When mice take the Mickey out of airline…

Mouse in commercial aircraft
Mouse - Photo © George Shuklin, Wikimedia.org

It first happened on Monday September 5, 2011. A Nepal Airlines flight was cancelled at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu.

Do you guess why? The flight attendants spotted a stowaway mouse onboard their B-757 bound to Bangkok! The small rodent fled from the galley’s pantry, and rushed from a box of drinks to the back of the cabin although the 113 passengers did not notice the tiny stowaway.

The mouse was finally caught thanks to a glue trap. The jetliner was grounded for more than eleven hours.

 

Then, the same Boeing 757 – this time bound to Kathmandu – was grounded at Hong Kong International Airport on Tuesday September 6, in the evening.

The reason: the pilots spotted a mouse in the cockpit just before the airplane departure. The aircraft has not been cleared to take off because this mouse was trapped but then escaped, and would still be on the loose. The 84 passengers were rerouted on a Dragonair aircraft.

 

As far as flight safety is concerned, an aircraft cannot take off with a mouse moving freely onboard as it can gnaw the wiring, and therefore represents a potentiel danger.

It can only be caught or trapped. However, NAC (Nepal Airlines Corporation) could not poison any mouse for a small animal can damage an airplane even if it is dead somewhere, and particularly if in contact with a vital part of the plane.

 

Special thanks to Mr Hermas, and LadyEleanorA who buzzed this piece of news.

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ICAO Air Traffic Radiotelephony – Transmitting Numbers

cours anglais aviation Toni Giacoia FCL .055 OACI en ligne à distance

Cours d’anglais aéronautique sur FCL ANGLAIS

Here is an audio/video file with transcript about how the numbers must be pronounced according to the ICAO (International Civilian Aviation Organization) standard. This is how aircrew members, and air traffic controllers should transmit the numbers.

CAUTION – There is not any exception for FL 100, and FL 200 according to the ICAO DOC 9432 Radiotelephony Manual, page 19, chapter 2.4.2, as it is pronounced « FLIGHT LEVEL ONE-ZERO-ZERO », and « FLIGHT LEVEL TWO-ZERO-ZERO ».
However, « Flight level one hundred » follows the French DGAC and the British CAA patterns.

Click on this video:

 

 

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Rio-Paris Flight 447 Crash – INTERESTING Point of View particularly on Highly AUTOMATED AIRCRAFT

Watch and listen carefully to Mr. Learmount’s point of view which has been deemed to be of considerable interest as far as the 2009 AF 447 crash is concerned. Please notice that there are interesting acronyms such as GIGO (Garbage in – Garbage out), and LOC – if it is well known as « Loss of Consciousness » – means « Loss of Control » here. Special thanks to Xavier Cotton (Passion pour l’aviation webmaster) who has found out this video:

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Solid-as-a-rock A380 aircraft struck… by lightning!

It is not uncommon for aircraft to be struck by lightning but this super heavy Emirates Airbus A380 got hit by a jagged bolt of lightning right over the pilot’s seats.

A huge amount of electric energy must have passed through the airframe of the aircraft during its approach at London Heathrow last week. Amazingly the commercial aircraft escaped damage, and nobody was hurt.

Is it any wonder this airplane may sustain such a stress in a clap of thunder? The size and the nature of the A380 airframe seems to be the right solution to such hazards. Thanks to its thick metal structure, the plane behaved as a perfect Faraday cage:

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