Southwest Airlines plane lands at wrong Missouri airport

A Southwest Airlines plane carrying more than 100 passengers landed at the wrong Missouri airport Sunday, the company said.

Southwest Flight 4013 from Chicago's Midway Airport was scheduled to land at Branson airport on Sunday evening, but it instead showed up at Taney County airport, said Brad Hawkins, a spokesman for the airline.

The two airports are about seven miles apart and serve the same area of southwest Missouri.

Hawkins said he didn't yet have enough information to say why the plane landed at the wrong location.

The landing of the plane, a Boeing 737-700 carrying 124 passengers and five crew members, was uneventful, and everyone is safe, he said.

The Southwest Airlines website said the flight had arrived at Gate 3 of Branson airport. The plane, which departed Chicago about an hour late, arrived roughly two hours and 20 minutes behind schedule at Branson, according to the website.

Hawkins declined to say whether the flight had flown on to Branson airport from Taney County airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it is investigating the incident.

AirAsia forces to expand airlines in southern India

NEW DELHI | MUMBAI : Indian carriers are making southern India an integral part of their expansion plans, especially international, as the region presents the perfect gateway to short-haul international routes and also to take on AirAsia India which will base its operations in Chennai this year. 

In the winter schedule this year, Chennai and Bangalore had a double-digit growth in the number of daily domestic flights taking off from those two cities. Hyderabad for the first time had more than 100 daily domestic flights from the airport. 

"What has helped increased flights is airlines like AirAsia India stating that they will use Chennai as their base of operations and following such announcements, we have seen other airlines such as IndiGo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet increase daily flights from Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad," said an official at the state-run Airports Authority of India which runs the Chennai airport. 

"The southern grid comprising Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai present a huge potential in terms of best-in-class infrastructure in terms of modernised greenfield airports, traffic potential due to huge corporate presence to both domestic and international airlines. 

The connectivity to the other southern airports like Trivandrum, Coimbatore, Cochin, Calicut and Vizag along with connections to Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow is an emerging opportunity. Apart from the base of IT&ITeS and manufacturing, the south Indian cities also offer good gateways for the tourist circuit in Ootacamund, Coorg, Kerala and Pondicherry, and this supports the airlines to operate profitably where rail or road connectivity would take a higher time to traverse," said Suraj Nair,senior vice-president - strategy & planning, Thomas Cook (India). 

India's southern region has the maximum number of metro airports -- Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad -- apart from several other busy airports such as Cochin, Trichy and Trivandrum. Destinations in Kerala have always been money-spinners as connectors to the Gulf region, because of the labour traffic immigrating to the region. The southern region as a whole serves as an efficient hub for traffic to south Asian regions. 

India's largest low-cost carrier IndiGo has moved to increase its capacity across South India. "IndiGo's expansion in South India has been in line with the originally planned growth," said the airline's spokesperson."We have increased flights across South India with increased frequencies on Bangalore-Delhi-Bangalore, Bangalore-Hyderabad-Bangalore, Chennai-Hyderabad-Chennai, Chennai-Kolkata-Chennai, Hyderabad-Goa-Hyderabad, Kochi-Mumbai-Kochi and other such sectors." 

Out of 64 flights that SpiceJet started last year, a majority has been dedicated to expanding its international network via the south. It added flights to Riyadh, Guangzhou, Sharjah, Muscat, Bangkok, Lucknow, Mysore, Pondicherry, Allahabad, Dharamshala and Khajuraho. 

"We added majorly to Bangkok-Bangalore and other routes such as Madurai-Colombo, Riyadh-Hyderabad and Kochi-Male," said an executive at the airline. Also, in December, SpiceJet signed an interline agreement with Tigerair, according to which the Indian carrier will connect 14 cities to Hyderabad and Tigerair will connect the passengers to Singapore. 

"GoAir operated approximately 1,600 flights more to/from Chennai, Bangalore and Kochi. We doubled our capacity to Kochi and added one additional flight on Mumbai-Bangalore-Mumbai and Delhi-Bangalore-Delhi route," said a spokesman. 

