A Jackson County (MO) jury Friday awarded the family of Mel
Carnahan $4 million, deciding that vacuum pump maker Parker
Hannifin was partly to blame for the governor's death more than
three years ago. This, in spite of an NTSB report that shows the
twin pumps aboard the aircraft were apparently working at the time
of the crash.
Carnahan was flying aboard a
Cessna 335 piloted by his son, Randy, on October 16, 2000, when
they ran into rough weather in southeastern Missouri. The pilot
reported his primary attitude indicator had failed. The aircraft
went down near Hillsboro (MO), killing all three people on
board.
Well, it's not quite goodbye just yet. But Continental Airlines
CEO Gordon Bethune, widely credited with bringing the airline back
from the brink of financial ruin, will retire at the end of the
year. Continental says he'll be replaced by the airline's current
president, Larry Kellner.
When Bethune joined Continental ten years ago (as of next month),
the airline was staggering out of its second bankruptcy in a
decade. In a few short years, Continental rose in all standings,
from customer service to on-time performance.
When passengers aboard a US Airways Express flight got on board
in Pittsburgh (PA) last week, they thought they were going to
University Park Airport outside State College (PA). When they go
off the flight, however, they discovered they weren't in State
College at all.
The pilot instead landed at Mid-State Airport, near Philipsburg,
about 20 miles away. Mid-State business manager Joann Shields was
there to greet the unexpected flight.
So imagine a big ol' TSA dude walking up to your cockpit window,
knocking on it with his flashlight and saying, "Son, you in a whole
lotta trouble." That sort of imagery could very well have been
going through the mind of 44-year old Vincent Salamone of Pottstown
(PA) Thursday evening after he landed his Piper Cherokee.
Salamone, president of a Pottstown concrete company, is accused of
flying his 1967 Cherokee while drunk. And it was apparently some
kind of wild ride.
Chicago's plan to expand O'Hare International Airport -- the
most complex and controversial airport development issue in civil
aviation today -- is so fundamentally flawed that it should be
scrapped, the former acting administrator of the Federal Aviation
Administration said Friday.
"Chicago's plan is in serious trouble. It will cost too much, will
not produce the claimed benefits and will fail to meet FAA safety
standards," said Joseph Del Balzo, who served as acting
administrator at the FAA in 1994. The O'Hare plan would not just
fail to reduce delays, but would actually increase them at the
nation's most pivotal airport, he said.
The Russians want in on President Bush's plan to go to the moon
and Mars over the next 25 years. In fact, they might just go
themselves.
"Even though our space engineers lacked money to build new
hardware, they have done a lot of prospective design work," said
Russian Space Agency spokesman Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko. "We have
preserved and developed our scientific potential."
Russian aerospace firms hope they can bring that sort of forward
thinking to the table as NASA figures out what sorts of vehicles it
will need to get to the moon and stay there, much less the space
vehicles it needs to allow humans to explore Mars.
Pilots at North American Airlines, a charter carrier that
provides service to civilian and military passengers, have voted to
join the Teamsters Union. Out of 117 eligible pilots, the vote was
78 for the Teamsters and two for the Air Line Pilots
Association.
"This indicates a major success for members of the pilots group,
who wanted a strong collective voice," said Don Treichler, Director
of the Teamsters Airline Division.
"It's clear to us that this was a compromise verdict. We came
here not for money but to vindicate Parker's good name, and we
think we achieved that in this verdict."
Source: Lorrie Paul Crum, vice president of
corporate communications at Parker Hannifin, after a Missouri jury
awarded the family of Governor Mel Carnahan $4 million dollars for
his death and that of his son. They, along with an aide to the
governor, were killed October 16, 2000, when their Cessna 335 went
down in southeastern Missouri. The family blamed Parker Hannifin,
which made the vacuum pumps aboard the 335, for the deaths, saying
it was just one of more than 20 fatal aviation accidents
attributable to the pumps.
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