A friend recently texted me to point out something rather peculiar happening in the airspace over Indianapolis – a United 767 heading from Houston to London pulled an abrupt U-turn. I grabbed my iPad and using a variety of resources was soon able to figure out that the plane was having a mechanical problem and would be returning to Houston. Technology and social media have made it so easy to track aircraft, learn more about what they’re doing, where they’re from, where they’re going, and why. Here are some of my favorite apps, websites, and news sources, which I use on an almost daily basis:

Flight Radar 24
http://www.flightradar24.com

This free app allows you to track flights in real-time. It’s how we discovered the diverted United flight. You can search for flights or just browse a detailed map showing most of the world’s air traffic. Click on a plane and a box pops up with detailed flight information.

FlightAware
http://www.flightaware.com

This is another great flight tracking website. What I like best about it is that you can search by airline and aircraft type. Want to know how many flights a particular carrier has underway at that moment? Just click “Browse by Operator”.  As I write this there are 363 Southwest jets in the air, followed by Delta at 362 and United at 341. Click “Browse by Aircraft Type” and you’ll see that 737-800’s rule the air. There are 607 up there at this moment. Scroll down and you’ll see just two 727’s and a single DC-9. It’s neat to see who is flying rare aircraft.

The Aviation Herald
http://avherald.com

This website lists all of the incidents, accidents, and crashes that happen each day. Everything from bird strikes, to blown tires, to engine failure, and worse make it on here. Sometimes there are photos. The Aviation Herald published information on the u-turn United plane a few days after the flight, and explained that problems with the altimeter prompted the crew to return to Houston. 

Airliners.net
http://www.airliners.net/

Want to know more about the plane you’re on or find a photo of an aircraft involved in an accident? Chances are this website has an image of it. Photographers all around the world contribute photos to their archive and you can search by tail number. You can see a bunch of pictures of the missing Malaysia Airlines 777 on here.

Twitter

This may seem like an obvious source, but I find that most airlines are very good about communicating with passengers and other curious flight observers on Twitter. Right after I discovered the diverted United plane, I tweeted at United and they responded:

LiveATC
http://www.liveatc.net/

Listen to live air traffic control feeds from around the world. This is particularly fun when you are near an airport doing some planespotting or waiting for a flight and just curious about what's happening on the runways around you. They also archive important ATC conversations, such as the immediate aftermath of the Asiana 214 crash.

AirlineReporter.com
http://www.airlinereporter.com/

Interesting news and analysis about the commercial airline industry. Well-written flight reviews and articles about trends in the industry. I check their site a few times a week.

NYCAviation
http://www.nycaviation.com/

Another great airline news source. Mostly centers on New York City, though I find there are a lot of useful stories about commercial air travel as a whole. 

airlinemeals.net
http://www.airlinemeals.net/

This one is kind of silly but I just think it's fun to see what airlines are serving their passengers. Sometimes the meals look amazing, sometimes they're pretty gross. 

When I lived in Alaska, I used to spend a lot of weekend afternoons perched on one of three lookout points at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, a significant re-fueling stop for many overseas flights, most of them cargo airlines.

I doubt there is anywhere else in the United States where you can see so many 747's in one day. Expect to also spot MD-11's, 777's, 767's, 737's, and if you're lucky, a DC-3 or DC-6. Boeing's Dreamlifter even makes an occasional visit!

From Point Woronzof you can see aircraft landing and departing from runways 14/32. The top red X is my favorite spot. Just pull over where you see a gate with a chain across it on the north side of the road. Walk up toward the bike path and you'll be able to look down on the runway. You are so close you can smell the jet exhaust and hear the wake vortices swirling overhead. 

The lower X marks another favorite spot of mine. You could really pull over anywhere along here and watch planes, but just south of that "access road 1" there is a hill on the east side of Point Woronzof Rd. Hike up a well-worn little trail and you'll have a splendid side view of runway traffic. WATCH OUT FOR MOOSE! They really like this spot, too. Keep your distance. 

Here are some shots I took from the Point Woronzof locations a few years ago:

On the opposite side of the airport at Connors Lake Park you can see traffic from runways 25R/7L. The park is clearly marked and where you see the red X there is a hill. This spot isn't as good as Point Woronzof, but sometimes you can't see anything from the other locations because they don't always use those runways. 