Passenger Jet in near miss with 'rugby ball-shaped UFO' near Heathrow Airport

The pilot of an Airbus A320 has had a close encounter with a ball-shaped UFO. Photo: Craig Abraham

It was certainly a close encounter, but with precisely what remains a mystery.

An airline pilot has reported a near miss with a "rugby ball-shaped" UFO that passed within metres of his passenger jet near Heathrow airport.

He told aviation authorities investigating the incident last July that he was certain the object was going to crash into his aircraft and that he ducked as it headed towards him.

They have been unable to establish the identity of the mysterious craft, which apparently approached the airliner at great speed.

The incident occurred while the Airbus A320 was cruising at 34,000ft, around 32 kilometres west of the airport.

The investigators' report states: "He was under the apprehension that they were on collision course with no time to react. His immediate reaction was to duck to the right and reach over to alert the FO [First Officer]; there was no time to talk to alert him."

It adds: "The captain was fully expecting to experience some kind of impact with a conflicting aircraft."

He told investigators the object passed "within a few feet" of the top of the jet and that it was "cigar/rugby ball-like" in shape, bright silver and "metallic" in construction. The episode was examined by the UK Airprox Board, which studies "near misses" involving aircraft in British airspace.

It checked data recordings to establish what aircraft were in the area but eliminated them all, along with meteorological balloons. Military radar operators were also unable to trace the reported object.

The sighting occurred in daylight, at around 6.35pm on July 13. It has emerged following the publication of the report, which concluded it was "not possible to trace the object or determine the likely cause of the sighting".

The document does not name the airline or flight involved in the incident. Even though it describes the aircraft as being "just to the west of Heathrow", aviation experts believe that at such an altitude it would be unlikely to have taken off from, or be preparing to land at, the west London airport.

Instead, the A320, which is popular with many carriers, among them British Airways and Virgin, is likely to have been travelling between a regional airport elsewhere in the UK, and another on the Continent. The aircraft typically carry about 150 passengers.

The British Ministry of Defence closed its UFO desk in December 2009, along with its hotline for reporting such sightings. Following that change, the Civil Aviation Authority took the decision that it would continue to look into such reports, from aircrew and air traffic controllers, because they could have implications for “flight safety”.

In 2012, the head of the National Air Traffic Control Services admitted staff detected around one unexplained flying object every month.

Dr David Clarke, a Sheffield Hallam academic and the UFO consultant for the National Archives, said: “The aviation authorities obviously think this is something they should continue to look into and if you are a regular air traveller, you are likely to agree.”

Dr Clarke, a sceptic on UFO issues, said: “This latest sighting is interesting, because it is detailed and clear. These pilots don't file these reports for something and nothing. There was obviously something there.”

Chris Yates, an aviation consultant, said: “Although we assume when these things happen, a UFO is responsible, there is usually an explanation that materialises at some point.”

Naples Airport Opens New Taxiway Extension

      Naples Municipal Airport has opened the new Taxiway A extension that will make it easier for aircraft to use the full length of the airport's main runway for takeoff, officials said in a release. Planes that begin departures from the end of the runway reach higher altitudes before leaving airport property, lessening sound on the ground, according to the release.

The airport paved the safety areas at the ends of Runway 5/23 in 2011 to increase takeoff distance from 5,000 to 5,800 feet, but Taxiway A did not run the full length of the longer runway. The new access to the end of the runway also saves time and fuel, officials said, noting that it also enhances airport safety and operations by eliminating the need for aircraft leaving from the east side of the airport to cross the active runway to take off.

The taxiway extension is part of an $8 million water-management system improvement project underway at the airport. With 95 percent of the funding from the FAA and the Florida Department of Transportation, the project is designed to improve runoff and stormwater collection; water filtration and impurities removal; and distribution of clean water into Rock Creek and the Gordon River.

The project includes the design and construction of automated water-monitoring systems, and grant funding includes monitoring the results of the improvements for two years. If results confirm expectations, the project is likely to set a national standard for how airports should handle water-management issues, airport officials said.