The International Air Transport Association (IATA — its members represent 94% of international air traffic) said this week that about half of all airline accidents last year took place during landings.

There were 100 accidents last year, with 692 fatalities (that’s down from 2006, when there were 855). According to the IATA, “many of those accidents could have been avoided if pilots made a second attempt at the runway, or if obstacles on the ground were properly cleared.” The worst crashes were in Brazil, Indonesia, and Africa.

There were NO commercial airliner fatalities in the U.S. last year.

A few months ago when CNN put this salacious headline up “Southwest Airlines Flies Unsafe Planes” — I did a post asking “Where was the Beef” of the story? What other airlines had issues, what was the relationship between inspectors and airlines etc — obviously useful reporting was less important than a juicy headline.

Well! Today the “Beef” has landed!

According to an article in the Wall St. Journal, the Federal Aviation Administration “failed to perform more than 100 recommended safety reviews at major airlines in recent years.”

US Airways is keeping mum, but CNN is reporting that a pilot who accidentally fired his handgun in midflight last month will be axed. That’s per a spokesman for the Federal Flight Deck Officers Association (and here’s their website); the pilot is a member of the group.

You may recall that the pilot was legally allowed to have that gun and he had been trained in its proper use. It just wasn’t supposed to go off like that. No one was hurt in the March incident, but this could have been a real tragedy.

I don’t mind that some pilots are armed, and I know accidents happen. But some accidents are unforgivable. That wasn’t the case here, but I sure don’t want to read about similar incidents in the future…

There are not too many TV programs I recommend; but I think you will be interested in this one.

Today (Thursday, April 3) at about 10am EDT, tune in here for the live webcast of a congressional committee hearing aptly titled, “Critical Lapses in FAA Safety Oversight of Airlines: Abuses of Regulatory Partnership Programs’.”

I expect you’ll see some uncomfortable-looking airline executives and FAA officials getting sliced-and-diced by congressional critics.

The critics are not happy about an allegedly “cozy relationship”. Just click “more” and I’ll explain.

First of all, if you’re heading out on United today, click here to see if you actually have a plane to board!

Yes, United is temporarily grounding 52 of its Boeing 777’s, to conduct a “functional test” of part of the fire-suppression system and this is causing some flight cancellations (thanks for the early heads-up, Joe Brancatelli).

Last week it was American’s turn to cancel flights, the week before that, the FAA ordered all the airlines to check their maintenance records.

Puzzled? Wondering if our planes are safe? Keep reading (just click “more”).

First, a gun discharges in a US Airways cockpit.

Then a piece of a US Airways jet’s wing comes off. You can’t make this stuff up. The good news is, no one was hurt.

The bad news is, well, it is kind of embarrassing. Keep reading!

According to an exclusive investigation by CNN, “of the 28,000 commercial airline flights that take to the skies on an average day in the United States, fewer than 1 percent are protected by on-board, armed federal air marshals.”

The Transportation Security Administration denies this, calling CNN’s figures a “myth” but they won’t release the number of marshals or what percentage of flights are covered.

And there’s more scary stuff in the report. This, you will want to read…

UPDATE: The pilot has been taken off flight duty. Still unclear what happened, but an investigation is underway to see if the pilot was “mishandling” the gun.

Here’s a scary story that I hadn’t heard about (but Gadling did):

Over the weekend, a gun belonging to a US Airways pilot went off in the cockpit.

Nobody was hurt, and the plane landed safely.

Thank goodness.

I’ve got more details on that (including my thoughts on what COULD have happened), but I’d like to hear your comments, too. Should we have armed pilots? Keep reading…

United voluntarily grounded 7 of its Boeing 747’s, but an airline spokesperson said yesterday that it wouldn’t disrupt its schedule much AND it was unrelated to “airworthiness.”

This was done after the F.A.A told its inspectors to “reconfirm that airlines were in compliance with all requirements.”

The 747’s were grounded after the FAA told United that the planes had been checked with faulty instruments. If you’ll pardon an ancient cliche, better safe than sorry.

An investigation is still underway.

So not all the facts are in.

But here’s what we do know (and it’s not pretty)…

Keep reading.

No airline in its right mind ever wants a plane crash, but China is trying to make sure this doesn’t happen during its summer Olympic Games, so they’ve come up with an unusual strategy to avoid such unpleasantness: airlines that do crash will be stripped of domestic routes and new planes.

According to Bloomberg, it’s just one of China’s latest attempts to boost tourism. Beijing expects 1.5 million visitors this summer, and they want to impress them.

I guess a “no crash” policy is certainly one way to do that.

[Liked this story? Then check out “China Olympics: It’s Going to be a Wild Ride”]

Saw this story on Consumerist.com: the parents of a Canadian child are steaming mad at WestJet. It seems they paid the airline to watch over their little “solo flyer” and apparently WestJet dropped the ball (though the child did arrive safely).

Sadly, this isn’t exactly breaking-news: there are plenty of other examples.

But as a parent, one thing caught my eye: the child in question was just 5-years old. I am by no means defending WestJet, but, whatever happened to common sense?

I don’t know about you, but I would no more let a 5-year old fly alone, than I would allow them to play in the middle of a Los Angeles freeway.

If you disagree (or agree), let me know.

I just read a truly fascinating article by the New York Times’ Patrick Smith about airport security, and his point is a lot of it is meaningless.

Not all of it; he’s very much in favor explosives scanning for checked luggage. But Smith believes it’s sheer lunacy to make flight crews undergo the same screening as passengers, while some airport workers are subject to just the occasional random screening.

And he’s not crazy about passengers undergoing such extensive screening either: “In the end, I’m not sure which is more troubling, the inanity of the existing regulations, or the average American’s acceptance of them and willingness to be humiliated.” Smith maintains that the Sept. 11^th attacks had less to do with terrorists armed with box-cutters, than armed with the element of surprise.

Interesting tidbit from the Washington Post about airline ticket & trip insurance, and a good reminder for us all.

It tells the story of a vacationing family that had to flee a hurricane, only to find out that the trip insurance they thoughtfully took out, didn’t cover their losses.

Read the fine print, everyone. And I’m reminding myself, as well.

I can’t say I’m with the International Transport Association (ITA) on this one; according to this article from the Wall St. Journal, the ITA (which represents major airlines worldwide) says there is a “looming crisis” because of a lack of pilots.

Okay, fair enough.

What I’m not crazy about, is their solution to this crisis. Maybe you’ll find it troublesome, too.

NASA is reversing itself; the agency now says it WILL release the results of a never-completed airline safety survey, a survey the Associated Press said indicated there were far more near-collisions and other problems than we knew about (and apparently, a lot more than the FAA knew about, as well).

Imagine if our government spent $8.5-million on a safety project that found problems with U.S. air travel (problems like near-collisions and runway interference)…and then, they decided NOT to release this information.

Crazy, huh? But that’s exactly what has happened.

This safety project was overseen, then dumped, by NASA (yes, the space agency). As part of this project, NASA’s team interviewed 24,000 pilots. And according to the Associated Press, these pilots told NASA they were involved in many more dangerous incidents than reflected in FAA numbers.

But NASA never released any of this data; according to Thomas S. Luedtke, a senior NASA official, the information is being withheld essentially for our protection, because it”could materially affect the public confidence in…the air carriers and general aviation companies.”

Personally, my confidence is already a little shaken, just by the fact that this information is not being released. A congressman from North Carolina has said, “There is a faint odor about it all.” Faint? Odor? Let’s speak English: this stinks!