Check that flight plan

How could it possibly have taken 25 hours???? Why didn't anybody DRIVE them to JFK from Atlantic City? What does that take at 12:30 at night, 2 hours?

JetBlue passengers endure 25-hour trek from Fort Lauderdale to N.Y.

By Arlene Satchell and Tom Stieghorst
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted June 29 2007

A 2 ½-hour JetBlue Airways flight bound from Fort Lauderdale to New York on Wednesday turned into a 25-hour odyssey that finally ended Thursday afternoon, as a chain of problems left 150 passengers staggered by the mind-boggling delay.

The cascade of problems occurred just four months after a disastrous five-day period in February when the airline canceled more than 1,000 flights in the New York area. And it again raises questions about how much of the blame should fall on airlines when flights encounter unexpected delays.

Flight 62's takeoff at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday was delayed for three hours. The jet departed, only to be diverted by bad weather to Atlantic City, N.J., where passengers stewed on the tarmac for four hours. At 12:30 a.m. Thursday, they were allowed off the plane. It would be another four hours until they finally were sent to a hotel for the night. The flight ultimately arrived at JFK International Airport at 3:21 p.m. Thursday.

Moving on, or, what were these guy's smoking?

I think it was Frued (or maybe Dan Ackroyd playing Frued in an SNL skit) who said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!

London, Friday 22.06.07

'Mile-wide UFO' spotted by British airline pilot

22.06.07

One of the largest UFOs ever seen has been observed by the crew and passengers of an airliner over the Channel Islands.

An official air-miss report on the incident several weeks ago appears in Pilot magazine.

Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, flying close to Alderney first spotted the object, described as "a cigar-shaped brilliant white light".

Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, described what he thought to be a UFO as 'a cigar-shaped brilliant white light', similar to the image supplied by Dennis Plunket of the British Flying Saucer bureau

As the plane got closer the captain viewed it through binoculars and said:

"It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area. It was 2,000ft up and stationary. I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a [Boeing] 737.

"But it must have been much bigger because of how far away it was. It could have been as much as a mile wide."

Continuing his approach to Guernsey, Bowyer then spied a "second identical object further to the west".

He said: "It was exactly the same but looked smaller because it was further away. It was closer to Guernsey. I can't explain it. This was clearly visual for about nine minutes.

"I'm certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I'm saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying."

The sightings were confirmed by passengers Kate and John Russell. John, 74, said "I saw an orange light. It was like an elongated oval".

The sightings were also confirmed by an unnamed pilot with the Blue Islands airline.

The Civil Aviation Authority safety notice states that a Tri-Lander aircraft flying close to Alderney spotted the object.

"Certain parts of the report have not been published. I cannot say why," said a senior CAA source.

Earlier this year however, the MOD declared its intentions to open its UFO files to the public.

APB Lakeland, FL

NYC Traffic

It's hard to believe that over 20 minutes is wasted by Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) because of a traffic jam in the sky. You would think that on a 5 hour flight that they would know that you were coming. Beautiful weather and a head wind should not cause this problem.
BUT, a little birdie told me that these folks controlling us have no concept of true airspeed and it's relationship with indicated airspeed and altitude. (ie. A jet at 30,000ft flying, 250 knots is actually flying faster across the ground (no wind) than a jet flying the same speed at 24,000ft).
No wonder things get bottled up when planes descend into a busy airport.
That is our gov't in action...