More than 130 passengers on a JetBlue flight had a traumatic experience recently, when their pilot suffered a nervous breakdown midflight, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing. Any California plane crash attorney would see this incident as a reminder of the lack of mental health evaluations for pilots, and the danger this poses for passengers.

The pilot on JetBlue Flight 191, which was its way from JFK Airport in New York to Las Vegas, suddenly began behaving erratically on the flight. He allegedly flew into a rage, and began flipping switches on and off in the cockpit. According to his copilot, he also showed signs of confusion and disorientation. Things got progressively worse from then on. He barged out of the cockpit, and began shouting incoherently.

By this time, passengers were completely traumatized. Fortunately, passengers were able to restrain the pilot, and the plane was diverted safely to Amarillo in Texas. At the time, there were 6 crew members and 131 passengers on the plane.

The pilot has been officially suspended, and investigations into his medical condition are going on. However, what this incident does indicate to me as a California plane crash lawyer is that it's time to pay closer attention to the manner in which the feds screen the mental health of the pilots in charge of transporting thousands of passengers every day.

There have been several cases involving mentally unstable pilots, who were placed in charge of planes with devastating results. In 1999, an apparently disturbed pilot crashed his EgyptAir plane into the Atlantic Ocean off Massachusetts, killing all 217 people on board. Investigations into a SilkAir crash in 1997 found that the plane had been crashed intentionally.

The Federal Aviation Administration does require that pilots get themselves a medical screening at least once a year. Once pilots cross the age of 40, they are required to get a medical screening twice a year. A separate mental health and psychiatric evaluation is not part of the checkup. However, a pilot who has suffered any kind of psychiatric illness over the past 12 months, or has taken treatment for any psychiatric disorders, is required to report this during his medical examination.

Considering the vast responsibility on pilots, who are often in charge of hundreds of passengers in a single plane, perhaps it's time to expand pilot medical checkup standards to include mandatory mental health screenings.

Lauren Scruggs is the 23 year old fashion model that was recently maimed by walking into the rotating propeller blades of the aircraft she just de-boarded.  The plane was being piloted by a friend of hers and details of the indecent are not yet known.  Aviation attorney, Gerald Sterns, commented on the dangers of private aviation and the amount of risk that is present.  To view the full story click on the following link http://blogs.lawyers.com/2011/12/model-mangled-by-airplane-propeller-among-hundreds-injured-in-aviation/

Increasingly automated cockpits have eroded pilots flying skills to the extent that many of them don't know how to recover from midflight problems. In fact, situations where pilots have been unable to manually recover from such problems are fast becoming extremely common.

According to the International Air Transport Association, there have been at least 51 loss of control accidents recently, in which planes were found to be in challenging situations from which pilots simply could not recover. As some pilots have put it, pilots are “forgetting how to fly.”

The Federal Aviation Administration and California plane crash lawyers have been warning about something like this for a while now. Recently, the FAA's advisory committee warned that the opportunities available for airline pilots to practice manual flying skills have been dramatically reduced. In fact, many airlines and even federal safety regulators prohibit pilots from taking the plane off auto pilot and flying manually.

Even though international plane crash rates have dropped over the past decade, many in the industry believe that an entire generation of pilots, who depend too heavily on automation and cannot rely on their own skills, is the number one aviation safety problem of the future. There have been far too many incidents involving pilots who found themselves in challenging situations, and had no knowledge about how to extricate themselves and the plane from the situation. Even when pilots try to respond to situations, many of them make serious errors.

There is a serious danger from becoming too dependent on aviation technology. Automated systems are heavily integrated in modern cockpits. As a result, a malfunction in a small piece of equipment somewhere can trigger a series of mishaps that can lead to an airplane crash. The only way that many of these glitches can be overcome is if the pilot has been trained to use manual techniques recover from the problem.

It makes little sense to California plane crash lawyers to construct a garbage transfer facility near LaGuardia just a couple of years after a plane that took off from LaGuardia suffered a bird hit and had to make a emergency landing. Yet that is exactly what the New York City is planning.

