mask. The only difference is that they do it entirely in bikinis.

Following the video's release an Australian woman, Natasha Young, launched a change.org petition to stop the airline from showing it. 

Young's petition, "Remove the sexist in-flight safety video #AirNZsexism," received over 11,000 signatures. It claims that "Safety in Paradise" is insensitive and "forces itself upon the passengers" because they can't turn off the video if it makes them uncomfortable. 

Young argues that it is completely inappropriate to show something like this on an airline:

"This video completely disregards passengers who find it offensive for religious reasons, who have body image struggles, who are parents concerned about their children’s impressionable nature, who believe women deserve more respect, and who have teenage daughters who deserve more respect."

Mashable reports that Air New Zealand says it's not removing the video from circulation as a result of this petition, but instead had always planned to stop running it at this time of the year.

Air New Zealand is known for transforming boring and repetitive flight safety videos into something more exciting like this Hobbit inspired video or this Richards Simmons filled spot. This tropical bikini party, however, took it one step too far for some. The airline will now show fliers a video featuring "Man vs. Wild" star Bear Grylls.  

Here's the full "Safety in Paradise" video:

SEE ALSO: Virgin America's Awesome New Flight Safety Video Is Better Than Most Music Videos

Join the conversation about this story »

When it comes to gender disparity, the world of commercial airline piloting is one of the most skewed with a whopping 97% of all commercial pilots being male (4000 female commercial pilots vs. 130,000 male worldwide according to The International  Society of Women Airline Pilots). 

Those numbers shift slightly when you factor in women who are qualified to fly private planes but not commercial. But there is still a huge difference in the number of males compared to females even in this case. 

According to the US Civil Airmen Statistics, in 2011 there were about 617,000 qualified pilots in the United States, 41,000 of which were women, which means just over 93% of all pilots in 2011 were men.

So what gives here?  Do women just not like flying? Are the airline industry and the training schools just sexist?

On the latter issue, at one point like in so many industries, yes. As discussed in this article on Helen Richey, who became the world’s first female pilot “to fly a commercial airliner on a regularly scheduled mail route” on December 31, 1934, she quit after only 10 months due to how poorly she was treated by male staff.

Among other things, Richey was barred from becoming a member of the Pilot’s Union and was forbidden from flying in anything other than fair weather. It should be noted here that these restrictions were being placed on a woman who once crawled onto the wing of a plane she was flying to repair a tear.  She also spent years flying stunt planes.

Another thing that historically was holding early female pilots back was the fact that to become a commercial pilot, one needed to be subjected to various strength and height requirements. Since women are generally shorter than men and there is often a disparity in physical strength, many women were barred from even applying to become a pilot. However, in recent years this has gotten much better, to quote The International  Society of Women Airline Pilots: “These requirements have mainly fallen by the wayside. The only requirement is that a prospective pilot can fly the simulator provided during the interview process, without undue problems due to height or strength.”

As for the issue of sexism in more modern times, according to pilot and editor of Aviation for Women magazine, Amy Laboda, “I can tell you that [female airline pilots] have made tremendous progress, and the reason … is because most of the dinosaurs are gone… The men who didn’t want women in the cockpit have mostly retired.”

Today, it’s generally not so much that those within the industry have any issues with female pilots, but, interestingly enough, the people who respond most poorly are the passengers. Within the industry, there’s actually been a huge drive by some airlines in recent years, for example by British Airways, to increase the number of females applying for given positions, and thus hopefully start to even out the numbers. So with some companies, while you’re still going to need to bring the skills and the experience to the table, you actually might have a leg up on the competition at the moment if you’re a woman trying to become a commercial pilot.  If you’ve got the same skill and experience as a male applying, one would think the companies looking for more female pilots will pick you over your equivalent XY competition.

So why haven’t the numbers evened out since the sexist “dinosaurs” have all retired? Well one theory is that the sheer amount of time one needs to dedicate to being a pilot, and brutal travel schedule, turns a lot of women off because they’d rather focus on their domestic life and stay closer to home. This is a nice theory and perhaps is a factor, but there are only colloquial sources to back it up. Further, the same can be said about a lot of industries that don’t see anywhere near a 4,000 vs. 130,000 type split in number of women vs. men working in the respective fields.

Another theory is that, for whatever reason, young girls never see being a pilot as a career option whether because the field doesn’t fit young girls’ interests or perhaps simply because you rarely see female commercial pilots in real life or on TV or movies; so there is a lack of visible role models. A study conducted by British Airways in their efforts to learn why more women don’t become commercial pilots discovered that among young boys, “pilot” was the second most popular career choice. With girls, it wasn’t even mentioned. So whatever the underlying reason, most young girls just don’t find becoming a commercial pilot appealing. This also, perhaps, explains why the numbers are so skewed even in the private pilot license arena, still with a 93%/7% male vs. female split.

All that said, it’s generally thought that the biggest factor stopping women from becoming commercial pilots is the fact that a lot of pilots come from a military background, an option that wasn’t even open to women in many countries (and some still not) until relatively recently. In the U.S., for instance, until 1993 women weren’t allowed to fly combat aircraft.

So if a woman wanted to become a commercial pilot before such restrictions were lifted, they’d have to foot the $100,000-ish bill to acquire all the necessary training and experience.  And keep in mind, commercial pilots just starting out don’t get paid much.  According to FAPA (Future and Active Pilot Advisers), first officers can start out as low as $20,000 per year. Needless to say, investing those same dollars and hours into other careers can often be much more lucrative, particularly up front. As commercial pilot Jill Schilmoeller said, “You have to love flying, because you start off getting paid horribly and you are gone a lot…”

To get around the training cost, one essentially has to join the military, where once again we find a huge disparity in the desire to do so in men vs. women.  So not only do we have an issue of young girls not dreaming of becoming pilots, but we also have significantly less women joining the military and becoming pilots there, and maybe making “commercial pilot” a future option for themselves, even if they didn’t think of it as an option as a child. While most men also don’t see the military as an option they want to pursue, the small number that do and then become pilots there still eclipse the number of women doing it.

