Collision on Tenerife: The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation Disaster

Collision on Tenerife: The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation Disaster by Jon Ziomek

The first half of this book provides a detailed account of the collision between two 747s in the Canary Islands. It even answers questions that I was curious about, such as "what happened to that cruise that passengers were going to go on?" (the cruise did go on, even though none of the passengers from the TWA 747 joined it.) The pilot of the KLM 747 seemed to be the root cause of the crash, with his desire to rush off as soon as possible. It is interesting that crew duty time limits were the root of his rush. Duty limits were in part an attempt at safety, but ended up leading to a disaster. The KLM noticed the TWA jet too late, and tried to take off over it. They nearly made it, but hit the top of the plane, instantly killing some on the TWA jet. The KLM jet then traveled a short distance before crash landing and killing everyone in a fireball. For those that were not killed on the TWA jet, some escaped - often by jumping out of holes in the aircraft to the ground. Many initial survivors died when the TWA plane later burned. 

In identifying the deceased, the Dutch on the KLM jet were easier to identify. They tended to be younger, and the state Dental plan records were readily available. For the TWA jet, the dental records were more not readily available for all Americans and many passengers were older and used dentures. 

The second half discusses the aftermath. There were safety changes made in aviation. More of the discussion was on the personal impact. People often "freeze" in terms of big stress. They could have escaped, but they didn't. People may be more passive and waiting for people to tell them what to do. They could also not have paid attention and are looking to go out the way they came in, rather than the closest exit. Men tend to survive at higher rates than women. People also tend to suffer in different ways after the disaster. Airplane crashes are large scale disasters that don't have the same "community" as natural disasters.

The Bomber Mafia

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell

The American Air Force was an offshoot of the Army. Some leaders were isolated in Alabama. They were intrigued by precision bombing. Rather than blanket a large area with many bombs on a night time raid, they would use calculations to drop a few well-placed bombs on a critical target to hamper the enemies war efforts. The British, however, were in favor of the nighttime raids and annihilation bombing of working class neighborhoods. They thought this would help demoralize the enemy. (Alas, the British did not learn from their own experience in the Blitz. They were extensively bombed, but kept the faith.)  This audiobook traces some of the characters in bombing discussion. Some are portrayed as sadists that want violence, while others are skilled aviators that want to do what is right. They all set the future for the current air force and the precision bombing of today.

The Wright Brothers

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

This book is the story of the Wright Brothers' lives, though the focus was on aviation. I found it interesting that they talked a good amount about their sister. She wasn't directly involved with aviation, but was glue that held the family together. The brothers used experience from their bike business to plan aviation - with banking turns and other ideas that were innovative. There were others that were involved and helped inspire innovation in aviation, however, the Wrights innovations seemed to be the ones that really got things going. They also worked hard to move things along and defend their patents. (They also tended to be secretive, limiting photographs from others.) Aviation was dangerous in the early days. Early flights were less than a 10th the speed of modern jets and did not get high off the ground, but were plenty dangerous. Some died trying to fly. Even the brothers had some scary flights, with Orville crashing while carrying a passenger - the passenger died, and Orville took a while to recover. The book breezes through the end of their lives, stopping only to point out a bit of family drama.

Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

Flying Blind is a hatchet job on the modern Boeing. The bean counters took over. The beginning of the end was the late 90s acquisition of McDonnell Douglas. The later had a much more competitive, hostile culture. The joke was that MCD bought Boeing with Boeing's money. The culture soon permeated the company. Things got worse as the company sought out a Jack Welch proteges for CEO. The financial manipulation continued in full force. GE management concepts such as stack ranking were introduced. There was an emphasis on managing for financial results. Stock buybacks were preferred over research and development. The headquarters was moved to Chicago, away from the engineering center. Many functions were divested and contracted out. Operations were moved to non-union locations. At the same time, government oversight had been reduced, with airlines doing the bulk of the certification effort.