I've never been bothered by security at any of these spots. On a mild evening you'll have plenty of company, especially at Pt. Woronzof. ANC has a great mix of Asian cargo carriers, domestic passenger airlines, and unique Alaska charter traffic. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Sometimes in life we don't recognize that something might be really special -- that we may look back on an experience with gratitude, years later, when things have changed. 

My childhood trip to Ireland was one of those events. My mom decided to take her boys overseas to reconnect with relatives and learn more about our heritage.

Of course all I could think about was the possibility that I might get to fly on a British Airways 747. It truly would've been a dream come true.

So you can imagine my dismay when I learned my mom purchased tickets for us on ATA. You remember ATA, the discount carrier with the catchy theme song. They probably flew you to Disneyland or Vegas or some other sunny destination.

Well ATA in the summer of 1999 offered charter flights direct from Chicago O'Hare to Shannon, Ireland. It wouldn't be as nice as British Airways, but it would certainly be better than the last flight my family took to Ireland six years earlier on a Soviet-built IL-62 operated by Aeroflot (that's another blog post I plan to write later). And the tickets were a bargain.

I tossed aside my British Airways timetables, seating charts, and any other BA publications I had been studying for months, and started packing.

In hindsight, I'm glad we flew ATA, because I got to fly on an aircraft that's now extinct -- the L-1011, a wide-body tri-jet which was designed to compete against the DC-10. 

They packed SO many seats in that plane. From what I recall the seating was 3-5-3. The entire jet was economy and completely booked. The old Lockheed, unable to make the jump from Chicago to Europe in one leap, needed a break halfway through. 

So we stopped in Gander, Newfoundland in the middle of the night to refuel. We stepped off the stuffy plane onto the air stairs, looked up at the brilliant stars, and breathed deep in the clear, cold Canadian air.

Inside the warm terminal a choir from one of the local schools sang for us. Mind you it was like 2 am. We bought ice cream cones and browsed the duty-free shop. Someone at the Gander Chamber of Commerce gave me a commemorative coin and a souvenir stamp in my passport.

After an hour or so we climbed back into the L-1011 and continued on to Ireland, at one point during meal service the cabin chanting "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" to one of the flight attendants who looked EXACTLY like Jerry Springer. I don't think any of that happens on United or Delta these days.

I sometimes wonder what the Gander International Airport is like now, as newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft pass 35,000 feet above, hardly acknowledging Gander beyond a few words to air traffic control. It must be lonely down there. 

I'll be flying to Dublin this summer on an Aer Lingus A330. I'm expecting a pleasant non-stop flight, but I think I'll peer out the window as we leave the North American continent, try to point out tiny Gander, and think about how badly I wish I could go back.

This post is especially troubling to write because I have friends who work in TV news in Seattle. I gasped when I checked my phone this morning and saw that everyone was re-tweeting this image from the Seattle Fire Dept.

No way. Not again. Was it a news chopper? Which station? Within minutes I learned the awful news. It was the KOMO 4 helicopter, a familiar aircraft in Seattle, where it gathered stunning views of an iconic skyline and helped bring viewers a better perspective of the day's news.

KOMO 4, an ABC station, is headquartered right next to the Space Needle in a sophisticated glass and steel building that's the envy of many TV stations. Their heli-pad is on their roof, just a stone's throw from the Space Needle. I've seen their helicopter take off and land from that location. 

I can't imagine what it's like for photographers, reporters, producers, and the production teams at the Seattle stations to cover something like this. Many of them no doubt knew one or two of the individuals killed in the crash.

This has happened before, most notably in Phoenix, where two news choppers collided during breaking news in 2007. I often think about colleagues who cover the days events from the sky and wonder if their job ever scares them. On days like this it must.

One year ago today a Hawker Beechcraft Premier I private jet aborted a landing at South Bend Airport and lost control, crashing into three homes in a neighborhood adjacent to the runway. The pilot and co-pilot were killed. Two passengers and a woman on the ground were injured.

We’re still waiting for the NTSB to conclude its investigation, which no doubt is focusing on the aircraft’s apparent loss of power and hydraulics right before it crashed. The jet was “barely controllable” moments before impact, according to ATC recordings.

