Archive: Aviation

Mark Benjamin and his son Luke were on board the Cessna Citation that crashed and burned Sunday evening at Santa Monica Airport, according to Morley Builders, the longtime Southern California construction company.

Fire officials called the crash and fire "unsurvivable" for people on the plane, but they have not said how many crew and passengers, if any, were on board. The Cessna Citation business jet came from Hailey, Idaho, near Sun Valley, and can carry eight.

Since the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International Airport, there has been a lot of curiosity about the landing approach at SFO. You come in low over water — many times I have wondered if we were a little too close to the bay. Video inside.

CNN posted video of the Asiana crash at San Francisco Airport provided by a man who was recording the landing from about a mile across the bay. It shows the flight from Korea approaching too low with its nose in the air, then the tail hitting the ground and the plane careening out of control in a cloud of smoke. Plus: Stupid (at best) Chicago headline.

An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 arriving from Seoul with 291 people aboard crashed at San Francisco International Airport about 11:30 a.m. Most of the passengers got off the plane safely, according to tweets.

The Board of Airport Commissioners is expected on Tuesday to name the Antonio R. Villaraigosa Pavilion after the mayor who appointed them. I guess it's worth a chuckle that the pavilion is late and over budget.

A National Air Cargo 747 flying for the US Mobility Command stalled and crashed soon after taking off Monday from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Seven crew members died in the crash, which was caught on video. See it inside.

A letter from the FAA to city officials says it would be within federal policy to charge the school just $1 a year rent for its facility on the west side of Van Nuys Airport at Saticoy Street. Although the city of Los Angeles airports department runs VNY, the FAA is allowed to dip its bureaucratic fingers into all kinds of policy areas at airports.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour is expected to arrive in Los Angeles in late September, carried atop a 747 jetliner from Cape Canaveral in Florida. In mid-October it should begin the roll across town to Exposition Park.

The Los Angeles City Council today blocked the airport's plans to offer free wireless at LAX, complaining that the deal reached by airport officials did not pass the smell test. Not that it was really going to be like other cities' free wireless — you would likely have to watch an ad — but it sounded better than the $9.95 that T-Mobile charges LAX inmates now.

Free wireless service could be available to travelers at Los Angeles International Airport as soon as this summer. There's a catch, but it's still a big improvement over the current $10 T-Mobile fee.

In addition to the relaxed Amelia Earhart photo I posted again earlier this week, the Automobile Club of Southern California Archives has some more nice photos of her in Burbank. Gotta love this one.

Hard to know what to make of the latest project to go look in the Pacific for Amelia Earhart's missing plane from 1937. Probably nothing at all, like every other...

The images of 1940 Los Angeles that photographer Ansel Adams shot for Fortune magazine, then put away and forgot for awhile, are getting their first public display other than on websites.

Oh sorry, it was just two British tourists on holiday. Were they sent home because of tweets?

Photo: B-2 bombers circle over the northeast San Fernando Valley this morning before the Rose Parade flyover.
Photo: Roger Vargo/Explore Historic California

All passenger terminals and runway 25R were affected by an hour-long power outage tonight at Los Angeles International Airport.

Mary Grady, the LAPD spokesperson for ten years until this past June, has been named Director of Public and Media Relations at Los Angeles World Airports.

With the space shuttle gliding into retirement, Deanne Stillman has a nice piece at Truthdig on the local origins of the U.S. space program.

These pictures reemerge every so often, but they are always interesting. These are World War II shots of Lockheed Aircraft, a major builder of war planes at Burbank Airport,...

Valley boosters used to take pride in the stat that Van Nuys Airport was the busiest in the country, due mostly to all the private pilots and students who flew there. Now traffic has fallen to 1963 levels.

Everything around the LAX retail concessions is about politics and the practice of influence — do you think services that disappointing and overpriced would fly in the real world?

Five planes designed by Mojave aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan hang in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Nice feature in Smithsonian Air & Space on the private and amateur rocket teams figuring out space flight of the future way out in the Mojave Desert.

Effort to defend LAX against criticism lands a little short of the runway.

The crash Wednesday morningat Long Beach Airport claimed Tom Dean and Jeff Berger, developers at LCW Partners who were involved in a city of Long Beach land swap for the Los Cerritos Wetlands, and Mark Bixby, a bicycle advocate and member of one of Long Beach's founding families.

A new book on the importance of world-class airports suggests that Los Angeles is being passed over in global commerce due to LAX.

Men with plastic sheeting rush out and cover the words Policia Federal: now we're intrigued.

Live-fire training for the LAFD at LAX early on Tuesday morning.

I'll be out of pocket most of the day. My posting will be lighter through the week. * Update: Went through LAX Terminal 3 this morning virtually without breaking stride,...

The mayor will be at Terminal 6 about noon to go through the scanner, as part of a photo op aimed at heading off chaos at the airport during the crazy Thanksgiving travel period.

The news site that's merging with Newsweek has rated LAX the fourth-best big U.S. airport, after Phoenix, Seattle and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. Best, not worst.

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has recommended that the City Council's Board of Referred Powers disqualify the group of restaurants bidding against incumbent LAX concessionaire HMS Host, whose top lobbyist is a campaign contributor.

I noticed at LAX the other day that the skin is back on the iconic Theme Building, with a fresh coat of white paint. Renovation only took, what, three years? New York Times bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer explained the meaning of it all this weekend for the out-of-towners.

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times' well-read Op-Ed columnist, starts his latest column on America's need to be more innovative and competitive with a short riff on how bad Los Angeles International Airport looks.

Airfares from LAX to New York are heading higher — and delays will be more numerous — because of four months of repair work on the long runway at JFK.

The airline is canceling most arrivals and departures this afternoon at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, and in Ontario, Orange County, San Diego, Phoenix and Tucson, because of high wind conditions.

Northrop Grumman's decision to leave Los Angeles marks the end of an era, say scholars William Deverell, Daniel Lewis and Peter Westwick in a Visiting Bloggers post at LA Observed.

You have until Jan. 31 to pick up your car.

In case you haven't heard, that explosive boom that rattled windows and more than a few nerves yesterday afternoon was Discovery, the space shuttle, landing at Edwards Air Force Base....

Talk about a story that's going nowhere fast (the above video is from 2007 and not much has happened since). As the FAA and the city of Santa Monica...

Los Angeles International now ranks as the world's sixth busiest airport, just behind Paris' Charles de Gaulle. Of course, on any ranking of airport amenities, transportation, signage or comfort of...

Dwell magazine's June issue rates San Francisco's new international terminal the best airport in the U.S. Los Angeles International is pegged as the country's absolute worst: Los Angeles is the...

For some reason, Los Angeles airfields used to open almost next to each other. There were three or four in and adjacent to Burbank, another in Glendale, and another on...

Air traffic controllers described this week's runway encounter as "the closest call they have seen at LAX in seven years." A small passenger jet speeding into its take-off missed colliding...