This was the situation under which the 737max was developed. Boeing needed a refresh to compete with Airbus and the increased inroads of regional jet manufacturers. By calling it an update of the 737, Boeing could save on a lot of the expenses. Certification would be straightforward and pilot training would be minimized. The plane was different from other 737s. To compensate for some of the changes, software fixes were implemented. The MCAS system would rely on sensor data to correct flight patterns to prevent stalls. It seemed like a good idea. However, later changes were made to account for another possible situation by relying on only a single sensor. To make matters worse, it was an extra charge to be able to see details on the status of this sensor. There were also no details as to what MCAS would do and how to avoid it. 

Sure enough a plane crashed due to the system activating on take off due to faulty sensor data. This was on a third world airline with a questionable record. It was easy to chalk it up to poor maintenance or pilot error. Boeing tried to brush it away and pay off the victims. Then a similar thing happened to Ethiopian airlines. This was also on the "other side of the globe". However, this was a well run airline and pilots had seemed to do everything they should. With multiple planes falling out of the sky, governments soon moved to ground the 737max. It would take over a year before it was back up. The government now had a much stronger interest in regulation. This was a sad case of a software bug killing people due to a lack of testing of edge cases and human reaction. Some people did voice concerns, but they were hushed. Boeing didn't want the small additional cost of more simulator training.  (According to sources, Southwest had copy and pasted language for a $1 million penalty per plane if simulator training were required. Boing has paid over a $1 billion in compensation alone for the MAX incident - and Southwest is training pilots with simulators.)

There are a lot of angles to view the source of the MAX tragedy. This book zeroes in on corporate culture.

Attention All Passengers: The Airlines' Dangerous Descent-- and How to Reclaim Our Skies

The author of Attention All Passengers has a serious ax to grind with the airline industry. He had worked there during the glorious heyday, and finds just about everything wrong that he can. Some of his issues are trivial (or represent paranoia), while others do show real issues. He is concerned that deregulation has lead to a race to the bottom. He is willing to heap praise on the airlines when they do something he agrees with. (Southwest's lack of bag fees and customer-centric nature are praised, while American's domestic maintenance is also complimented.) However, with the constant mention of the trivial, it is hard to filter out what is important.
He spent a long time passionately advocated for child restraints. I disagree with his premises, especially with the slippery slope it leads to. (Car booster seats tend to provide no advantage over just using a seat belt. And, since airplanes only have lap belts, there is no advantage. Perhaps we would have seats flying instead of babies.) Currently, passengers can choose to pay for a seat for an infant and use a restraint, or they can hold them. In a rare instant of extreme impact, the unrestrained baby may become a projectile. People have regularly determined that the risk is more than made up for in the value saved by not buying a seat.
He cites a number of whistleblowers that have identified "bad practices." There is also a very strong support for "US-first" labor. Anything done outside of the United States is seen as suspect. I can see justification in requiring all shops to adhere to the same standards to ensure quality and fairness. However, just because it is done in the US does not make it better. He does provide an example of a union group successfully bidding on maintenance work in order to "in-house" the work. This seems like a much more positive approach. Otherwise, we could end up with something like the Jones Act on water which needlessly raises the cost of domestic shipping (and helps support cruise traffic to Victoria and Vancouver.)
Customer service is an area where airlines have nosedived recently. Innovation has primarily been to eek out more revenue while still appearing to have cheap tickets. The yield management formulas provide a huge variety of prices for what is essentially the same thing transportation from A to B. Security has further made the experience more miserable. (And the benefit is questionable as it often responds to the "last" threat rather than new ones.) Airlines have an odd relationship. They have been granted antitrust immunity to code-share with other airlines on certain routes, while at the same time providing identical service on other routes. There is little benefit in having two 50-70 seat regional jets fly the same route at the same time. (While they will be painted in the colors of major airlines, they would be operated by regional carriers.) Having some sharing here could make it better for everyone. A 130 seat plane could have more total capacity, yet operate cheaper, use less fuel and not clog the air traffic control system. Many of the routes served by small planes are small enough that they would be better served by trains. A unified transportation network would be the key. Very few people are traveling from one airport or another. They are usually using a variety of means to travel from point A to point B. An airplane is merely the "big leg" of the journey. Airlines compete on driving the upfront cost of the "big leg". Meanwhile, the airports want parking revenue, the airlines want additional revenue, and the railroad tracks that would go straight from A to B are only occupied by an occasional freight train. The author mentions the example of San Diego to Los Angeles, which is covered by dozens of hour-long regional jet flights each day. High speed rail could easily connect the two cities in that amount of time, providing frequent connections to the airport and downtown. (In China, Nanjing to Shanghai service covers a distance 50 miles greater in about an hour, with trains going to an airport and downtown.)
There are many other areas where the airlines can be improved, such as passenger comfort and contracts of carriage, and simply functioning like service company instead of a utility. Safety is one area where the airlines have done remarkably well (and where they are highly regulated.) Perhaps some regulation would be helpful to prevent some of the waste in the airline route map. Modernization of air traffic control would also be beneficial. (However, if done poorly, it could contribute to more "bad behavior". If the airlines are unwilling to step up to make an efficient multi-modal transportation network, it may be time for some nudges.