Combined with the cost of getting the training all yourself without the military footing the bill, this results in a relatively huge pool of men applying for commercial pilot positions compared to women. So when it all shakes out, even without any sexism in the industry itself, the result is that, at least for now, it will be a rare flight you take where one of the people flying the plane is a woman.

Join the conversation about this story »

Prior to 1978, in the event of a delay or flight cancellation all U.S. airlines were required to offer transportation on a competitor's next flight out if that flight would get the passenger to their destination sooner.

Airlines were even required to put economy class passengers in first class if only first class was available. I actually took advantage of Rule 240 back in the 1990s when traveling to New York on American Airlines via San Juan.

I missed my connecting flight due to a mechanical delay and would have been required to overnight in San Juan had I not asked to be "Rule 240'd" on Continental to Newark on a flight that had just one seat left—in first class, as it turned out. After a bit of back and forth with a supervisor — the original agent I spoke to said "sorry we can't put you in firs class"— I was on my way.

The rule was mandated by the now-defunct Civil Aeronautics Board and was incorporated in all airlines' contracts of carriage. The only exception was for "force majeure" (i.e. "Act of God") events, which each airline is free to define as it pleases.

Most airlines, because they're no longer required to have one, have eliminated Rule 240 from their contracts.

But three carriers, surprisingly, still have one. Maybe they just haven't gotten around to striking it out.

Those airlines are Alaska, Frontier, and (surprise!) even United.

Alaska still has language about putting passengers in a higher class of service than what they paid for if that's all that's available. Frontier and United don't.

Of course, all this assumes that there is a seat on another airline that will get you where you're going faster than your cancelled or delayed flight, and will planes so full these days that's not a certainty.

Alaska's contract is here. The specific rule is 204AS.

Frontier's is here. You'll want to scroll down to page 31.

And United's here. Specifically, see Rule 24, page 33, especially subparagraph E. United has an extensive definition of  "force majeure" events, including a "shortage of labor," which presumably includes crew not showing up for your flight because their inbound flight was late.

All of these are in PDF format. And to see how other airlines define "passenger rights" consult our Guide to Air-Passenger Rights.

And keep in mind that even if an airline has rid itself of Rule 240, it doesn't hurt to ask. Airlines, when it suits them, routinely put passengers on competitors if there's space available. It's up to the discretion of employees, and you should always ask as humbly and sweetly as humanly possible.
 
And other tip: have an alternate flight in mind with available seats when you ask to be "240'd" on another airline. By doing your own research you'll make your original airline's job easier.

SEE ALSO: The Cheapest Airlines For Flying To Europe

Join the conversation about this story »

A five-hour flight in coach from New York to Los Angeles is enough to make most people cringe, but imagine doing so upright in a bicycle seat. Sounds like corporal punishment, doesn't it? But based on a patent application filed by Airbus Industries last December, this may indeed happen (via The Los Angeles Times' Hugo Martin). 

The seat design featured in the patent is barbarically sparse, without even basic necessities like a backrest, tray tables or any leg room to speak of.  In fact, the seats don't even appear to function like seats; instead they are designed to prop up the flyer in an awkward semi-upright position to reduce the space required between rows. 

Airbus' "bicycle" seats would function like the folding seats in a movie theatre or a ball park. They would fold down when in use, and flip back up when unoccupied.

Airbus knows that being stuck in a cramped space on a plane is uncomfortable, and admitted as much in the patent filing. But the company apparently believes passengers would be willing to handle the discomfort in exchange for a cheap flight. 

"[To maximize financial returns on aircraft for low-cost airlines], the number of seats in a cabin must be increased, to the detriment of the comfort of the passengers," stated Airbus in the patent filing. "However, this reduced comfort is tolerable for passengers in as much as the flight lasts one or a few hours." 

The patent filing represents what is perhaps the most extreme solution thus far for the airline industry's quest to cram as many seats into a plane as possible. Fortunately for flyers, an Airbus spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that the seats may never make it into production. 

SEE ALSO: Here Are The Jumbo Jets And Military Aircraft We Can't Wait To See At Britain's Biggest Airshow

Join the conversation about this story »

In the past month, each of the three top U.S. airlines — American Airlines, United Continental, and Delta Air Lines — have dramatically cut their flight schedules to Venezuela.

Indeed, airlines across the world have been complaining for months about the impact of currency manipulation and government regulations in Venezuela. Several other foreign carriers have stopped flying to Venezuela altogether this year. The U.S. legacy carriers have finally realized that they, too, need to cut their losses.

Venezuela's bizarre currency regime
Whereas most countries today operate with floating exchange rates that vary based on economic conditions across different countries, Venezuela has a fixed official exchange rate. For a long time, this official exchange rate has overvalued Venezuela's local currency (the bolivar), causing a shortage of foreign currency.

For a while, airlines benefited from this situation. A loophole allowed Venezuelan citizens to exchange bolivars for up to $3,000 dollars at the official exchange rate if they were traveling overseas. Those dollars were worth far more on the black market, which encouraged people to buy pricey airline tickets even if they didn't need to go anywhere!

However, while airlines have been banking huge nominal profits in Venezuela, there's a catch: Those profits are in bolivars, and they're stuck in Venezuela. That's because the government has been unwilling to exchange airlines' bolivars for foreign currencies like dollars and euros, which are in short supply in Venezuela.

In total, airlines have about $4 billion stuck in Venezuela. They can theoretically exchange this money through a new floating currency mechanism that Venezuela has established. However, this "Sicad II" rate is around 50 bolivars per dollar, compared to the official rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar.

Thus, under the Sicad II rate, airlines would be taking pennies on the dollar. This would force big writedowns: particularly for market leader American Airlines. American has approximately $750 million trapped in Venezuela.

