Sunday, 7 July 2013
"Hersman said investigators are looking into what role the shutdown of a key navigational aid may have played in the crash. She said the glide slope — a ground-based aid that helps pilots stay on course while landing — had been shut down since June"
And amid the chaos, some urged fellow passengers to keep calm, even as flames tore through the Boeing 777's fuselage.
As investigators try to determine what caused the crash of Flight 214 that killed two passengers Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, the accident left many wondering how nearly all 307 people aboard were able to make it out alive.
"It's miraculous we survived," said passenger Vedpal Singh, who had a fractured collarbone and whose arm was in a sling.
Investigators took the flight data recorder to Washington, D.C., overnight to begin examining its contents for clues to the last moments of the flight, officials said. They also plan to interview the pilots, the crew and passengers.
"I think we're very thankful that the numbers were not worse when it came to fatalities and injuries," said National Transportation Safety Board chief Deborah Hersman on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "It could have been much worse."
Hersman said investigators are looking into what role the shutdown of a key navigational aid may have played in the crash. She said the glide slope — a ground-based aid that helps pilots stay on course while landing — had been shut down since June.
She said pilots were sent a notice warning that the glide slope wasn't available. Hersman told CBS' "Face the Nation" that there were many other navigation tools available to help pilots land. She says investigators will be "taking a look at it all."
Since the crash, clues have emerged in witness accounts of the planes approach and video of the wreckage, leading one aviation expert to say the aircraft may have approached the runway too low and something may have caught the runway lip — a seawall at the foot of the runway.
San Francisco is one of several airports around the country that border bodies of water that have walls at the end of their runways to prevent planes that overrun a runway from ending up in the water.
Since the plane was about to land, its landing gear would have already been down, said Mike Barr, a former military pilot and accident investigator who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California.
It's possible the landing gear or the tail of the plane hit the seawall, he said. If that happened, it would effectively slam the plane into the runway.
Noting that some witnesses reported hearing the plane's engines rev up just before the crash, Barr said that would be consistent with a pilot who realized at the last minute that the plane was too low and was increasing power to the engines to try to increase altitude.
Barr said he could think of no reason why a plane would come in to land that low.
"When you heard that explosion, that loud boom and you saw the black smoke ... you just thought, my god, everybody in there is gone," said Ki Siadatan, who lives a few miles away from the airport and watched the plane's "wobbly" and "a little bit out of control" approach from his balcony.
"My initial reaction was I don't see how anyone could have made it," he said.
Inside the plane, Singh, who was sitting in the middle of the aircraft with his family, said there was no forewarning from the pilot or any crew members before the plane touched down hard and he heard a loud sound.
"We knew something was horrible wrong," said a visibly shaken Singh. He said the plane went silent before people tried to get out anyway they could. His 15-year-old son said luggage tumbled from the overhead bins.
Passenger Benjamin Levy said it looked to him that the plane was flying too low and too close to the bay as it approached the runway. Levy, who was sitting in an emergency exit row, said he felt the pilot try to lift the jet up before it crashed.
He said he thought the maneouver might have saved some lives. "Everybody was screaming. I was trying to usher them out," he recalled of the first seconds after the landing. "I said: 'Stay calm, stop screaming, help each other out, don't push.'"
By the time the flames were out, much of the top of the fuselage had burned away. The tail section was gone, with pieces of it scattered across the beginning of the runway. One engine appeared to have broken away.
The flight originated in Shanghai, China, and stopped over in Seoul, South Korea, before making the nearly 11-hour trip to San Francisco, airport officials said. The airline said there were 16 crew members aboard and 291 passengers. Thirty of the passengers were children.
San Francisco Fire Department Chief Joanne Hayes-White said the two who died were found outside of the plane. "Having surveyed that area, we're lucky that there hasn't been a greater loss," she said. Airport spokesman Doug Yakel said 49 people were critically injured and 132 had less significant injuries.
South Korean government said the passengers included 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans, 61 Americans, three Canadians, three from India, one Japanese, one Vietnamese and one from France, while the nationalities of the remaining three haven't been confirmed.
Chinese state media identified the dead as two 16-year-old girls from China's eastern Zhejiang province. China Central Television cited a fax from Asiana Airlines to the Jiangshan city government. They were identified as Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia.
At least 70 Chinese students and teachers were on the plane heading to summer camps, according to education authorities in China.