I wasn't in town the day of the crash, but I covered it during the following days. What struck me most was that the aircraft did not catch fire. Somehow, the passengers and neighbors avoided the horrible inferno which often claims lives and property after a plane goes down. I asked the NTSB investigator during a press conference if he too was struck by the fact that the wreckage did not burn, and he confirmed that it is indeed remarkable.

The damaged homes have been demolished, some of the victims are still recovering, a lawsuit is pending, and many of the people affected by the crash are cutting through red tape, as my colleague Kelli Stopczynski so skillfully reported in a recent in-depth story. It’s worth your time (may not work on some mobile devices):

Occasionally I will use this space to highlight some of the great #avgeek videos on YouTube. Old airline commercials, planespotting, etc... there's a lot of cool stuff out there. Lets take a trip back to the 1970's for a glimpse into the Continental DC-10, complete with a pub and electronic pong arcade in coach. Cheers!

Her name may not ring a bell with most Americans, but they have no doubt seen National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman at the forefront of some of the most significant transportation accidents of the last five years, including the Asiana 214 crash in San Francisco last year. She announced today that she will leave the NTSB at the end of April.

When I worked as a reporter in Alaska, Hersman came up to investigate the 2010 crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens. At first I thought her delivery during press conferences was almost monotone or robotic, but it quickly became clear that this was a deliberate style -- there was no misunderstanding what she was telling you. She was there to state the facts as they were available and explain the process of investigating a crash. 

Sometimes reporters can ask silly questions, but I've found that NTSB investigators, including Hersman, generally handle press conferences with great skill, making explicitly clear to the press the NTSB objectives and timelines. 

For those of you who don't really know what it is, the NTSB is an independent federal agency tasked with investigating every aviation accident, as well as some rail, vehicle, marine, and pipeline incidents. Their work saves lives and prevents injuries. They publish recommendations at the conclusion of their investigation that can result in significant changes in air safety policy. 

Hersman is to be commended for making the NTSB more visible and more accessible, not only to the press, but also the public. Take for example the stunning photos they tweeted following Asiana 214:

Let’s hope the agency's next leader continues to engage the drivers, commuters, passengers, and pilots who are affected by their work daily. 

I'll leave you with this story NBC News produced about what Hersman, a mother of three, is like when she's away from the office (may not work on mobile devices):

If you happened to scroll through Twitter, open your Facebook app, or log onto any one of dozens of major news sites in the hours after MH370 lost contact with ATC last week, you would have been led to believe that an A320, 737, 747, or even an A380 superjumbo was missing. In fact none of that was true. But the hastily-posted graphics which accompanied stories on the incident would have led you to believe otherwise.

Granted, to the lay observer who knows little about aviation, most of the airliners on the tarmac at an airport look the same and therefore the graphics and photos of aircraft other than a 777-200ER seemed appropriate. But accuracy matters, particularly during breaking news when everyone is racing to get their info out first and stories are going viral on social media.

My point is this -- if you were doing a story about a Honda recall, you wouldn’t post a photo of a Ford. It’s not hard to find a stock photo of a 777. Heck, if you aren’t sure of the aircraft type, you could even just use the airline’s logo and later replace it with something more compelling and accurate.

Pictures of anguish may exacerbate the pain

Three days after the disappearance, I’m still seeing images on social media showing panicked families arriving at the airport in Beijing, having learned that their loved ones may never return home.

In that moment when the shutter clicked, those people (moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and children) were experiencing what was without question the most heart-wrenching moment of their lives.

The photos tell an important story and illustrate the confusion and anguish that exists in the immediate wake of an aviation disaster; however they should be used with great care and perhaps not attached to every single update a newsroom publishes on the investigation.

I recently read about the mother of a victim of the 1989 Pan Am 103 bombing, who was shown in news video the night of the disaster writhing in agony on the floor of the terminal at JFK screaming for her “baby.” She fell to pieces in front of a crush of TV cameras and her pain was broadcast worldwide. It is an intensely painful clip, which can still be viewed on YouTube. The woman later told a journalist that she felt the photographers and reporters capturing her anguish that night were barbaric, lacking compassion and humanity.

Yes, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that first and foremost reporters should “seek truth and report it,” but immediately following that the code says to “minimize harm.” It is a careful and tricky balance to follow both of those when covering an aviation disaster, but it can and should be done.