Time to cut flights
Several foreign airlines have reached deals to exchange their bolivars, but American, Delta, and United have not been so fortunate. As a result, American Airlines — which has by far the largest presence in Venezuela of any U.S. airline — decided last month to drastically cut capacity to Venezuela as of July 2.

American now operates just 10 weekly flights to Venezuela, down from 48 previously. Today, all of American's flights to Venezuela originate in Miami. Flights from New York, Dallas, and San Juan have been scrapped.

Delta Air Lines was next to cut back. Even though it only flew once daily to Venezuela, that was still more than the airline could stomach. Starting next month, it will fly just once weekly between Atlanta and Caracas.

On Friday, United Continental followed suit, although it is implementing the shallowest cuts. Beginning in mid-September, United will go from daily service on its Houston-Caracas route to four weekly flights.

No good alternative
American, Delta, and United are probably making the right decision by slashing their Venezuela flights dramatically. (Indeed, it might have been wise to bite the bullet even earlier.) Venezuela does not have enough foreign currency to pay everybody at the official rate, meaning that airlines are just guessing at how many dollars they will get from each ticket they sell in the country.

The main reason why U.S. airlines have been so slow to leave Venezuela has been the high fare environment, which has been encouraged by travelers' ability to exchange bolivars for dollars at the official rate. However, Venezuela is cracking down on this loophole, limiting the upside for airlines that maintain service.

Today, airlines have so many opportunities to profitably deploy aircraft in the U.S. that they have no reason to wait things out in Venezuela. Until they have certainty on when and at what rate they can repatriate their revenue from Venezuela, American, Delta, and United are better off staying away. That is exactly what they plan to do.

SEE ALSO: 7 Airlines That Will Make You Love Flying Again

Join the conversation about this story »

Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific was named the world's best airline at the World Airline Awards this week, which were announced at the Farnborough Airshow in the UK.

The airline took the top spot from Emirates, which ranked fourth on this year's list from leading airline reviewer Skytrax. The ranking is based on a survey filled out by nearly 19 million customers, and covers both full-service and budget airlines across 41 metrics related to product and service.

We compared Skytrax's ranking with the results of Business Insider's recent airline review, which also took punctuality into account.

20. Bangkok Airways

Business Insider Ranking: n/a

The regional airline operates scheduled services to destinations in Thailand, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Maldives, Burma, India and Singapore.

Bangkok Airways also topped Skytrax's list of the world's best regional airlines.

Source: Skytrax World Airline Awards

19. Hainan Airlines

Business Insider Ranking: n/a

China's Hainan Airlines recently announced plans to purchase around $5 billion worth of new planes from Boeing.

The airline also ranked 10th for best cabin crew on Skytrax's annual list.

Source: Skytrax World Airline Awards

18. Malaysia Airlines

Business Insider Ranking: 5

Though Malaysia Airlines' image has taken a pounding after the tragic disappearance of flight 370, the carrier's decades' worth of sterling service should not be discounted. Because of the incident, and mounting financial losses, the world's most talked-about airline is now in the midst of a management shakeup and fleet-renewal process. 

In spite of the upheaval, the carrier maintains its seat as one of the best airlines in the world.

Source: Skytrax World Airline Awards

As the events surrounding the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine become clearer, more and more voices are claiming the plane may have been shot down by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko described the crash as an act of “terrorism”, while Vladimir Putin is reported to have said that “the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy”.

For her part, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton opined that the catastrophe could have grave consequences for Russia should it turn out that they were involved in supplying equipment used to attack the plane.

What Now?

Legally speaking, we are still at an extremely early stage. Once it is established exactly how the plane was brought down, the next step will be to establish who bears responsibility for the crash, and how (and by whom) they will be punished.

States are obliged to punish those responsible. The first steps to investigate the causes and effects of the plane crash have been taken and Ukraine has asked the Netherlands for assistance in this task – but the possible responses using international legal structures are yet to be decided.

For his part, Ukraine’s prime minister suggested that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, should look into the matter. However, it is in fact fairly unlikely that the ICC will get involved.

Bad Timing

On April 17 2014, the Ukrainian government (which is signatory to the Rome Treaty but has not ratified it) lodged a declaration under Article 12(3) of the ICC’s statute, accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed in its territory.

But that declaration specified only the time frame from November 21 2013 to February 22 2014, when Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid civil unrest.

That means the plane crash would fall outside the declaration’s time frame. The terms could be revisited by the Ukrainian government, but extending the time frame would also leave the pro-Ukrainian side subject to scrutiny by the court for any crimes committed in the course of the deteriorating conflict.

Meanwhile, under Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute, there is the possibility that the UN Security Council could refer the situation to the ICC Prosecutor – though Russia holds a vetoing power on the council, and would probably use it to block any such attempt.

Jurisdiction

We also have to remember that the crime of terrorism does not form part of the ICC’s jurisdiction, as the concept of “terrorism” is notoriously difficult to define.

Instead, the ICC’s core crimes are genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes (from 2017, this list will include the crime of aggression). To prove a crime against humanity, for example, the prosecution would have to prove that 1) the attack was aimed at any civilian population; 2) a state or organisational policy existed that led to the attack; 3) the specific attack formed part of a widespread and systematic attack; 4) a link between the accused and the attack exists; and 5) there was an awareness of the broader context of the attack.

While some commentators have suggested that the 9/11 plane crashes, for example, constituted a crime against humanity, if the shooting down of flight MH17 proved to be an accident rather than a policy, it would be very difficult indeed to prove the necessary elements of a crime against humanity.

If, however, a preliminary examination by the ICC suggested there were grounds to proceed and the neccessary admissibility and threshold criteria are met, it may still prove very difficult to apprehend the alleged perpetrators if they were to reside in Russia.

Veto Trouble

Instead of ending up in front of the ICC, the MH17 disaster will probably become a question for the International Court of Justice, where disputes between states are considered. The court has previously considered rather similar cases: in 1988, for example, Iran brought a case against the US for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 - though eventually the case was withdrawn.