The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters

Crash Detectives looks at some of the "unsolved" mysteries of aviation. One of the key points theories of the author is that hypoxia (lack of oxygen) is the cause of many airline incidents. The decreased oxygen makes people "stupid" as they lose cognitive ability. However, the rapid depressurization that leads to lack of oxygen requires quick thinking to resolve. And to make it even more challenging, pilots often think they are performing well, even when performing poorly in low-oxygen conditions. Thus, getting that oxygen mask on quickly can be the key to survival.

Crash Detectives looks at many aviation disasters, including a mix of ones that have been definitively "solved" and those that are still "open". The author tends to favor explanations of equipment failure or human error over terrorist activity. (However, press coverage can lead us to believe in "missile strikes" or hijackings even when there was no conclusive evidence.) The disappearance of MH370 is seen as a hypoxia event. The inexperienced pilot may have been at the controls and hit the wrong switch, thus cutting off communications. Attempts were made to fly to known airports, but they did not succeed. (The experienced pilot may have not been able to make it back from a bathroom break in a fully functional condition.)

In most crashes, there are significant efforts to determine the objective truth. However, human factors also come into play. In Air New Zealand 901, there was outright lying and misleading in an attempt by the airline to save face. Initially, they tried to pin a crash into an antarctic mountain as pilot error. However, the cause was actually a programming error that led the plane on a wrong course. For the de Havilland Comet, a lack of understanding of the stresses of actual flight led the company to initially blame pilots for what turned out to be design problems.

The aviation industry displays a positive example of learning from past problems to limit the chance of repeating them. Planes have become smarter and smarter with built in abilities to respond to "resolve" common problems. However, the human element is still needed to help resolve the "non-standard" problems that do occur.

Bike and Fly

I've always wanted to ride my bike to the airport, park it there, catch a flight, and then return back home by bike. But I've never done it. I've biked to O'Hare and Midway in Chicago and to SJC and SFO. I've also taken the rental bike out to the Copenhagen airport (but I had to return to the downtown train station to return the bike.) The closest to a "real trip" was when I biked to the airport to pick up a bag I left on the plane.

Why haven't I ever done a bike and fly?

Many airports are bike accessible. In China and Japan, I've seen big bike racks near the airport. SFO has a page about biking to the airport, along with two week bike parking areas. SJC also has a bike/pedestrian page, though the crux of it is "we really didn't care about you when we remodeled the airport", but we have a couple racks available. That is really sad, because SJC was a great walking airport "back in the day". I once had a few hours to kill between an Amtrak train and a flight. Rather than take the light rail and sit around for a while, I did the first street walk. It was a pretty nice, easy walk. There is also a bike path that runs right through the airport. One time I ran in to some joggers in the airport terminal. There conversation was something like "well this is the airport. Uh, why did we come here?" That was also the time when you would walk off the plane in to the open skies of the tarmac before walking inside the terminal building. Since then, they have turned the road near the airport in to a freeway and built a big gleaming new terminal. But, they've also seen the dot com boom and the entire economic crash and the flight volumes at the airport plummet. But, I'm really digressing.