Asiana President Yoon Young-doo said at a televised news conference that it will take time to determine the cause of the crash. But when asked about the possibility of engine or mechanical problems, he said he doesn't believe they could have been the cause.
He said the plane was bought in 2006 but didn't provide further details. Asiana officials later said the plane was also built that year.
Yoon also bowed and offered an apology, "I am bowing my head and extending my deep apology" to the passengers, their families and the South Korean people over the crash, he said. Four pilots were aboard the plane and they rotated on a two-person shift during the flight, according to The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in South Korea. The two who piloted the plane at the time of crash were Lee Jeong-min and Lee Gang-guk.
Yoon, the Asiana president, described the pilots as "skilled," saying three had logged more than 10,000 hours each of flight time. He said the fourth had put in almost that much time, but officials later corrected that to say the fourth had logged nearly 5,000 hours. All four are South Koreans.
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the Star Alliance, which is anchored in the U.S. by United Airlines.
The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is often used for flights from one continent to another because it can travel 12 hours or more without refueling.
The most notable accident involving a 777 occurred on Jan. 17, 2008 at Heathrow Airport in London. British Airways Flight 28 landed hard about 1,000 feet short of the runway and slid onto the start of the runway. The impact broke the 777-200's landing gear. There were 47 injuries, but no fatalities.
And amid the chaos, some urged fellow passengers to keep calm, even as flames tore through the Boeing 777's fuselage.
As investigators try to determine what caused the crash of Flight 214 that killed two passengers Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, the accident left many wondering how nearly all 307 people aboard were able to make it out alive.
"It's miraculous we survived," said passenger Vedpal Singh, who had a fractured collarbone and whose arm was in a sling.
Investigators took the flight data recorder to Washington, D.C., overnight to begin examining its contents for clues to the last moments of the flight, officials said. They also plan to interview the pilots, the crew and passengers.
"I think we're very thankful that the numbers were not worse when it came to fatalities and injuries," said National Transportation Safety Board chief Deborah Hersman on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "It could have been much worse."
Hersman said investigators are looking into what role the shutdown of a key navigational aid may have played in the crash. She said the glide slope — a ground-based aid that helps pilots stay on course while landing — had been shut down since June.
She said pilots were sent a notice warning that the glide slope wasn't available. Hersman told CBS' "Face the Nation" that there were many other navigation tools available to help pilots land. She says investigators will be "taking a look at it all."
Since the crash, clues have emerged in witness accounts of the planes approach and video of the wreckage, leading one aviation expert to say the aircraft may have approached the runway too low and something may have caught the runway lip — a seawall at the foot of the runway.
San Francisco is one of several airports around the country that border bodies of water that have walls at the end of their runways to prevent planes that overrun a runway from ending up in the water.
Since the plane was about to land, its landing gear would have already been down, said Mike Barr, a former military pilot and accident investigator who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California.
It's possible the landing gear or the tail of the plane hit the seawall, he said. If that happened, it would effectively slam the plane into the runway.
Noting that some witnesses reported hearing the plane's engines rev up just before the crash, Barr said that would be consistent with a pilot who realized at the last minute that the plane was too low and was increasing power to the engines to try to increase altitude.
Barr said he could think of no reason why a plane would come in to land that low.
"When you heard that explosion, that loud boom and you saw the black smoke ... you just thought, my god, everybody in there is gone," said Ki Siadatan, who lives a few miles away from the airport and watched the plane's "wobbly" and "a little bit out of control" approach from his balcony.
"My initial reaction was I don't see how anyone could have made it," he said.
Inside the plane, Singh, who was sitting in the middle of the aircraft with his family, said there was no forewarning from the pilot or any crew members before the plane touched down hard and he heard a loud sound.
"We knew something was horrible wrong," said a visibly shaken Singh. He said the plane went silent before people tried to get out anyway they could. His 15-year-old son said luggage tumbled from the overhead bins.
Passenger Benjamin Levy said it looked to him that the plane was flying too low and too close to the bay as it approached the runway. Levy, who was sitting in an emergency exit row, said he felt the pilot try to lift the jet up before it crashed.
He said he thought the maneouver might have saved some lives. "Everybody was screaming. I was trying to usher them out," he recalled of the first seconds after the landing. "I said: 'Stay calm, stop screaming, help each other out, don't push.'"
By the time the flames were out, much of the top of the fuselage had burned away. The tail section was gone, with pieces of it scattered across the beginning of the runway. One engine appeared to have broken away.