By the same token, Malaysia could be entitled to bring before the court any state directly responsible for the downing of flight MH17, or for supplying the equipment used to do so.

Another body which could take legal action, of course, is the UN Security Council, tasked as it is with maintaining peace and stability. It could establish an independent commission of enquiry, though any resolution on behalf of the Security Council might well be vetoed by Russia. The UN General Assembly could also produce a recommendation in form of a resolution, but they are non-binding.

Ultimately, what happens next will depend on how the major players behave – especially Russia – once the facts of the crash have been more fully established.

Melanie Klinkner does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Join the conversation about this story »

The downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 has led to many questions being asked about the propriety of planes flying over eastern Ukraine.

Many have pointed out that other airlines had prohibited their flights from operating in the airspace through which MH17 was flying when taken down. Unfortunately, many of these comments fail to grasp the complexities of airspace and operational regulations.

In general the airspace over a particular country is controlled by that country. It is that country’s aviation regulatory body, such as the US FAA or UK CAA, and the air-traffic control organisations that determine where, when and how aircraft are allowed to fly.

On top of the local regulations, pilots and airlines are required to follow the directives of the country in which they are registered. For instance, a British Airways flight flying over the US would be bound by both the rules of the FAA and the CAA. Plus, each airline may set more restrictive rules on their own operations.

Because of this a lot of confusion has arisen as to whether or not specific airlines from specific countries were prohibited from flying over the disputed areas of eastern Ukraine.

Airspace Restrictions

Airspace restrictions are generally set up for two reasons: to ensure the safety of aircraft and their occupants and to ensure the safety of people on the ground. In the case of some restricted military airspace, this may be because of training flights or weapons testing.

Restrictions may also exist because the country is trying to protect an asset inside the restricted airspace. A good example of this is the prohibited flight zones in and around Washington, DC, where flights below 18,000ft are generally prohibited without prior authorization. These were created to reduce the risk that someone would use aircraft to damage or destroy portions of the United States government. While the restrictions existed before the September 11, 2001 attacks, they were revised in response. The same is true of the airspace restrictions over Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida.

Other restrictions will arise from disruptions to normal aviation services. For instance if the air-traffic control radar at an airport fails, certain types of flights may be prohibited.

The specific details of each flight restriction are published as a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM).

These documents tell pilots the location, applicable times and the specific restrictions for each area of restricted airspace. Many of them will also give the reason for the restriction and the consequences that may arise from a violation. For instance, violating the restrictions around airspace over Washington DC may carry civil and criminal sanctions. If the US government perceives that the aircraft is an “imminent security threat”, deadly force may even be used. Plus, permanent restrictions will be indicated on air navigation charts:

What Were The Restrictions For MH17?

Much has been written about the fact the American FAA, British CAA and Eurocontrol had issued a series of NOTAMS to their respective pilots, airlines and air traffic control organisations about the risks of operating over Eastern Ukraine. Some articles have even insinuated that the region through which MH17 was flying was off limits to US airlines because of the risk of being shot down due to the ongoing conflict between the Ukraine government and separatists militias.

But a careful read of the NOTAMs issued by Ukraine, Eurocontrol, the CAA and the FAA tell a different story – and this is what Malaysia Airlines is pointing to in its defence of its actions.

In all cases flights on the air-traffic routes were permitted so long as the aircraft was operating above 32,000ft. MH17 was flying at 33,000ft when it was shot down.

The reasons for closing the routes below this are not stated in the NOTAMs. But it is reasonable to believe that the restrictions were in place because of military operations in the area and the consequent risk to commercial traffic. Plus, the neighboring airspace roughly above Crimea is totally restricted. This is because of the fact that both Ukraine and Russia are attempting to provide air traffic control services in the region, greatly increasing the risk of a mid air collision– not because of the risk of missiles.

While it is difficult to determine if Malaysia Airlines improperly assessed the risk associated with flying over the disputed areas of Eastern Ukraine, there was certainly no consensus that commercial flights on established air-traffic routes, flying above 32,000ft in the region, were at risk.

Yes, several authorities recommended caution in planning flights in this region and for frequent checks of new and revised airspace restrictions. But, at the time of the crash, there were no restrictions in place for any commercial flights above 32,000ft in the area where MH17 crashed.

Only now, following this terrible incident, has a NOTAM been issued, closing off all altitudes to US-based carriers. And, many airlines are being more cautious than is currently required of them, with most circumventing Ukraine entirely.

Peter Hollingsworth receives funding from the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, the UK Environment Agency and Rolls-Royce. He is affiliated with American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He consults to the UK Environment Agency.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Join the conversation about this story »

Major US, European and Canadian airlines cancelled flights to and from Israel after a rocket fired from Gaza struck near its main international airport in Tel Aviv.

The cancellations highlighted heightened worldwide fears of a rocket hitting a passenger jet in the wake of last week's downing of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 over rebel-held eastern Ukraine with nearly 300 on boar

That incident underscored the vulnerability of commercial aircraft to surface-to-air missiles, even at cruising altitudes in excess of 30,000 feet.

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned US airlines from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport for at least 24 hours, citing the ongoing crisis in Gaza.

Delta, US Airways and United Airlines heeded the order, with Delta diverting a Tel Aviv-bound Boeing 747 with 273 passengers and 17 crew on board to Paris.

"Due to the potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict in Israel and Gaza, all flight operations to/from Ben Gurion International Airport by US operators are prohibited until further advised," said the FAA's Notice to Airmen, or NOTAM, issued shortly after 1600 GMT.

"This NOTAM will be updated within 24 hours," it added.

In an accompanying press statement, the FAA said it had immediately notified US carriers when it learned of the rocket strike.

Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said it was likely that the flight ban could be extended beyond 24 hours.

The FAA is expected to update its guidance later Wednesday.

US Airways said it plans to resume its direct flights from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv on Thursday.

Flight 796, originally due to leave Philadelphia at 9:10 pm on Wednesday (0110 GMT Thursday), arriving in Tel Aviv 11 hours later, has been rescheduled for the following day, US Airways said on its website.

