Investigation Uncovering If Link To Air Crash Exists

Swiss police are investigating whether revenge was behind the stabbing death of the air traffic controller on duty during a midair collision in which dozens of Russian children were killed. The 36-year-old man was stabbed at his home in the Zurich suburb of Kloten on Tuesday night after a brief exchange of words with another man, who police said spoke broke German. The air traffic controller -- whose identity has never been made public -- was attacked in front of his wife, police told The Associated Press. Investigators refused to rule out a connection between the slaying and the July 1, 2002, collision of a Russian charter airliner with a DHL cargo plane in air space over southern Germany controlled by Switzerland.

Airport Ground Movement Alerting System Activated

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) is patting itself on the back again. This time is for their work in Houston, where George Bush Intercontinental Airport became the 34th and final airport to commission the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS.) The technology provides air traffic controllers with visual and audible alerts to assist in preventing runway collisions. Commissioning of AMASS involves installation, a testing phase of at least 30 days and, finally, controller utilization for at least 30 days to ensure a complete evaluation. NATCA officials devoted thousands of hours to ensuring the system was safe and fully operational. After the system encountered many problems in the early development st

Flight Attendants Want New Contract

Southwest Airlines' unionized flight attendants brought a year-old campaign for a new labor contract to Philadelphia Monday, where the discount carrier plans to start service May 9. A group of 10 flight attendants, joined by about 30 local labor leaders and members of other unions, gathered at noon in a cold drizzle in front of City Hall, chanting slogans and holding signs that read "Has The LUV Airline Lost Its Heart?" Southwest, which is based at Love Field in Dallas, uses LUV as its trading symbol on the New York Stock Exchange and often plays on the word luv in its advertising. The flight attendants, members of the Transport Workers Union, contend that Southwest, after building a reputation over three decades for good relations with its

A $125 Million Price Tag For The 7E7

Boeing plans to sell the new baseline 7E7 at similar pricing to the list price of the 767-300ER, or about $125 million per copy, VP-Marketing Randy Baseler announced at Asian Aerospace 2004. That figure is viewed as being below expectations for an airplane that will not enter service before 2008. Key to the pricing, according to Thomas Waggener, 7E7 marketing director, is the significant cost savings in the manufacturing process. Boeing executives have been touting massive savings in production costs for new commercial programs from experience gained on military programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter.

Government Claims Ignorance

Germany had "no idea" a man whose first name and telephone number it passed to U.S. authorities long before the Sept. 11 attacks would turn out to be a key player in the plot, German Interior Minister Otto Schily said on Tuesday. The minister said a New York Times article saying Germany had given the Central Intelligence Agency the information about Marwan al-Shehhi in March 1999 was misleading. U.S. officials say al-Shehhi was the pilot who flew the second plane into the World Trade Center. The attacks, which destroyed the Twin Towers, damaged the Pentagon and caused one aircraft to crash into a Pennsylvania field, claimed about 3,000 lives.