Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, April 6, 2024
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28 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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This is odd. TL;DR oxygen masks deployed without a cabin decompression, and the pilots decided to proceed to their destination anyway.
Sure, the masks malfunctioned and there was no cabin pressurization issue. But at least some of the passengers would have pulled their masks and activated them. These are hooked to oxygen generators, which provide only a few minutes of oxygen, that’s why on a depressurization event, the plane dives quickly to 10,000 ft.
So suppose there’s a real decompression some ten minutes afterwards, and many passengers no longer have access to supplemental oxygen.
Sure, the flight proceeded at 14,000 ft. It’s possible they could have gotten to 10,000 if needed quickly. But it still strikes me as risky
The headline of the day- Ecuador sparks diplomatic crisis after police storm Mexican embassy
The Florida headline of the day- Tampa woman who posed as teen, molested boy, charged with more child sex crimes: police
Talking about the NYC earthquake, my wife was invited to visit her sister in NY this weekend but Dear Wife declined because she don’t like leaving me alone with my health issues.
Her cousin Emily, working in Deland as a nurse since last year, did make the journey. Her plane which was to go Orlando-Newark was diverted to Baltimore. It took Emily almost 12 hours to get to NY.
My sister-in-law was out jogging when the quake first hit. She says she didn’t even feel it.
I myself was through two mild earthquakes when stationed at Subic Bay Philippines from 1987 to 1989. Earthquakes, Typhoons, Coup attempts, oh my….
Some personal stuff
I didn’t have my cat put to sleep. Her appetite has returned and she is energetic again for a almost 17 year old kitty. Misay again wants to sit in my lap or be dunked with water.
That ebook of mine is still going crazy in Japan. It is #4 this morning in a category with books written by Clavell, Rowling, Lecarre, Orwell, Steinbeck, Francis, etc.
My mind isn’t working so great anymore. I’m forgetting details I never used to forget and my writing is prone to missing words or misused ones. I have always had a small tendency to the former but it has increased.
I went traditional publishing to relieve myself of the non-writing burdens I have as an independent one. Another reason- I wanted to leave my wife on the simplest footing for after I’m dead and gone. She has never taken much part in my book business and it wouldn’t be easy for her to run it. Plus, when I do pass away, she is likely to go back living in the Philippines. She can live very well there on SS, her work pension plan and 403b, and the income my literary estate will pull in.
I’ve been Stage IV malignant melanoma for 15 years but maybe my time is finally running out.
This piece in The Atlantic (no subscription needed) is a great, concise and realistic appraisal of US-Israeli relations. TL:DR, at this point in time US and Israeli interests diverge on almost every immediate, short and long term goal. The lone exception is to contain Iraq but even in that our short term goals go in diametrically opposed directions, with Israel trying to drag us into a troops-on-the-ground war, and the US striving to avoid it.
My assumption is that part of the reason the Administration is publicly breaking with Israel is to widen our options when Israeli starts a war with Syria and Iraq by invading Lebanon, as they appear to be gearing up for. Israel assumes that domestic pressure will force us to support them with air strikes and eventually troops on the ground, I.e. American kids dying at their behest, and Biden is trying to head off that domestic pressure and reduce it.
@Bill Jempty: Sorry to hear about your health issues. Wishing you and your wife the best.
@Kathy: You failed to mention the most important aspect of the decision to fly on – MONEY.
Take offs/landings are expensive. Incomplete flights are expensive, leaving crew and equipment in the wrong airport and passengers in need of replacement flights.
I’m sure there is a TON of pressure to continue to the original destination.
@MarkedMan:
Very good article. Thanks for the pointer.
@Tony W:
I suppose a diversion back to the origin airport would have resulted in a cancelled flight, and later a ferry flight to the home airport for repairs. This means refunds, alternate transportation, and even maybe putting up people for a night.
But usually airlines will do such things if a major safety issue is involved.
In this case, nothing bad happened. But, as we all know, nothing bad ever happens until it does.
Most likely there’s a technicality involved. Consider, what if a flight depressurizes in the middle of the ocean? Well, it descends to 10,000 ft and diverts to the nearest airport. But that may be some hours away. In this case, as the destination was under an hour out, it might be considered an acceptable distance to fly as though it were a diversion.
@Kathy:
Kathy,
I’m sure you are aware that get it home itis has proven to be very dangerous. This airliner crash occurred because the pilots decided to fly on when they had a electrical generator malfunctioning. More famously, get it home itis was at play in the Tenerife Disaster, the worst in Aviation history. The Dutch crew didn’t want to violate the restriction on their flying hours so they were in a hurry to get off the island.
Trump said that you have to be very smart to babble like an idiot:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/06/donald-trump-speech-analysis/
@Kathy:
Isaac Asimov died on this day in 1992.
I wish I could take credit for this bon mot, but alas, I can’t. Anyway, here’s a brilliant new name for the Trumpkins:
Orange Shyster Cult
@CSK: Fear the Grifter?
@CSK:
Orange cults…There seems to be something afoot this color…
@Bill Jempty:
I wish you peace and peace of mind, Bill.
Hope you can stay with us.
@dazedandconfused:
But where are their MAGA baseball caps?????
Are Montana MAGAs dumb enough to believe this load?
It was mentioned yesterday that Tiger Woods is abstaining from sex til after the Masters.
This single minded focus was instilled by his father, Earl, who famously told Tiger “just remember, focus on golf, fuck everything else”
Which he did.
BTW, some are threatening to protest until the name of the tournament is changed since Masters denotes plantation slavery – I kid you not.
On Truth Social today, Donald Trump compared himself to…Nelson Mandela.
@Michael Reynolds:
Yes.
@Bill Jempty:
There have been a number of accidents involving a bad approach, which might have been avoided, not with a diversion, but a far simpler go-around. The need to land RIGHT NOW, especially in difficult conditions, can be fatal, too.
@CSK:
For some reason I recalled he’d died in 1991.
@Kathy:
Nope, 1992. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Asimov
@Kathy:
Gethomeitis is real, but this was Baltic Air which would probably view the place they just took off from as “home” so I doubt that was a factor in this one.
Although the ultimate decision is on the pilot, it not being a critical flight issue would’ve brought dispatch and the airlines’ mechanics into the loop. The pilots were OK with continuing on, and so apparently were the mechanics.
The question of any of the O2 units were fired off I’d dismiss. Those things create a lot of heat and bring that odor of “something burning” into the cabin, which is most disconcerting for passengers. If one of those things had fired off it’s very likely they would’ve landed as soon as possible.
@dazedandconfused:
I’ve never had masks drop. It is very rare. Still, if they did drop, I’d grab and activate mine before worrying about anything else, like whether we’re even high enough for the masks to drop.
@Michael Reynolds:
If this is the case, he should be able to produce a Purple Heart.
@The Q: “BTW, some are threatening to protest until the name of the tournament is changed since Masters denotes plantation slavery – I kid you not.”
Reminds me of when some PETA types were demanding that Fishkill, NY change its name to stop celebrating the murders of innocent fish, apparently unaware that “kil” is Dutch for stream…