It added the same was true for Flight 797, originally due to depart Tel Aviv at 11:30 pm (2030 GMT) Wednesday, arriving in Philadelphia 13 hours later.

US Airways flights to Tel Aviv are routed through Philadelphia.

Air France said it was canceling its Tel Aviv flights "until further notice." Lufthansa said it was doing likewise, for 72 hours. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines suspended its services as well, citing "security reasons."

Lufthansa explained that it was suspending its Tel Aviv service "for the security of passengers and crew" amid the "unstable situation" near the airport.

Air Canada also canceled service to and from Tel Aviv on Tuesday, and said on Twitter it would "continue to evaluate going forward & update."

British Airways and its low-cost rival EasyJet, however, maintained their flights.

"We continue to operate as normal," a British Airways spokesman said. "Safety and security are our highest priorities and we continue to monitor the situation closely."

National carrier Royal Jordanian said on Wednesday it has suspended flights to Tel Aviv.

The announcement by the airline, which operates 20 weekly flights to Tel Aviv, was made in a short statement carried by state-run Petra news agency.

- Rocket strike -

Prompting the rush of cancellations was a rocket fired from Gaza which, according to Israeli police, struck north of the airport.

"A house was damaged in a rocket strike in the Kiryat Ono Yehud region, several kilometers from the airport," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.

Delta said it had diverted the Tel Aviv-bound flight after "reports of a rocket or associated debris" near Ben Gurion airport.

"Delta, in coordination with the US Federal Aviation Administration, is doing so to ensure the safety and security of our customers and employees," it said in a statement.

US Airways meanwhile told AFP in a Twitter exchange it had canceled its flights Tuesday between Philadelphia and Tel Aviv "in response to security concerns" at the airport in Tel Aviv.

And United said: "We're suspending operations to/from Tel Aviv until further notice. We'll continue to evaluate the situation."

United was more discreet on its website, where it said its two flights Tuesday to Tel Aviv from Newark airport outside New York had been "canceled due to aircraft availability."

Delta, which links Tel Aviv with New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, said it was "working to reaccommodate" passengers on its Paris-diverted flight.

Join the conversation about this story »

With this month's downing of MH17 and the March disappearance of MH370, it seems that if Malaysia Airlines didn't have bad luck, it wouldn't have any luck at all.  

It is incredibly rare for two catastrophic events to happen to the same airline in such a short period of time, Chris Sloan, president of aviation news organization Airchive, told Business Insider.

Malaysia's recent tragedies have indelibly stained the reputation of an airline that has one of the best safety records in the world. Until this year, Malaysia Airlines had experienced only two fatal accidents in 68 years of operation. In fact, the last 19 years have been fatality-free. And the airline regularly receives stellar marks for service and comfort from airline ratings agency Skytrax. 

Despite high marks from passengers, the airline's financial performance over the years has been dismal. With the Malaysian government holding a majority stake in the airline through its holding company, Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia Airlines has become a veritable black hole that sucks in money. Multiple government bailouts over the past decade were required keep the carrier aloft.

In the past three years, the airline has lost an astonishing $1.2 billion, reports Businessweek. And according to the CAPA Centre for Aviation, Malaysia Airlines lost a further $140 million in the first quarter of this year alone, with business down 59%. In other words, the airline hasn't been profitable for years. And it's unlikely to achieve profitability anytime soon.

With the loss of consumer confidence compounding the company's financial troubles, what's in store for Malaysia Airlines? Here are three ways the company could turn around.

1. Rebrand

A potential solution is to simply rebrand the airline: Take the existing company and relaunch it with a new logo and a fresh coat of paint. This strategy was successful for both ValuJet and Swissair, though under different circumstances.

ValuJet was a budget airline that rebranded as AirTran Airways after a fatal crash and subsequent financial losses in the mid-1990s.

While the company's transformation following its merger with AirTrain was nothing short of spectacular, its situation differed greatly from Malaysia Airlines in both complexity and symbolism. 

At the time of ValuJet's rebranding, it was a 5-year-old airline with a small, aging fleet of 15 short-range DC-9/MD-80 series jets.

Malaysia Airlines, on the other hand, is nearly 70 years old, with a fleet of 100 aircraft, ranging from smaller Boeing 737s to 500-seat Airbus A380 superjumbos. As Malaysia's flag carrier, the airline is also a symbol of national identity, serving as a flying ambassador for the country. 

Swissair's rebranding also offers some parallels. Swissair, known for its high-quality service and strong financial performance, was referred to as the "flying bank" for many years. However, by the late 1990s, after a decade of poor financial decision making, the Swiss national airline was struggling to deal with massive amounts of debt. Its grim financial situation was worsened by the crash of Flight 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1998.

By 2001, the company announced it would have to liquidate its assets. SWISS International Airlines arose from the ashes, and has since been rated as one of the best in the world. The success of SWISS shows it's possible to rebrand a nation's flag carrier and recover financially. However, SWISS had two advantages that Malaysia Airlines does not: Consumer confidence in the Swissair brand wasn't fatally tarnished by the company's troubles, and Switzerland's aviation tradition was well-established. 

So Malaysia Airlines may have to do more than simply rebrand—it may need a top-to-bottom overhaul.

Korean Air's revamp in the early 2000s offers some context, says Airchive's Sloan. In 1999, the airline suffered three crashes in six months. Two were fatal.

Instead of simply rebranding, Korean Air made major internal changes. The airline brought in Lufthansa to retrain its pilots, changed its corporate culture, and relaunched. Malaysia will have to follow a similar playbook, Sloan says, adding, "they have to show the world they learned their lesson."

2. Nationalize

There have been calls from inside Malaysia for the government to dump its investment in its money-losing airline. However, Sloan believes the opposite is likely to happen: Not only will the government pump more money into the airline, it will also nationalize it, he says. No country wants to lose such a prominent international symbol at a time of weakness. 