The proposed garbage transfer facility, the North Shore Marine Transfer Station, is located just half a mile from LaGuardia Airport. Opposition to the facility is running high, and not just from California plane crash attorneys. Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of the U.S. Airways Plane that made the crash landing in the Hudson River, has been vocal in his criticism of this dangerous idea.

A garbage transfer facility so close to the airport would increase the population of birds in the area, increasing the risk to planes that take off from LaGuardia. Authorities expect tons of garbage to be headed to the facility, and the risk that birds will be sucked into plane engines, thus increasing crash risks, are simply too high to ignore.

According to city officials critics are simply trying to scare people. Authorities say they will make the transfer facility “less attractive” for avian visitors. How they propose to do this has not been made clear. It might take more than a few strategically placed scarecrows to keep birds away from a monumental garbage dump.

Fortunately, critics of the project have not been silent. They have filed an appeal in a federal court to stop construction of the North Shore Marine Transfer Station.

This is not the first time that California aviation accident lawyers have found American Airlines in violation of FAA rules. This time, the carrier is in more trouble after federal officials found that the airline had downloaded information from the plane’s flight recorder after a runway incident.

The National Transportation Safety Board had been investigating the incident, which occurred at Wyoming's Jackson Hole Airport. A Boeing 757 landed on the runway at the airport in snowy weather conditions, and came to rest about 350 feet beyond the runway. There were 181 passengers and crewmembers on the plane. Fortunately, no one aboard the plane was injured.

It was what happened after the incident that concerns California plane crash lawyers. The National Transportation Safety Board found that technicians from American Airlines downloaded information from the plane's digital flight data recorder before handing the data recorder over to the federal agency. In such instances, the National Transportation Safety Board requires airlines to hand over the digital flight data recorder in its entirety to the federal agency without downloading any of the information. According to the NTSB, the downloaded information was a breach of protocol and violated federal standards.

American Airlines has now been barred from further participation in the inquiry because of this violation. American Airlines has defended its downloading of information as part of its normal investigation into the incident. However, aviation experts find it odd that American Airlines, which has been in the airline industry for years wasn't aware of basic NTSB protocols during runway incidents.

The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing fines totaling more than $350,000 against SkyWest Airlines for civil violations that increased the risk of a plane crash. The violations disclosed by the Federal Aviation Administration occurred between July 2009 and July 2010.

The largest fine of $220,000 is for the airline’s failure to document heavy checked bags, and heavy shipments carried in cargo. Because of this, the airline operated aircraft with incorrect weight and balance data. The FAA is also proposing a civil penalty of $70,500 for the airline's failure to follow a continuous airworthiness maintenance program. According to the FAA, SkyWest operated an aircraft that had not been properly maintained on at least five revenue passenger flights.

The agency is also proposing a fine of $60,500 because of allegations that the airline operated noncomplying, Bombardier jets on at least eight revenue passenger flights between May 30th and June 1, 2010. In this case, the agency says that the airline mechanics failed to follow the carrier’s continuous airworthiness maintenance program while replacing an air-conditioning pack valve.

SkyWest Airlines insists that the safety of its flights was not compromised. The company has 30 days in which to appeal the fines.

These are not the only allegations against SkyWest that California plane crash lawyers have been monitoring. The airline is currently the focus of six ongoing investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board. These investigations involving everything from cabin door maintenance deferral procedures to landing gear problems.

These actions by the Federal Aviation Administration indicate that the agency is taking noncompliance with aviation safety regulations by carriers very seriously indeed. The agency has come under much criticism from California plane crash attorneys over the past couple of years, including its failure to rein in carriers.

The close proximity of the passenger terminal to the runway at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport has not gone unnoticed by the thousands of passengers who use the airport every year and California plane crash lawyers. However, after yet another recent aviation safety scare at the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration has once again raised concerns about the proximity of the terminal to the runway.