The flight originated in Shanghai, China, and stopped over in Seoul, South Korea, before making the nearly 11-hour trip to San Francisco, airport officials said. The airline said there were 16 crew members aboard and 291 passengers. Thirty of the passengers were children.
San Francisco Fire Department Chief Joanne Hayes-White said the two who died were found outside of the plane. "Having surveyed that area, we're lucky that there hasn't been a greater loss," she said. Airport spokesman Doug Yakel said 49 people were critically injured and 132 had less significant injuries.
South Korean government said the passengers included 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans, 61 Americans, three Canadians, three from India, one Japanese, one Vietnamese and one from France, while the nationalities of the remaining three haven't been confirmed.
Chinese state media identified the dead as two 16-year-old girls from China's eastern Zhejiang province. China Central Television cited a fax from Asiana Airlines to the Jiangshan city government. They were identified as Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia.
At least 70 Chinese students and teachers were on the plane heading to summer camps, according to education authorities in China.
Asiana President Yoon Young-doo said at a televised news conference that it will take time to determine the cause of the crash. But when asked about the possibility of engine or mechanical problems, he said he doesn't believe they could have been the cause.
He said the plane was bought in 2006 but didn't provide further details. Asiana officials later said the plane was also built that year.
Yoon also bowed and offered an apology, "I am bowing my head and extending my deep apology" to the passengers, their families and the South Korean people over the crash, he said. Four pilots were aboard the plane and they rotated on a two-person shift during the flight, according to The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in South Korea. The two who piloted the plane at the time of crash were Lee Jeong-min and Lee Gang-guk.
Yoon, the Asiana president, described the pilots as "skilled," saying three had logged more than 10,000 hours each of flight time. He said the fourth had put in almost that much time, but officials later corrected that to say the fourth had logged nearly 5,000 hours. All four are South Koreans.
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the Star Alliance, which is anchored in the U.S. by United Airlines.
The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is often used for flights from one continent to another because it can travel 12 hours or more without refueling.
The most notable accident involving a 777 occurred on Jan. 17, 2008 at Heathrow Airport in London. British Airways Flight 28 landed hard about 1,000 feet short of the runway and slid onto the start of the runway. The impact broke the 777-200's landing gear. There were 47 injuries, but no fatalities.
BEIJING -- The two people who died in an Asiana Airlines plane crash at San Francisco International Airport were Chinese schoolgirls, Chinese state media said Sunday.
Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, students at Jiangshan Middle School in eastern China, died in the crash, state broadcaster China Central Television said, citing a fax from the airline to the Jiangshan city government.
The South Korean airline said in a statement that Ye and Wang were both 16.
A group of 29 students and five teachers had set off from the highly competitive school in Zhejiang, an affluent coastal province. A woman from Zhejiang's education department had said earlier that they had lost contact with two students. The woman gave only her surname, Tang.
Of the 291 passengers onboard, 141 were Chinese. At least 70 Chinese students and teachers were on the plane heading to summer camps, according to education authorities in China.
The flight slammed into the runway while landing at the airport Saturday and caught fire, forcing many to escape by sliding down the emergency inflatable slides as flames tore through the plane. Officials said 182 people were taken to area hospitals.
Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, students at Jiangshan Middle School in eastern China, died in the crash, state broadcaster China Central Television said, citing a fax from the airline to the Jiangshan city government.
The South Korean airline said in a statement that Ye and Wang were both 16.
A group of 29 students and five teachers had set off from the highly competitive school in Zhejiang, an affluent coastal province. A woman from Zhejiang's education department had said earlier that they had lost contact with two students. The woman gave only her surname, Tang.
Of the 291 passengers onboard, 141 were Chinese. At least 70 Chinese students and teachers were on the plane heading to summer camps, according to education authorities in China.
The flight slammed into the runway while landing at the airport Saturday and caught fire, forcing many to escape by sliding down the emergency inflatable slides as flames tore through the plane. Officials said 182 people were taken to area hospitals.