Nationalization could provide the airline with a temporary financial safe haven, buying time to execute the sweeping changes needed to ensure long-term viability. In 2001, the New Zealand government nationalized Air New Zealand and injected more than $700 million into the company after the airline's failed merger with Ansett Australia drained its coffers. The nationalization allowed Air New Zealand to make drastic shifts in its business model. Eventually, that airline returned to profitability. 

3. Merge

If the Malaysian government does not step up to the plate, another option for Malaysia Airlines is to seek a merger. In the month before the crash of MH17, rumors sprang up about cash-rich Etihad Airways' interest in acquiring shares of the airline. But since the crash, the Abu Dhabi-based carrier has distanced itself from the rumors. 

One prospective partner for Malaysia Airlines may very well be a competitor: AirAsia, a low-cost carrier that also operates out of Kuala Lumpur.

In the last 15 years, CEO Tony Fernandes has taken AirAsia from a tiny, debt-ridden operation to a financial juggernaut. Much of its explosive growth has been at the expense of more established regional competitors.

Now, Fernandes wants to jump into the long-haul game with the company's AirAsiaX brand. In fact, the airline purchased 50 Airbus A330neo long-haul airliners at this month's Farnborough Airshow. 

To remove a local competitor and bolster its transcontinental operation, AirAsia may be willing to take on Malaysia Airlines' international assets for a reasonable price. It's not unheard of for a younger regional airline to swallow up a large international carrier. In 2007, Brazil's Gol Airlines purchased the remnants of the country's bankrupt national carrier, Varig. After the merger, Varig—once Brazil's preeminent international airline—now operates as an arm of Gol Airlines. 

In 2012, Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia actually agreed to $364 million stock swap that was nixed by pressure from Malaysia Airlines' union. With the airline confronting an unprecedented crisis and AirAsia enjoying a meteoric rise, it may make sense for the airlines to revisit their past agreement. 

SEE ALSO: Experts Say MH17 Passengers Were Probably Unconscious Before They Knew What Was Happening

Join the conversation about this story »

An TransAsia Airways ATR-72 regional airliner crashed this morning while attempting an emergency landing in one of Taiwan's Penghu Islands.

Reports out of Taiwan indicate that TransAsia flight GE222 crashed into a residential neighborhood after flying through a patch of rough weather caused by Typhoon Matmo.

According to local news sources, Taiwan's Transport Ministry confirmed the crash led to 47 deaths and 11 injuries.

Here's everything we know so far about the airline and the aircraft that went down.

The aircraft in question is a French-built ATR-72 regional airliner and is one of 10 ATRs in TransAsia's fleet. We have not been able to confirm the exact tail-number of the aircraft that crashed. Founded in 1981, ATR (Avions de Transport Regional) is a joint venture between Airbus Group and Italian aerospace firm Alenia Aermacchi for the stated purpose of building advanced regional airliners. 

Powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney PW127 turboprop engines, the ATR-72-500/600 has been one of the most popular regional airliners in the world since its debut in 1997. According to Airsafe.com, today's accident marks the eighth fatal crash for the aircraft type.

TransAsia Airways is a small regional carrier based in Taipei. According to the Airfleets.net, the airline's fleet of 23 aircraft ranges from turboprops like the the ATR to wide body long-haul jets like the Airbus A330. The airlines serves mostly customers in East and Southeast Asia with scheduled and charter flights.

According to Taiwanese news, the GE222 crash is the seventh incident involving a TransAsia ATR-72 in the last 15 years and the second fatal crash after a TransAsia ATR cargo plane crashed in 2001 due to ice forming on its wings. 

SEE ALSO: More Than 50 Feared Dead In Passenger Plane Crash In Taiwan

Join the conversation about this story »

Editor's note: Virgin America filed for an IPO this morning. Thanks to our friends at Skift for letting us run the following interview with former Virgin America CEO Fred Reid.

Fred Reid knows a thing or two about the airline business and passenger experience, and believes that “Virgin America has proven that technology plus style plus design plus ease of use plus people, people, people, people can launch an airline.” 

As the founding CEO of Virgin America, a post he left in late 2007, Reid says he banned the use of words such as “passenger” and “employee” in favor of “guest” and “teammate,” and you’ll see from the Skift interview below that he did so for substantive reasons that go to the core success or failure of an airline, and not just for public relations spin.

SEE ALSO: Virgin America Files For IPO

SEE ALSO: Virgin America Wants To Turn Boring Plane Flights Into Awesome Networking Sessions

SEE ALSO: Virgin America's Awesome New Flight Safety Video Is Better Than Most Music Videos

Join the conversation about this story »

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian budget airline Jetstar apologized on Wednesday after a crew member told passengers on a flight from the Gold Coast tourist strip, including some returning from a popular music festival, to flush away "anything you shouldn't have."

The warning from the flight attendant that sniffer dogs and quarantine officers were on standby in Sydney prompted a rush to the plane's toilets, News Ltd reported.

Jetstar, owned by Qantas Airways Ltd, said it discussed the matter with the crew member involved, who made the announcement over the plane's PA system.

The airline said the flight attendant had taken a routine announcement about Australia's strict quarantine regulations, which prevent some plant and fruit materials being transported between states, too far.

"Our procedures allow cabin crew to deliver the quarantine message through a public announcement and on this occasion the crew member elected to do so," Jetstar said.

"The crew member's words were poorly chosen and are plainly at odds with the professional standards we'd expect from our team," it said in an emailed statement.

The indie music festival Splendour in the Grass, the largest of its kind in Australia over winter, is held over three days near the tourist haven of Byron Bay, about an hour's drive south of the Gold Coast across the Queensland state border.

The festival attracts around 30,000 fans to Byron Bay's seaside parklands each year, with 2014's line-up featuring artists including Outkast, Lily Allen, and Interpol.

