A couple and their four children, who attempted to fly on just three tickets, were kicked off the plane by US Airways flight attendants.
The parents had bought a ticket for their 3year-old son but not for their 20-month-old twins or 8-month-old baby. They planned to seat one infant in the same seat as their three-year-old and each hold a child in their lap.
Kathy and Jason Fickes and their children boarded a U.S Airways flight from Charlotte in North Carolina to Chicago to visit grandparents over Christmas.
The Fickes had purchased three tickets and managed to make their way passed the ticket desk and through security screening with their four children.
A couple and their four children, who attempted to fly on just three tickets, were kicked off the plane by US Airways flight attendants
However, once they got on the plane, a flight attendant told them it would not be possible to travel as they had planned because there were not enough oxygen masks to go around.
Kathy Fickes told ABC 7: “I felt we were discriminated against because we had too many children in their eyes.”
Jason Fickes added that they “held up the plane for 40 or 50 minutes” as the family moved seats and tried to accommodate the airline.
The family was finally asked to leave the plane despite one passenger offering to pay for another ticket.
On the U.S Airways website, it is only possible to buy tickets for children over the age of two.
However, in a sidebar it gives the option to add how many younger children will be travelling.
The company is clear that each child under the age of two must be accompanied by an over-18 if they are sharing a seat.
On domestic flights, a child under the age of two is allowed to travel in the lap of a paying adult free of charge.
The Federal Aviation Administration also states that there must be an oxygen mask for each flyer.
Michelle Mohr, a US Airways spokesman told ABC 7: “The safety regulations are such that you have to have one child per one adult.”
U.S. Airways refunded the family’s tickets.
The Fickes family would have been permitted to fly if they had bought a ticket for one of their children under two as long as the child travelled in a car seat.
An Air France Airbus A340 plane flew for 5 days before ground crews noticed that 30 screws were missing from one of its wings.
The aircraft had undergone routine maintenance in China, before flying to Paris and then on to the US before the potentially disastrous blunder was finally spotted.
The Air France jet, which can carry up to 440 passengers, was grounded in Boston while a “large protective panel” was screwed back into place.
Air France problem was revealed in an internal union document leaked to French news agency AFP.
The company have blamed aircraft mechanics in the Chinese city of Xiamen, were the airline’s jets are often serviced because of lower costs.
An Air France Airbus A340 plane flew for 5 days before ground crews noticed that 30 screws were missing from one of its wings
An Air France technical operations spokesman said: “The plane flew for several days before it was grounded because one third of the screws holding down a piece of bodywork were missing.
“It was part of the outer covering of the wing and at no point was flight safety compromised.
“The maintenance team that works for Air France are internationally recognized and this is the first ever incident of its kind.”
But an aircraft construction expert said: “The piece itself may not have endangered the flight if it came off.
“But there is always the risk that it could have struck and damaged another very important part of the aircraft as it became detached and blew away in flight.”
An Air France union spokesman described the oversight as “deplorable”.
The spokesman added: “Pieces of an aircraft should never simply go missing during maintenance. It is not the first time this has happened either.
“Last year a Boeing 747 was grounded after undergoing maintenance in China because parts of the plane had been painted with flammable paint.”
The crash of an Air France Concorde 11 years ago, killing 113 people, was blamed on a strip of metal on the runway which punctured the plane’s tyres and sent rubber fragments flying into a fuel tank.
An Austrian alpine-coaster which is located in Mieders offers what is perhaps the most frighteningly fast – and seemingly dangerous – downhill descent.
The single-pipe ride usually provides tourists with a slow, open trek down the mountainside.
But one hardy adventurer recorded video footage of himself hurtling down the steep incline without applying the brakes.
The result is a terrifying downhill plunge in small, open-topped car that appears to teeter on the edge of flying off the rail as it rounds tight bends.
An Austrian alpine-coaster which is located in Mieders offers what is perhaps the most frighteningly fast - and seemingly dangerous - downhill descent
Earlier this year, the world’s steepest roller coaster opened in the shadow of Mount Fuji in Japan.
Riders on the Takabisha plummet 141 feet in a single vertical drop Fuji-Q Highland Amusement Park.
There is little time to enjoy the view of snow-capped mountain as the ride lasts just 112 seconds.
The ride’s designers even called in adjudicators from the Guinness Book of World Records, which ratified that the drop, involving a 121-degree freefall, is the steepest on any attraction anywhere in the world.
Takabisha (“dominant” in English) relies on a combination of gravity and a set of linear motors on the cars. These accelerate the coaster to speeds of 100 kmph.
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