Also interested in a response to this. And if/when a Marshall is present, why? Is it random or do they consider something abnormal about the flight?

It would be really weird for an air marshal to be in a middle seat. They can legally take any seat they want, even if it's already assigned, and as far as I know they always take aisle seats for obvious tactical reasons.

It could have been a law enforcement officer of some other sort.

I'm not sure it's illegal to carry ammunition on the plane, but considering the casual reaction of the FA, it seems likely that the passenger in question was known to be carrying.

This was not necessarily an air marshal. It could have been any law enforcement officer (LEO). Regardless of whether it was a LEO or an air marshal, the entire crew would know of their presence on board. Unless things are rushed, the air marshals introduce themselves to the crew. But even if there's not a face-to-face meeting, we always know their seat numbers.

Air marshals are randomly placed on flights but they can also be specifically assigned to a flight if there is a reason for heightened security. You just never know.

Wanted to command KLM ITT. Gf got awfully sick (food poisoning unrelated to the airplane food) Mid-Atlantic on a 12 hours flight to South America. Crew bumped us to business so that she could lie down, served me two business class meals, the captain checked on us multiple times, they made sure an ambulance waited for us, took care of our immigration stuff and of our luggage and sent someone to check on her at the hospital and organized us a really nice hotel with a discount. A really ****ty situation to deal with and they made it so much better for us.

That's awesome.

Too many companies think 'smiling', 'using your name', etc. are what it takes to have good customer service when in reality its how they react to situations like this that really makes a difference. And not even something extreme as what happened in your case, but just doing little things that actually make a customers life a bit easier whenever possible.

Jl and JJ hit it on the head. Good cs in a bad situation.

This just happened on Monday evening here at Incheon, Korea.

Apparently they lost part of the landing gear during takeoff (Alaska bound) and had to abort. They skidded along the 33L, through the localizer and towards the fence/wall. All 5 on board walked away without injuries.

We have two weeks to put up a new localizer and have it flight calibrated. This is my first "smashed by plane" incident!

Question: I presume there are other approaches (RNAV, VOR/DME) into that particular runway into Incheon. How much of a pain in the ass as a pilot is it to fly a back course approach?

They closed 15R/33L now because of this, but still have two more runways. All ICN runways have ILS in both directions (LOC/GP/DME) and inner marker/middle marker. There are two Doppler also.
I will put up some more photos I took today. They are trying to figure out how to haul that beast out of the area.

The middle picture shows that the LOC foundation is still intact, amazingly so. I also snapped a few pictures of the tire tracks and how deep they are.

WOXOF---on several Kennedy Steve videos on YouTube, he asks what appear to me, anyway, taxiing aircraft to turn off their strobe lights. Why would he do that, and what is the purpose for strobes in the first place?

Hope all is well.

Strobes should only be on when airborne or on an active runway. After landing, the landing lights and strobes are extinguished when the plane turns off the runway. Occasionally, they are forgotten and it's pretty obnoxious to taxi around with those bright flashing lights. Kennedy Steve is doing everyone a favor by pointing it out when someone has their strobes on.

I never knew this. I don't think I've ever turned mine off at an airport, taxiing or parked or whatever.

So you're that guy!

Is that just at night or is it a nuisance during the day too?

While it's not nearly as annoying during daylight hours, it's still considered bad form. Kind of like driving down the highway with your turn signal on; it just marks you as a little bit clueless.

With the technology in a modern jetliner, it surprises me that "forgetting to turn off the strobes" can even be a thing. The darn thing can literally land itself but can't figure out how to shut the blinkers off when you vacate?!

Sarcasm obv. since I'm sure this isn't worth automating, but it does strike me funny sometimes the juxtaposition of insanely complex systems and stuff like checking circuit breakers.

I'm not quite sure how the plane would "know" that it is not on an active runway.

I'm sure it could probably figure things out after takeoff and landing but yah I reckon there would still need to be manual control for taxi situations. Ok fine do it yourself then. Was just trying to save you some switch throws

Maybe GPS could confirm its on a taxiway rather than a runway at all and if it's the end of the flight rather than the start it could turn them off or at least give an audio reminder.

The Airbus has something similar to a squat switch so the strobes go on as soon as the airplane is in the air.

Hope all is going well for you Captain. Thanks again on an awesome thread!

Thanks. The CAT scan I had was good, but I think the FAA is going to want to see two good ones in a row. Next one scheduled for September. Meanwhile, I've started the ball rolling on getting back to work.

Feeling good however, so just trying to enjoy my forced vacation with plenty of golf and poker. I even went to LA to be on Live At the Bike last Thursday. Unfortunately, it was maybe the only session that had such bad production problems it never made the archives.

I had my first streamed game experience there a few weeks ago as well. After the first-timer's nerves settled down, had a nice time. Played low limit PLO and an after show game as well.