The FAA has long been concerned about the location of the terminal, which is far too close to the runway. In 1986, the FAA was so concerned about this proximity that it actually prohibited planes at the airport from taking off to the east. However, in April, there was yet another adverse incident involving the runway that once again raised concerns. In April, two planes came dangerously close to each other just above the airfield. An investigation later revealed that the incident was due to air traffic controller error, but the federal report held that poor design that located the passenger terminal too close to the airport runway, presented “significant risks” and violated airport design safety standards.

The airport is now taking small steps towards safety. Officials with the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority now confirm that Burbank Airport in the process of making the small minor adjustments that the Federal Aviation Administration is asking for. These include the relocation of a weather sensor near the runways. The airport authority is also working together with a private property owner to remove a nearby windmill, which is a possible aviation safety hazard. According to the FDA's regulations, the airport is also likely to enhance the “blast walls” that are meant to redirect exhaust from the aircraft.

This isn’t a safety risk that California plane crash lawyers or aviation safety experts have given much thought to in the past. However, the Federal Aviation Administration is now beginning to take this threat very seriously indeed. According to the agency, the numbers of people who point lasers at aircraft cockpits, thereby temporarily blinding pilots, is actually increasing. According to the agency, there has been a substantial increase in the number of people who engage in such practices. In fact, the numbers of such incidents have been serious enough for the Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt to call the problem “serious.”

Even with all the automation in a cockpit, a pilot still needs to have his attention focused 100% on flying, and when someone is pointing a laser to his face, it can be hard to do that. The FAA has documented more than 2,000 reports of such laser incidents in 2010. That is an increase from 2005, when less than 300 such laser incidents were reported. California saw some of the highest such laser incidents in 2009.  Pilots flying over Florida and Texas also had a lot of trouble with laser incidents last year.

What exactly are these lasers that are being used? Most of them are used for commercial purposes, and have ranges that are more than 30,000 feet. They are extremely powerful, and emit a bright light. These are not things that you would find a child playing with.  There have been a lot of amateur hobbyists traced to many of these laser incidents.

A laser beamed into a pilot's cockpit, can temporally blind pilots. Consider that some of these pilots could be piloting massive aircraft with hundreds of passengers, around some of the world's busiest airspace, and you understand the risks involved. In fact, some of these laser incidents have been so serious that pilots have been forced to stop flying and hand over control of the plane to the copilot. In some cases, pilots were forced to abort landings because of such incidents.

This holiday travel season, as millions of Americans travel cross-country, not everyone will be aware of which airline they will be flying.  Families of the 49 passengers and crew members, who were killed when Continental Connection Flight 3207 crashed near Buffalo, New York last year, are asking travelers to make sure they know which regional airline or carrier is operating the regional part of their trip this.

The “Families of Continental Flight 3407” group was instrumental in the passing of an aviation safety bill earlier this year. The bill, also widely supported by California plane crash attorneys, includes a provision that will require airline ticket sellers to clearly identify the carrier operating each plane.

For years now, the larger national carriers and regional airlines have had a convenient partnership arrangement, in which the smaller airlines operate the flights that transport passengers to the larger national hubs. However, few passengers are aware that a smaller regional airline will be operating part of the flight. In fact, as much as half of all domestic air travel inside the United States is now conducted by regional airlines, and passengers remain blissfully unaware of this fact.

The regional airline industry has been plagued by a range of problems that include everything from poorly maintained planes to non-skilled and inexperienced pilots. These airlines generally don't invest in highly trained highly or experienced pilots. The crash of Continental Flight 3407 last year for instance, was traced to several pilot errors made by both the pilots. Both the pilot and copilot lived far away from Newark where the plane took off that fateful day. They had slept little, and had been fatigued during the flight.

These facts burst into the spotlight after the Continental plane crash.  The families of those killed that day have since lobbied hard for a bill that would, among other things, require airline ticket sellers, whether websites, a toll-free number or a travel agent, to inform passengers of the airline that would be operating each leg of the trip.