Airplane News: Tax Hike For Business Jets, 787 Troubles, and United Loses Tire After Take Off

Welcome to your weekly General Aviation news update, and this week we have 3 stories for you; proposed tax hike for business jets, 787 troubles, and United loses tire after take off. First this week is a proposed tax increase for business jet operators. The tax increase would be implemented by raising the federal tax on Jet Fuel fivefold over the next 5 years. Estimated revenue to be generated would total 1.1 billion which would be funneled into the FAA to increase the number of air traffic controllers by 2000. The proposal has gotten push back from several aviation groups including the NBAA, who said “The Biden administration’s sweeping plan would hurt business aviation and the jobs and communities that depend on it, and make it harder for U.S. companies to compete in a global economy,” It doesn’t appear this proposal has any bills associated with it, so we’ll have to wait and see if this is just talk. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/biden-administration-proposes-five-fold-jet-fuel-tax-hike-for-bizjets/ Next up is another fire for Boeing, a LATAM Airlines 787-9 experienced a technical issue which resulted a sudden drop injuring between 30 and 50 passengers. The Dreamliner was cruising at 41,000 feet and was two hours into the flight. A passenger said the captain told him the “Gauges went blank” and he was unable to control the airplane during the incident. Pretty scary stuff, we’ll be following this one for sure. https://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/technical-event-cited-in-787-sudden-loss-of-altitude/ Last up, A United Airlines 777 taking off from San Francisco lost a tire. The flight was initially scheduled from San Francisco to Osaka, Japan but diverted and landed at LAX. The tire fell off destroying and damaging a number of cars in a parking lot near SFO. No one was injured by the rogue tire. It’s likely this was a maintenance issue and yet another issue plaguing Boeing. https://abc7news.com/flight-emergency-sfo-tire-falls-from-united-airlines-to-osaka-35/14500843/ Alright, that’s it! Have a great week and we’ll see you next week.