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First case of fatal crash confirmed in texting-while-flying case
TransportThe pilot of an emergency medical helicopter flying over Missouri was sending and receiving text messages before a 2011 crash, the first time such distractions have been implicated in a fatal commercial-aviation accident. Texting increased the likelihood of attention lapses and errors, Bill Bramble, a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigator, said at a hearing [...]
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Dreamliner’s short circuit issues are more bad news for Boeing
TransportThe Boeing 787 Dreamliner battery that caught fire earlier this month in Boston shows evidence of short-circuiting and a chemical reaction known as “thermal runaway,” in which an increase in temperature causes progressively hotter temperatures, federal accident investigators said Thursday. It’s not clear to investigators which came first, the short-circuiting or the thermal runaway, National [...]
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NTSB drops Blackberry and switches to iPhone 5 contract
DigitalResearch In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry is being dropped by a U.S. government agency that cited the device’s failures. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane accidents, disclosed its plan to switch to Apple Inc.’s iPhone 5 in a document posted last week to a federal website. The BlackBerrys have been “failing both at inopportune [...]
