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The world's longest commercial flight took off from Singapore Thursday, with excited and apprehensive passengers on board settling in for a marathon 19 hours in the air to New York. Two pilots, a special "wellness" menu and more than 7 weeks' worth of film and television entertainment accompany the travellers on the 16,700-kilometre journey to the Big Apple. For the flight crew - which also includes 2 first officers and a 13-strong cabin contingent - the workload will be broken up, the airline said, with each pilot having a minimum 8 hours' rest during the flight. But for passengers, the challenge will be what to do with all that down time when they're up in the air. For those not packing a weighty novel, there will be 1,200 hours of audio-visual entertainment to choose from. <br/>

Aviation-safety officials say a close call last year points out the need for faster reporting of dangerous incidents before evidence is lost. The NTSN issued a final report Thursday on the incident in which an Air Canada jet nearly crashed into planes lined up on the ground at San Francisco International. The pilots were slow to report the incident to superiors. By the time they did, the plane had made another flight and the incident’s cockpit voice recording was recorded over. The NTSB says the recording could have helped investigators understand why the Air Canada pilots missed the runway and were about to land on a taxiway where 4 other planes were idling before they aborted. The Air Canada captain was supposed to report the incident to the airline as soon as possible but didn't because he was "very tired" and it was late. <br/>