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The first ever incident of a gun being discharged in the flight deck happened last week. These are brand new images showing the bullet hole in the Airbus from the inside and outside of the airplane.

The incident happened aboard Flight 1536 from Denver, Colorado to Charlotte, North Carolina, as the plane was getting ready to land. It was around 8,000 feet and just about 10 minutes away from landing. Thankfully, all 124 passengers and five crew members were safe.

Currently, the Transportation Security Administration is in the middle of the investigation. Was it likely to discharge on its own? Probably not, but reports have said it was accidently discharged when the pilot was stowing the weapon. 

Now, what are your thoughts on the discharge?

Read the news story on Scrutiny of TSA Procedures

The awesome ForeFlight Team has introduced yet another feature for the ForeFlight iPhone edition for pilots! Along with weather, aircraft data, and logbook, the team has introduced File! It allows pilots to file their flight plans via the iPhone on the go! The best thing of all it is being made for FREE for all pilots! I really wish this was available a few years ago when I was instructing, but now dispatch files all my flight plans in the airline industry.

With File!, pilots (you must have a valid CSC DUATS account) can now create, edit, save, and file flight plans with the FAA. It will keep track of all the file plans you file so you can use that later on as a template for future flight plans. File! also stores all of your aircraft in the background so you can use it later for other flight plans without going through the setup process again.

Filing a flight plan cannot be easier! No more waiting on hold with 800-WX-BRIEF! Foreflight will also send you an email confirmation once it has been submitted.

Personally, I really wish I could have use for filing flight plans. Although, ForeFlight has not let me down at all with their weather and airport lookup. I use the weather for the airports on a daily basis. It is one of the best tools out there for pilots to bring more information in the palm of your hand.

The logbook is another excellent feature that is built into this web application suite. They teamed together with LogTen to add your flights into the logbook with the iPhone. At times like this, I wish I had a Mac to be able to use the logbook feature on a daily basis. Anyone have any extra Macs laying around? Let me know! I want to be able to use this as a Logbook!

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go check the weather at my home airport! Where’s my iPhone!?

I am sure all of you have seen this video already, but here is info behind it:

The Lufthansa jet, with 137 passengers on board, struggled through the strong winds of a powerful winter storm to land at Hamburg Airport, Spiegel Online reported. After skidding along the runway and rocking violently, the pilot was forced to abort the landing. Later, all 137 passengers arrived safely.

Now, my question to you is - Would you have tried that landing with almost 155 mph winds? What would you have done?

Southwest Airlines has been a huge topic over the past week with their maintenance discrepancies and flying airplanes past inspection times. Southwest pulled 38 planes out of service this past Wednesday to check for cracks in the plane above and below the passenger windows, and they are being repaired. The planes should be back in service by this weekend according to Southwest. Southwest could be facing a 10.2 million dollar fine from the FAA for flying these planes past the inspection time.

Now congress is suspecting other airlines are in this same situation. “We suspect there may be other airlines in a similar situation to Southwest, and our investigation is continuing,” Jim Berard, director of communications for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, tells the Christian Science Monitor.

People are also calling for the FAA to get overhauled regarding their handling of this situation.

Now, what do you think? Do you think the FAA needs to clean house? Will this affect your choice in air carriers?

Capture a video comment using the link below the comments for this post!

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