(Reporting by Thuy Ong; Editing by Jane Wardell and Paul Tait)

SEE ALSO: Flight Attendant Makes The Most Hilariously Sassy Safety Speech Ever

SEE ALSO: Southwest Flight Attendant Gives The Best Safety Speech We've Ever Seen [VIDEO]

Join the conversation about this story »

Airbus Group announced this week that it has cancelled an $1.7-billion order for six of its A380 superjumbos slated for Japanese low-cost carrier Skymark Airlines.

According to Bloomberg, the order fell apart due to concerns over the 18-year old airline's ability to actually afford the double-decker jet. 

The latest cancellation is a significant setback for Airbus on multiple fronts as the company struggles to gain a footing in the Boeing-dominated Japanese market.

For decades American-built airliners have monopolized Japanese aviation. Due to heavy investment in local firms, companies like Boeing have built great loyalty among Japanese carriers.

However, Airbus has recently made some headway in Japan. All Nippon Airlines placed a $3.3 billion order for 30 A320/321 narrowbody jets this March. JAL placed a landmark $9.5-billion order for 31 A350XWB airliners last October. 

When first announced in 2011, the Airbus-Skymark partnership represented a golden opportunity for the manufacturer to forge a strong relationship with a growing Japanese airline. However, the regional carrier — whose previous claim to fame involved a controversy over the length of its flight attendant's skirts — hasn't been profitable enough to support aircraft as large as the A380 on its domestic routes, although it does fly Airbus's 271-seat A330-300 widebody jet.

Western airlines generally use their big planes for long-haul or intercontinental routes. But due to the high passenger volume on certain domestic routes, Japanese airlines have long used jumbo jets like the Boeing 747. In fact, Boeing has even released special 500-seat-plus versions of its 747 jumbo jet that are customized for the Japan's domestic market.

Now that Airbus appears to have lost its only Japanese customer for the A380, and with none of the country's other airlines even willing to consider the aircraft, perhaps it's time to conclude that the superjumbo may be too big, even for Japan. 

The Airbus A380, launched in 2007 to great fanfare, has struggled over the past few years to achieve steady sales. Although Airbus as taken more than 300 orders for the jet, nearly half of them have come from one customer, Emirates. Other buyers, such as Virgin Atlantic Airways, have wavered over the financial feasibility of the huge jet.

Making things worse, Airbus has already assembled two of the six Skymark A380s that were to enter service later this year. So far, the company hasn't been able to find another airline to take the jets (the A380 has actually failed to attract a single new buyer in two years).

"It's hard to see how this ends," Richard Aboulafia, leading aviation consultant told Bloomberg. "They've got exactly one enthusiastic customer."

SEE ALSO: The 20 Best Airlines In The World

Join the conversation about this story »

With this new airplane cabin design, flying will be more comfortable than ever.

Priestmangoode, the design firm responsible for rebranding Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, has created a new cabin design — called "E2"— for Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer, according to Fast Company.

Airlines such as JetBlue, US Airways, and Virgin Australia use Embraer jets for some of their flights.

With E2, Priestmangoode aims to take an industry benchmark cabin and make it even better, by improving issues with seating space, carry-on storage, bathrooms, and more, according to a video about the project.

The E2 is expected to hit the airways in 2018, reports Fast Company.

The Embraer E2 cabin will have spacious seats that are also slimmer, which will make the plane lighter and allow for more free space inside the aircraft.

The seats in first class will be staggered, allowing the E2 to use the same seat track as the economy class without losing any luxuries.

You won't have to worry about leaning over another passenger to put on your seat light: the new individual Personal Energy Supply Units (PSUs) allow you to control your air and light while remaining in your own space.

New carry-on storage integrates with the cabin ceiling, giving it a much cleaner look.

Priestmangoode even managed to increase storage capacity by 40%, without sacrificing cabin space.

Even the bathrooms received an upgrade, with acoustic curtains for privacy, handrails on internal walls, and an integrated diaper changing table.

SEE ALSO: 22 Brilliant Insights From Richard Branson

DON'T FORGET: Follow Business Insider on Twitter!

Join the conversation about this story »

DAKAR (Reuters) - The Air Algerie flight that crashed in Mali last week appears to have plummeted to the ground from an altitude of 10,000 meters in just a few minutes after flying into a storm, a senior official involved in the investigation was quoted as saying.

French officials have said they believe bad weather was most likely to blame for the crash, which killed all 118 passengers and crew when the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft smashed into the ground south of the Malian town of Gossi, near the border with Burkina Faso.

Pilots of the plane, which left the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou en route for Algiers in the early hours of Thursday morning, asked for permission to alter their route due to poor weather as they flew north.

General Gilbert Diendere, head of Burkina Faso's crisis cell, said radar data showed that the plane appeared to try to fly around the bad weather before reverting to its initial course, which took it back into the eye of the storm.

"Perhaps the pilot thought that he had completely avoided it and wanted to return to the original route," Diendere said, according to the website of French radio RFI. "The accident took place while the plane performed this maneuver."

Diendere said the last contact with the plane at its altitude of 10,000 meters was at 0147 GMT and the crash was reported by witnesses to have taken place at 0150.

"That means that (plane) fell from an altitude of 10,000 meters to zero in about three minutes, which is a steep fall given the size of the plane," he added.

French authorities have not ruled out any explication for the crash but they believe the poor weather played a part in the accident. There were 54 French citizens among the passengers.

The two black boxes from the plane have been found and transferred to France, where they are being examined by experts and results are expected in the coming weeks.

Some families of passengers from Burkina Faso have already been taken to visit the crash site, where remains of the plane are scattered across scrubby bush land.

France announced three days of mourning, starting Monday.

As well as French and Burkinabe, those aboard included Lebanese, Algerians, Spanish, Canadians, Germans, Luxembourgers, a Cameroonian, a Belgian, an Egyptian, a Ukrainian, a Swiss, a Nigerian and a Malian.

(Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

SEE ALSO: Second Black Box Found At Air Algerie Crash Site

SEE ALSO: Officials Pinpoint Bad Weather As The Most Likely Cause Of Air Algerie Crash

Join the conversation about this story »

Possibly this is one of those things only an aerophile can understand, but there’s something so fascinating, even enchanting, about old abandoned airplanes. 
 
Entire books have been written about them — field guides, you could say — chronicling the whereabouts of this or that crashed, abandoned, or otherwise derelict airliner.

You find them crashed in forests, mothballed in the desert, and tucked away in weedy corners of third-world airports: antique propliners like Constellations and DC-6s; sun-bleached 707s and DC-8s; retired Soviet Tupolevs.

The jetliner boneyards in California and Arizona receive hundreds of requests annually from airliner geeks eager to explore their inventories.

For some of us, poring over some discarded old plane is even more exciting than exploring a still-flying one. 

We see these planes as monuments, perhaps? To the men and women who flew them, to the passengers who rode aboard them — and most extraordinary of all, to the the places these planes have been. The difference between the peculiar grandeur of an old abandoned building, for instance, and that of an old abandoned airplane, is that the building existed only in a fixed location.  Airplanes, they’ve been everywhere.

I remember, during my visit to the boneyard at Mojave a few years back, looking up at a retired Boeing 747, soon destined for the scrapper.  The very same jumbo jet, I later learned, once made London and Honolulu runs for PeopleExpress.  Before that, it wore the name “City of Adelaide” for Qantas. I thought of all the far-flung places this elegant machine must have visited in its nearly three decades of flying, from Newark to New Delhi, Bangkok to Buenos Aires.  With the same sort of melancholy one feels when remembering an elderly relative in younger, happier times, I imagined this same 747, years ago, whirling in over Hong Kong harbor, ascending over Cape Town at dusk. 

Of course, the real stories don’t belong to the planes themselves, but to the people they carried – from sheiks and dignitaries, to millions upon millions of vacationers and tourists.  Looking up at the forlorn hulk of that 747, I realized that with every takeoff the plane made, up 450 people were borne aloft with it.  Over a 30 year-career, that’s about five million stories. Its rows of empty chairs were like the rings of an ancient tree.

This past Christmas I had the chance to visit an abandoned Yak-40 at Roberts Field — the airport near Monrovia, Liberia, in West Africa.

The Yakovlev Yak-40 was a tiny three-engined jet made in the Soviet Union.  It carried about 30 people.  Almost a thousand Yak-40s were built between 1966 and 1978. This was a true “regional jet” some three decades before the term ever existed.  A few are still in service. 

I’d noticed the derelict Yak on earlier visits to Roberts, but never had the opportunity to wander over and explore. This time, in the company of an airport worker and his van, I was able to make the trip.

The plane wears a Russian registration and the markings of something called Weasua Air Transport, a tiny Liberian carrier that, according to Google and the database at Airliner.net, was shut down by regulators in 2006. Apparently Weasua never had more than two or three aircraft at a time — one of which crashed — and was once a member the European Union’s safety blacklist. The blue markings borrow from the old Aeroflot livery, and I imagine the jet once flew for Aeroflot, as most Yak-40s did.  

Exactly how long it’s been sitting here, and other details of its past, are unknown. It’s doubtful this old jet did much “whirling in over Hong Kong harbor.” Trundling through an ice-fog over Smolensk is more like it. Nonetheless, these mysteries make the plane that much more interesting.

I love the Soviet-style oval doors.

It was best to tread carefully on the walk from the overwing entry door to the cockpit. The cabin floor is mostly torn up, meaning one slip and you’re up to your knees in metal fuselage ribbing, assorted machinery, and water. Up front, the pilots’ overhead escape hatch is missing, permanently exposing the interior to Liberia’s heat and drenching rains. Thus the cabin has become a sort of tropical terrarium, with about eight inches of stagnant green water between the floorboards and the bottom of the fuselage. I can’t imagine how many mosquitos — and who knows what all else — breed in here.

The NO SMOKING sign features a pipe. Note also the Cyrillic seat designator.

The cockpit is a baffling array of early-generation engine gauges and instruments. I couldn’t tell you what most of these switches and dials might be for. The placards and labels are in Russian.

In the weeds nearby are hundreds of barrels of heavy black liquid that appears to be tar — much of which has leaked into ankle-deep slicks.

I was able to unearth this shot of the very same plane — note the registration, RA-87260 — in happier times, seen in Sierra Leone in 2004. (Photo courtesy of Ali Hammoud.)

Roberts Airport was built by the United States government during World War Two. Later the field was managed by Pan Am, which operated something of a mini-hub at ROB, with flights from New York continuing on to Accra, Lagos, Johannesburg and Nairobi, among other places. Pan Am crews would layover at a hotel directly across the street from the terminal. Pan Am left Africa in 1991, and both the hotel and the terminal were destroyed during Liberia’s brutal civil war, which ended only recently. Until a replacement is funded and built, this ramshackle arrival and departures hall serves as a terminal.

Lastly here’s a picture of one of the United Nations posts at the airport. At the moment most of the U.N. soldiers at ROB are from Nigeria. The airport is home to several Ukrainian-crewed U.N. helicopters, and a Russian-crewed 737 shuttles regularly between ROB and Accra, Ghana, carrying soldiers, staff and Liberian citizens returning home.

SEE ALSO: Here's What The Inside Of The Sunken Costa Concordia Looks Like After 2 Years Underwater

SEE ALSO: Here's How Russians Reacted To The Downing Of The Malaysian Airliner

Join the conversation about this story »

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's Embraer SA, the world's third largest commercial planemaker, expects more new regional jet orders from the United States next year, given strong acceptance of E-175 aircraft delivered there recently, Chief Executive Officer Frederico Curado said on a Thursday earnings call.

(Reporting by Brad Haynes; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

SEE ALSO: This New Design For Airplane Seating Will Make Flights Much More Enjoyable

SEE ALSO: Honda Is Getting Into The Private Jet Business With An Innovative Engine

Join the conversation about this story »