Plane

Khadijah Williams stepped into chemistry class and instantly tuned out the commotion. She walked past students laughing, gossiping, napping and combing one another's hair. Past a cellphone blaring rap songs. And past a substitute teacher sitting in a near-daze. Quietly, the 18-year-old settled into an empty table, flipped open her physics book and focused. Nothing mattered now except homework. "No wonder you're going to Harvard," a girl teased her. Around here, Khadijah is known as "Harvard girl," the "smart girl" and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago. What students don't know is that she is also a homeless girl.

My nomination for American hero of the 20th century is someone who lived half his life in disguise and the other half as the world's most recognizable man. He appeared on more radio broadcasts than Ellery Queen and in more movies than Marlon Brando, who once played his father. He helped give America the backbone to wage war against the Nazis, the Depression and the Red Menace. He remains an intimate to kids from Boston to Belgrade and has adult devotees who, like Talmudic scholars, parse his every utterance.

THE BEST WAY TO VANUATU From LAX, Qantas, Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia offer connecting service (change of plane) to Air Vanuatu and Port-Vila. The best time to visit is May to September; the rainy season is November through April. WHERE TO STAY White Grass Ocean Resort, Tanna; http://www.whitegrassvanuatu.com.vu. Doubles from $284, includes breakfast. They will also arrange your trip to the volcano. Ratua Private Island, http://www.ratua.com . $430 per person, per night (two-night minimum stay)

Airports will be crowded this summer and empty airline seats rare as Americans take to the skies in numbers that are expected to edge closer to the pre-recession peak. Nearly 209 million people will fly on U.S.-based airlines this summer, up 1% from a year earlier, according to an estimate released Thursday by Airlines for America, the trade group for the nation's airlines. That would mark the fourth year in a row that passenger totals have increased, climbing close to the pre-recession total of 210 million in 2008.

Dear Amy: I am 5 foot 3 inches and weigh 112 pounds. I recently took a flight where the man sitting next to me weighed at least 250 pounds. There was an armrest between us that I had put down when I sat down, and when he came and sat in his seat next to mine, he put it back up. This left me very uncomfortable, as I had to lean away from him the whole flight because he had taken up my unused space in my seat. I paid for my seat and don't feel that I should be uncomfortable to make someone else more comfortable.

Firebird spy plane Operates with or without onboard pilot Wingspan: 65 feet Length: 34 feet Height: 9.7 feet Top speed: About 230 mph Altitude: 30,000 feet Maximum endurance: 40 hours Payload capacity: 1,240 pounds Source: Northrop Grumman

Apparently Rihanna took the chorus of her new single "Diamonds" to heart -- her latest promotional gambit for her album "Unapologetic" is the shiniest, booziest thing in the friendly skies this week . The Barbados-born singer has chartered a private jet to schlep around 250 comrades, contest winners and media folks for seven stops on her "777" world tour of small clubs that includes stops in Mexico City, London and elsewhere. Though this just sounds like a dreary, Dickensian hell, the passengers are doing their best to fight through the pulverizing boredom of being plied with Armand de Brignac champagne, tequila shots and Courvoisier in the company of one of the world's most famous and beautiful pop stars while jetting to exotic locales.

AMARILLO, Texas — A JetBlue captain who screamed that Iraq or Afghanistan had planted a bomb on a Las Vegas-bound flight was locked out of the cockpit, tackled and restrained by passengers Tuesday, passengers said. The captain of Flight 191 from New York JFK International Airport had a "medical situation" and that the pilot, who subsequently took command of the aircraft, elected to land in Amarillo, Texas about 10 a.m., JetBlue Airways said in a statement. Josh Redick, a passenger sitting near the middle of the plane, said the pilot "stormed out" of the cockpit.

Feel free to move about the cabin -- and hula. Twenty performers from San Francisco's Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu hula troupe stepped from their seats and started dancing on a flight from San Francisco to Honolulu earlier this month. A video released by Hawaiian Airlines, above, shows the troupe singing "Ke Aloha" as well as "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" as music flows from the plane's speakers. Flash mobs often use airports as their stage, but there's something fun about the surprise factor at 38,000 feet in the air (unless you're trying to sleep or work)

The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into how three jets barely avoided a midair collision over Washington's Reagan National Airport earlier this week, the latest high-profile error in a system that has recorded thousands of mistakes by air traffic controllers in recent years. The incident involving three planes, all operated by US Airways, took place Tuesday around 2 p.m. EDT The aircraft were carrying a combined 192 passengers and crew, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the story.

WASHINGTON - Two "known or suspected" terrorists who cooperated with the government and were placed in the Witness Security Program later were able to board airplanes and quietly vanish, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded in a report that was highly critical of how the government handles some of its most dangerous witnesses. Administration officials said Thursday that the pair left the country years ago and had since been located. But the office of the inspector general found that federal officials, primarily at the U.S. Marshals Service, which runs the program, had not been doing enough to monitor and handle the former terrorists.

One pilot died after two small planes collided Monday afternoon over Ventura County, sending one plummeting into a mountainside and forcing the other to land on a golf course. Both planes were Cessna single-engine aircraft. At least one had departed from Santa Monica Airport before crashing about 2 p.m. in the Santa Monica Mountains, according to preliminary information from the Federal Aviation Administration. The other, which had three people on board, belly landed at the Westlake Golf Course.

Re "Change allowing knives on planes is delayed," Business, April 23 On many airlines, metal knives are given to premium passengers during meal service. Back when I was traveling on business, those knives were stainless steel, with three-inch blades and serrated cutting edges. They were potentially more deadly than my Swiss Army pocketknife. I once had two-inch gaming darts confiscated at an airport. Then I got on the plane and was issued a knife for my meal. Talk about the death of common sense in this country.

It looks as if you won't get to bring that pocket knife on your next flight after all. The Transportation Security Administration has delayed a policy change that would have allowed passengers to carry small folding knives onto planes. In a letter Monday to employees, TSA chief John Pistole said he decided to maintain, at least temporarily, a post-9/11 ban on knives after meeting with an aviation security panel. The policy change allowing knives had been scheduled to take effect Thursday.

Nearly a week after a computer glitch grounded hundreds of its planes, American Airlines has yet to disclose the exact cause of the problem that frustrated passengers stuck in crowded terminals across the country. American's chief executive, Tom Horton, would say in a video apology only that "we had a software issue that impacted both our primary and backup systems. " But as airline computer systems become more interactive and complicated, computer experts warn that outages may become more common if airlines do not regularly test and maintain their systems.

You won't be taking your Swiss Army knife onto the plane with you on Thursday after all. In a surprise delay, John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration, said a change that would allow passengers to carry on small knives and some other formerly banned items (hockey sticks, golf clubs) had been delayed. The rule change was to have gone into effect on Thursday. A TSA spokesperson on Monday wrote in an email: "In order to accommodate further input from the Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC)

BEIRUT -- Syrian rebels claimed Thursday they downed an Iranian plane that was landing at Damascus Airport and suspected of carrying weapons and ammunition for the Syrian government. The statement came as about a dozen students at Damascus University's architecture college were killed in separate mortar attacks. The Iranian plane was hit Wednesday by the rebels' anti-aircraft weaponry, crashed at the airport and exploded, causing a fire at the main terminal, opposition activists said.

Disassembled, the Spruce Goose is now the Loose Goose. RAY GRAYSON El Cajon