I've also left SFO on foot after arriving from one flight. (I only walked to the Millbrae train station. However, walking saved the huge cost of the short BART trip to the train station - and I ended up on the same Caltrain I would have been on had I taken BART. Much better to spend the time walking than waiting at a train station.)

I've also walked from the Las Vegas airport to a hotel on the strip. (There I had to watch out for the homeless guy.)

I've explored the area around Narita in Tokyo and LAX on foot during long layovers.

But, I still haven't done the bike trip.

In Chicago, I once purchased a folding bike for an attempt at doing the "carry the bike on the plane" trip. But the bike was junk and then came September 11th.... (I did carry a scooter on the plane.)

One day... One day... (I just hope the bike will be there when I return.)

Getting from Shanghai Pudong to Nanjing

Nanjing is a big city in China - just not big enough to get direct flights to the US. (Though there are flights to Frankfort Germany.) A typical option is to connect through another Asian hub. You may be at the whim of the schedules. (Right now, you can theoretically connect on Asiana in Seoul to go from Nanjing to San Francisco - as long as you want to spend a day in the airport.)

Beijing offers frequent connections to Nanjing. However, the Air China and United planes from the US to Beijing do not provide the greatest flight experience. (They are old!) Cancellations seems to be frequent on Beijing-Nanjing route. (However, you can take a 4 hour high speed rail ride from Beijing to Nanjing.) Also, the two terminals in the airport are a long bus ride away. I thought I might have boarded the wrong bus, as we seemed to go through a neighborhood before we got to the other terminal. Air China and United are in one terminal, while China Eastern is in another. China Eastern has lots of flights to Nanjing, while the other two have many flights to the US. (Air china also has some flights to Nanjing, but they tend to be the most cancel-happy.)

I prefer to fly in to Shanghai. United flies more modern planes on the route with better timings. There are also multiple options for getting to Nanjing.

The options:

1) Plane. You can book one-way from China Eastern for as low as 100 RMB. If you book from major travel sites (like Expedia) it will probably be greater than $150 one way. Unless you are traveling on a SkyTeam Airline (like Delta), you will probably be transferring from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 for this flight.
There is only one flight per day, currently leaving at 9:30pm and arriving Nanjing at 10:30pm. It is a small plane, so larger carry-ons will probably need to be checked. (Though, they do occasionally "buckle" the carry-ons in to empty seats.)
The Nanjing airport is a ways outside of the city. If you take a car into the city, you can probably expect to arrive a little before midnight. There is also a bus, but it may be a close call to catch it from this flight.

The return flight from Nanjing to PVG currently leaves at 8:00AM.

2) Train
There are frequent high speed trains from Shanghai to Nanjing. At times there can be a high speed "G" train leaving every few minutes. However, you have to be careful when looking at schedules. There are two main high speed stations in Shanghai and two main high speed stations in Nanjing. Some of the high speed trains run nonstop, while others make a number of stops (nearly doubling the travel time.)
In Nanjing, Nanjing station is on the old station on north side of town. It is closer to the city center. Nanjing South is big gleaming new station on the south side of town. In Shanghai, the Shanghai station is the crowded old station in the center of town, while Hongqiou is the big new station next to the domestic airport. All stations in Shanghai and Nanjing are on metro lines. While there are trains between all the stations, most trains from Hongqiou go to Nanjing South, while most from Shanghai go to Nanjing. The fastest G trains take just over an hour, while the ones with the most stops are almost 2 hours. There are also slower trains and "overnight" trains that are even cheaper. High speed trains tend to run around 6am~9pm. You do have to watch the internet because there seem to be a lot of "bogus" or outdated schedules out there.

Once you decide on the station, you need to get there. There are numerous discussions explaining how to get there.
Here are a few that I have used or seen:
From PVG, you can go down to the Airport bus level and get a bus to Shanghai Station of Hongqiou airport/train station. 30 RMB ~ 1 hour. The airport has well-labeled signs directing you to the airport buses. Then you can stand in an island next to the bus number. (There is also a chart in the airport explaining where the buses go.)

