Four Injured After Jet Blue Flight Makes Emergency Landing At Long Beach Airport

LONG BEACH (CBSLA.com) — Several people were injured Thursday after a Jet Blue aircraft had to make an emergency landing at Long Beach Airport. Flight 1416 returned to Long Beach at 9:29 a.m., 25 minutes after it took off for Austin, TX. (losangeles.cbslocal.com) More...

Model drone finds elderly man, missing for three days, alive

It took just 20 minutes for a model drone to locate a missing elderly Wisconsin man, a feat that helicopters, search dogs, and volunteers couldn't accomplish in three days. Just don't tell that to the Federal Aviation Administration, whose regulatory wings are already flapping about model drones. (arstechnica.com) More...

An evacuation slide fell off a plane and landed in man's yard

(CNN) — No, it's not a bird or a plane. It's an evacuation slide from a Delta flight. A large, inflatable slide fell from the sky and into a Massachusetts man's yard Sunday. It came crashing down from a flight traveling from Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport to Boston's Logan International Airport. "It's kind of crazy," Wenhan Huang of Milton, Massachusetts, told CNN affiliate WCVB. "Who could know there's something coming from the air and drops… (www.cnn.com) More...

Medical Screener At LAX Tests Positive For Coronavirus

A medical professional screening travelers at Los Angeles International Airport has tested positive for coronavirus, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Wednesday. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday, “Late last night, DHS headquarters was alerted to a situation where one of our contracted medical professionals conducting screenings at LAX international airport had tested positive for COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus.” The individual… (losangeles.cbslocal.com) More...

Virgin Galactic: Spaceship Encounters Inflight ‘Anomaly’ During Test Flight

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — An aircraft used by Virgin Galactic for space travel experimentation encountered a problem Friday during testing, the company said. SpaceShipTwo, carried by WhiteKnightTwo, launched at 9:19 a.m. from a location in the Mojave Desert, according to officials from the company, which is owned by Sir Richard Branson. (losangeles.cbslocal.com) More...

Watch SpaceX's reusable rocket hover at 3,280 feet before gently landing back to Earth

Between winning an injunction against a rival and proving that its reusable rocket works, it's been a pretty good week for SpaceX. As a victory lap, the company has once-again test fired its Falcon9R rocket, and unlike last time, filmed it from the ground so everyone can see its progress. In the clip (below), the craft launches, hovers at 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) and gently coasts back to the ground for a safe landing. With this early hardware, the landing legs remain out at all times, but… (www.engadget.com) More...

Southwest Airlines cancels thousands of flights after winter snowstorm

The winter storm that disrupted thousands of travel plans over the weekend has created an epic pile-on of flight cancellations for Southwest Airlines, leaving thousands of families stranded, with some waiting for days to fly back home. (www.cbsnews.com) More...

Spaceship carrying Richard Branson flew off course, FAA is investigating

During the historic spaceflight of Sir Richard Branson in July, near the end of the burn of the VSS Unity spacecraft's engine, a red light appeared on a console. This alerted the crew to an "entry glide-cone warning." Pilots Dave Mackay and Mike Masucci faced a split-second decision: kill the rocket motor or take immediate action to address their trajectory problem. This scenario is outlined in a new report by Nicholas Schmidle, a writer with more insight into Virgin Galactic than… (arstechnica.com) More...

Southwest Airlines protested airworthiness directive designed to prevent engine failures

While a National Transportation Safety Board investigation is still underway, NTSB officials confirmed that the uncontained engine failure aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 was the result of a fan blade breaking from a crack near the fan's hub. The failure is similar to one that occurred on another Southwest flight in September 2016. (arstechnica.com) More...

Drone nearly collides with helicopter, operator gets caught

On Saturday night around 9pm, above the northern California city of Martinez, a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer was flying a helicopter over Highway 4, searching for a stolen car. According to SFGate, speaking to Officer James Andrews, spokesman for the CHP air operations unit, the pilot suddenly saw a red light just in front of the craft’s cabin window. The pilot veered to the right to avoid a collision with the drone, which was flying at the pilot’s same altitude—between 700 to 800… (arstechnica.com) More...