Taking 80 or so big jetliners out of service would allow the combined airline — and others — to raise fares because there would be less competition in some markets.
A spokesman for the French Civil Aviation authority said the jetliner never sent out a distress signal and ground stations lost radio contact at 10 30 a.m.
Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, scheduled for delivery in 2008, is causing a lot of buzz as the first wide-body jetliner made mostly out of a lightweight carbon composite.
The navigator was in a state of "light alcoholic intoxication" as he guided the jetliner on its approach to a provincial airport in Petrozavodsk, the Interstate Aviation Committee said Monday in a report, which ruled out any mechanical failure as a factor.
The second problem was that no one thought to take into account the fires that would inevitably break out when the jetliner's fuel exploded, exactly as the B-25's had.
Now, Airbus, the European aerospace giant, has 20 large buildings and is churning out four A320 jetliners a month for mostly Chinese state-controlled carriers.
Thirty-one years and six months later, when fires broke out after the jetliners struck the twin towers, trusses like this one, the feathery branches of Robertson's exotic steel trees, would be among the first structural elements to give way and precipitate collapse.
Since the Islamic State does not possess the surface-to-air missiles necessary to shoot a jetliner at cruising altitude out of the air, investigators are focusing their attention on the possibility of an on-board bomb. .
Dr. Buyukozturk, an expert on structures and materials, cited "the dimension of creating a bomb out of a jetliner and the manner of the explosion," as well as "the type of structure they were dealing with".
On his watch, that turned out to be four hijacked jetliners, including one that swooped low over American war dead at Arlington National Cemetery to crash into the Pentagon during the morning rush hour on Sept. 11.