The cheapest way is to take the metro from the airport. <10 RMB 2 hours to Hongqiou. You just take line two all the way. (Though you have to transfer from a smaller train to a larger one at one stop.) To Shanghai station, it is a little shorter, but requires an extra connection. (It can be confusing to figure out which way to go on the loop line.)
For the true "Shanghai" experience, you can take the Maglev, and transfer to the metro. This shaves some time off the trip, but it does make the 180MPH of the high speed trains seem slow.

You can buy train tickets at the ticket counter. If you don't speak Chinese, you can probably still get them to show you a list of trains just by saying "Nanjing".

In Nanjing, if you arrive before 11:00pm, you can take the metro. It is about 2 RMB to most destinations (it is a little more if you go further)

Movies on an Airplane

Does it say something about the quality of films when the most believable characters are in a superhero movie? Alas, that was the case on a recent United flight.

The condition of the video system also had its issues. The "guide" in the seeat was from November, but the movies didn't match those. (Perhas they were last months?) One channel had only audio, while one movie was shown on two channels. (Same language, same subtitles.) And when it played, the screen would sometimes dim and even disappear. IT could usually be fixed by wiggling the screen, but it was annoying.

As for the movies, Amazing Spiderman had the most believable characters. I liked this version of Spiderman better than the previous version. The movie reminded me of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" - though I'm not sure why.

Moonrise Kingdom was a quirky movie. IT reminded me of Bill Murray movies, but that may be because he was in it. Two 12 year olds fall in love, and escape on an island camping trip. They are both outcasts, and plenty of other weird things happen. (A lightening strike, marriage and scissor stabbing). The movie is more about "style" than plot.
The acting is very "quirky". You could call it "intentionally bad". I enjoyed the style, but the film itself didn't quite work.

Rock of Ages was a good concept poorly executed. It is a musical made up of 80's hair-metal songs. Creating the musical must have been a little of fun. They also did a great job merging the songs together. (A duet of "We Built this City" and "We're not going to take it".) I can see some people sitting back say "how can we fashion a plot where all these songs make sense together.)

In the movie, the two main characters have come to LA to search out a singing career. For now they are working in a popular bar. These two characters are well done, and provide a nice love story arc. Alas, everyone else is so caricatured that its hard to believe they inhabit the same universe. I could see them making all the other characters (and settings) animated to further set them apart. At the least that would add a critical separation.

The Tom Cruise character was especially annoying. He was a "Wine and Women" rock star gone way over the top. His screen presence was annoying. Catherine Zeta Jones character was also an extreme hypocritical reformer. If she was portrayed straight, at least there would be some conflict. But, it became obvious from the start that she was a "closest rocker". The "reformer" dance scenes also had some great potential, but were blown by the desire to play things in a "half-drunk rocker" style.


Brave is a Pixar film that tries to be something "different". It just doesn't do a good job of it. It has a girl protagonist and relies more on gross-out humor than the typical pixar film. It also has a confusing message. (Its brave to reconcile your relationship with your family after turning your mom in to a bear?)

And finally, "Beasts of the Southern Wild" was simply tedious. I had trouble seeing the point of the movie. What is this little girl doing? Why should I care about it? In the end, I didn't. One thing I did get out of it was the harmfulness of excess intervention. The people came together as they occupied a flooded bayou. However, when they were forced off to a shelter, there humanity was taken from them, even though it was supposedly for their better.

Bikes are faster than planes

With a section of freeway shut down in Los Angeles, JetBlue airlines ran a promotional flight between two nearby airports. Some L.A. bike groups didn't miss the opportunity to stage a race between destinations near each airport.

The winners?

bicyclists.

The plane came in fourth place, behind a transit user and rollerbalder. The transit user is the most intriguing. You can actually take transit on a weekend in L.A.? Wow. Perhaps there is a city down there with all the sprawl.

It reminds me of the commute from Sunnyvale to Stanford. The fast bicyclist could always win. However, even the transit user could often beat the driver - especially when factoring in the trip from the parking lot to the office.

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