In Flight

Federal and USAir officials are investigating why a Boeing 737 lost one of its wheels shortly after taking off from Baltimore-Washington International Airport Tuesday evening.No one was injured when Flight 1660, en route to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, landed at 5:32 p.m., minutes after taking off, officials said."It's very, very rare," Mary Jo Capizzi, a USAir spokeswoman, said of the incident. "The plane did land smoothly."She said the pilot and a maintenance crew checked the aircraft just before take-off and all the wheels appeared to be in working order.

Maybe I've been watching too much 24, but it seems that passengers have been getting a bit more pro-active in the air. Or in one case, before the plane even leaves the ground. It's been more than seven years since the tragedy of Sept.11, but the American flier's psyche has forever been altered. We remain alert, subjecting our fellow passengers to a level of scrutiny that has nothing to do with who's hogging the overhead bin. And if necessary, we speak up or get up. Earlier this month on a flight boarding at Reagan National in Washington, a Muslim family from Virginia was removed from the plane after fellow passengers reportedly heard one of their party talking about airplane safety.

For years, Charles J. Cignatta's "office" was the cockpit of chase planes high over the Chesapeake Bay, where he filmed the dips and rolls of aircraft going through their paces after emerging from the Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River.Mr. Cignatta, who spent a nearly five-decade career with the manufacturer of airplanes and spacecraft, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at Franklin Woods Center-Genesis Eldercare. The Essex resident was 85.Armed with his heavy Speed Graphic or Aeroflex movie camera, Mr. Cignatta photographed Martin Co. projects, from World War II-era bombers and seaplanes to jets and missiles and even the installation of a nuclear power plant at the South Pole.

Arthur Francis "Frank" Carven III, an attorney who co-founded an advocacy group after his sister and her 9-year-old son were killed in the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800, died of pancreatic cancer Thursday at his Forest Hill home. He was 54. Mr. Carven, formerly the Harford County government's top lawyer, sat on the Maryland Workers' Compensation Commission at his death. Born in Boston and raised in Dearborn, Mich. and Wilmington, Del., he earned a bachelor of arts in history at the University of Delaware and his law degree in 1978 from the University of Baltimore, where he was a member of the Heuisler Honor Society.

Sunlight winked off the silver skin of the P-51 Mustang fighter as it screamed in low over the clipped-grass airstrip as though on a strafing run, then spun upward in a series of snap rolls, grabbing for altitude before reversing to swoop in for a neat landing.John A. Kirk was reliving the adventures of his youth.In 1944, he was a 20-year-old fighter jockey who got a double kill in his first taste of combat in a P-47 Thunderbolt, shooting down two German fighters, a Messerschmitt 109 and a Focke-Wulf 190, on one mission over Europe.

One of the functions theater serves is to take you to other places. Watching "Sam's Tormented Angels" at the Theatre Project, I was transported back 25 years, to a gym at Tufts University, where I sat entranced, listening to Allen Ginsberg read his poetry, chant mantras and sing some of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience."Teater Albatross, a Swedish troupe, has captured much of Ginsberg's spirit in this odd, poetic, biographical work, which is making its American debut here, before engagements at New York's La Mama E.T.C.

Alaska Airlines and the Boeing Co. will not contest their liability in the crash three years ago of Flight 261 off the Southern California coast under an agreement approved yesterday, clearing the way for the resolution of outstanding claims and protecting the companies from further scrutiny by the families of victims. Legal experts say most remaining claims probably will be settled out of court, but a few could go to trial, focusing on the misery of the 83 passengers and five crew members during the more than 10 minutes it took the disabled jet to tumble into the Pacific Ocean.

Plane flights can be incredibly boring and unproductive. Oh, sure, you can pretend to read memos from your briefcase or tap away at the little keyboard on your laptop, but too often you end up snoozing.That's because flying tends to cut us off from many aspects of reality. While we are suspended in the air, we are also suspended from news of the world around us. Right?Well, prepare for a world of change.Someday soon, you will check your luggage, get your boarding pass and make your way to your seat as usual -- only to find yourself facing a glowing monochrome computer screen on the back of the seat in front of you.Curiouser still, you will discover a handset stowed in your armrest.

US Airways Group Inc. said yesterday that it would remove in-flight movie systems from its domestic aircraft to save about $10 million a year in fuel and other costs. The carrier decided to pull the entertainment systems because the number of people paying $5 for headsets has dropped as money spent on jet fuel, maintenance and studio fees has climbed. The video systems add about 500 pounds to a plane's weight, increasing fuel use. "When you combine dramatically increasing expense with dramatically decreasing revenue, that is a bad recipe and we simply can't afford to do it anymore," Travis Christ, US Airways vice president for sales and marketing, said.

Last fall, three friends and I flew from Lisbon, Portugal, to Los Angeles by way of Philadelphia. On the flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, I was showing them my new camera and took a few pictures of our surroundings. A flight attendant came to me and told me to show her the pictures, which I did. On our arrival, armed officers escorted us off the plane, separated us and made us wait for the authorities. They asked ridiculous questions ("What's your eye color?") and, in the end, they let us go with no apologies.