NTSB Urges Sleep Apnea Screening

The National Transportation Safety Board believes that airline pilots should be screened for sleep apnea, along with truck and bus drivers, train engineers and merchant sailors, the Associated Press reports.

The NTSB cited several incidents involving drivers and pilots with sleep apnea, including one last year when two go! airlines pilots fell asleep for at least 18 minutes and cruised over their destination at Hilo, Hawaii.

The Associated Press cites a study that found that at least 7 percent of Americans have at least some form of sleep apnea.

Jet From Bradley Blows Out Tires In Chicago

An American Airlines jet out of Bradley blew four tires on landing at Chicago’s O’Hare on Thursday, WBBM NewsRadio 780 reports.

The Embraer 145 ERJ 145 has six tires — four on the landing gear and two at the nose.

There were 45 passengers and four crew on board the flight, American Eagle 3885. Nobody was injured.

FBI Mines Data From Travel Records

Do you mind that the FBI has obtained thousands of records about customers of the Ramada Inn, Days Inn, Super 8, Howard Johnson and Hawthorn Suites chains or that it wants wider access to billions of records of airline itineraries, including personal and financial information about passengers? If not, you definitely don’t want to read this article from Wired.com.

Iowa Town ‘Arresting’ Tourists

I don’t know what I think about the town of Kalona, Iowa, which is pulling over cars with out-of-state license plates and offering free mini-vacations to the occupants, as the Associated Press reports. I just don’t know.

Tourism And Crime Around The World

In Naples, ex-convicts are acting as tourist guides. On Antigua, the police are brawling with cruise ship passengers. In Bangkok, officials are trying to address rampant crime at the airport, including claims of extortion against visitors falsely accused of shoplifting. It’s a colorful world we live in.

Unmistakable Warning Sign

My fellow Hartford Courant alumnus Paul Stern (founder and chief blogger at courantalumni.org) has just returned from a trip to Scotland, where he took this picture of a very informative sign.

I think that pretty much says it all.

(And there’s a lovely addendum on the little sign underneath, which you can read if you click on the photo for a larger version.)

Power Fails Briefly At Bradley

Bradley International Airport’s Terminal A shut down for nearly an hour this morning because of a power failure, WTIC News reported. Six departures were delayed. Terminal A serves the airport’s two largest carriers: Southwest and Delta. The older Terminal B and the control tower did not lose power, WTIC reported.

Tourists Shaken Up In Wild Horse-Drawn Carriage Ride

A spooked horse took off with a family of seven on a wild carriage ride without its driver in Salt Lake City, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Nobody was seriously hurt.

Anger, Boycott Talk Persist After Bomber’s Release

The controversy over Scotland’s decision to release the Lockerbie bomber is not dying down, The New York Times reports. Calls for a boycott of Scottish tourism and goods continue.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen boycotts like this one succeed in the short run, as it’s very difficult to measure their impact. But I do believe this incident will harm Scotland’s and Britain’s image — and therefore tourism as well — in the long run.

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, released to Libya on the grounds that he is terminally ill, served only eight years for the deaths of 270 people, including 189 U.S. citizens, in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The families of the victims are outraged, and the motives for his release are being questioned vigorously, in Britain and the United States.

What an ordinary traveler from the United States might well wonder is this: if I am harmed or killed in Britain, how seriously will that crime be addressed? And if such crimes aren’t severely punished, how much more likely is it that those who want to harm U.S. citizens will do it again?

These a reasonable questions.

Photo: Lufthansa 747 At LAX

Just got into Los Angeles, headed straight for the In-N-Out Burger on Sepulveda, next to the airport and spent some time watching planes land.

This one here is a Lufthansa 747:

That’s what I’m talking about!