Blame Shifting In Tarmac Stranding

The pilot of the ExpressJet plane that sat overnight on the tarmac at the Rochester, Minn., airport on Aug. 8 tried repeatedly to get permission to let her 47 passengers off the plane, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood writes in his blog.

A DOT investigation shows that a Mesaba Airlines representative improperly refused to let the jet into a gate, LaHood wrote, and the DOT’s Aviation Enforcement Office is now “considering appropriate action to take against Mesaba.”

LaHood also noted that “more senior personnel” at ExpressJet and Continental should have gotten involved to resolve the situation. ExpressJet was operating the flight for Continental.

That’s right. When human beings are sealed in a cramped metal tube and held against their will for hours, it’s a crisis and should be treated as one.

That’s why we must pass an Air Passenger Bill of Rights.

Yosemite National Park Stuns The Senses

It just didn’t seem plausible in the blazing August heat that the water flowing over Yosemite Falls came from some glacier higher up in the Sierra Nevada, but jumping into the icy pool beneath the lower falls removed all doubt.

Refreshing doesn’t begin to describe it. The cold hit me like a hammer. I lasted about 45 seconds before I clambered, shivering, back into the 95-degree heat.

I should not have doubted the glacier story. Rangers don’t  lie.

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