Saturday, 6 July 2013
| BREAKING NEWS | Saturday, July 6, 2013 3:16 PM EDT |
| A Boeing 777 operated by the Korean airline Asiana crashed Saturday afternoon while landing at San Francisco International Airport, the Federal Aviation Authority said. |
| Images and video posted by eyewitnesses to the crash showed the plane, apparently on fire, billowing smoke. |
| It was not clear, in the immediate aftermath of the crash, how many people were on board and whether anyone had been killed or injured. The F.A.A. said it could not immediately provide further details |
Friday, 5 July 2013
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/katie-hopkins-branded-an-insufferable-snob-after-this-morning-debate-on-childrens-names-8690468.html
Some of us do cringe when we hear children being called sometimes weird and sometimes silly names, but stopping our children play with them because their names denote their class and intellectual ability is more than insufferable snobbery. It is the worst kind of discrimination.
This 'intellectual' (Hopkins) declared she didn’t like geographical names such as Brooklyn or London and when Phillip Schofield, a presenter of the programme, pointed out that her own daughter’s name is India. "Not a location", she replied.
Rather than creating a children's apartheid, we should be finding out what prompts people to call their children crazy names. And by the way it is not just working class parents who have a penchant for some of the strangest names, some celebrities do it too. I bet Hopkins would have no problem with her kids playing with their children, but they might have with hers.
Some of us do cringe when we hear children being called sometimes weird and sometimes silly names, but stopping our children play with them because their names denote their class and intellectual ability is more than insufferable snobbery. It is the worst kind of discrimination.
This 'intellectual' (Hopkins) declared she didn’t like geographical names such as Brooklyn or London and when Phillip Schofield, a presenter of the programme, pointed out that her own daughter’s name is India. "Not a location", she replied.
Rather than creating a children's apartheid, we should be finding out what prompts people to call their children crazy names. And by the way it is not just working class parents who have a penchant for some of the strangest names, some celebrities do it too. I bet Hopkins would have no problem with her kids playing with their children, but they might have with hers.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Chatting with a friend on Facebook this morning. I discovered that my posts were not appearing on my timeline. I came to find out about this when I told him to check out this video of Russell Brand I had just posted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ or http://www.upworthy.com/when-the-most-professional-person-on-your-show-is-the-guest-its-time-to-pack-it-in?c=ufb1
Brand really showed the programme anchor and co hosts up so brilliantly. They kept referring to him as though he was not there and saying "he" when referring to him instead of using his name. He told them that that showed bad manners and boy was he right. He also showed up the superficiality and lack of tackling the really serious issues. Anyway, you should watch the video. The really good bits are nearer the end.
But back to FB "Not there" my friend told me. "Try my Timeline" I responded. "None of your posts are showing up" he told me, adding, "do you ever get an likes or comment on your posts?" Well funny he should mention that, I don't. I had just assumed people just were not interested in what I had to say, I did not for a moment take it as a personal affront.
On the other hand, I am now thinking that people might have got the wrong impression of me (on FB) as someone who wants to know what everyone is up to, yet not divulging any of my info. Then reading that "The State Department spent more than $630,000 on advertising campaigns to boost the number of Facebook 'likes' for the agency's pages on the website", according to a report released by the agency's inspector general.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/04/state-department-spent-630k-on-facebook-likes-report-says/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2Y4aItiJk
I also came to realise that I also had not fully understood the potenial power of "likes"
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Great start for a new broom
What on earth is going on? I thought we, the law-abiding public, were going to get a break with a new government. Instead, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) is now going to grant a reprieve to all the cowboys who ignored planning rules. I read with grave concern that the enforcement rules to be changed by MEPA will mean that property owners who built illegally will now have “up to three years to get their non-compliant structures approved”.
Now what kind of message is that relaying? The people who followed the rules must be fuming and rightly so. Mepa is now giving lawbreakers a long ‘breathing’ space to get their illegality sanctioned. Great start for a new government and the new Mepa board, which has introduced an enforcement provision that allows developers 36 months “to try and obtain any necessary sanctioning”.The lawbreakers are antisocial, to say the least, but the supposed caretakers and enforcers, (i.e. the government, voted in by the people in good faith, which has not only allowed this kind of behaviour to take place but is now rewarding the wrongdoers) are the worst offenders.
MEPA, with the government’s blessing, is not only getting softer with lawbreakers but is also extending expired building permits and encouraging developers to increase hotel building heights. Is it strategy that all these decisions are being taken before the Environment section is separated from MEPA?
Has this new wave to get illegality legal have any bearing on the boathouses and caravans saga, by any chance? Well done Mr Justice Anthony Ellul who has just ruled that construction on public land at Little Armier is illegal and caravan occupants have no legal title to the land.
Armier Developments Ltd and a number of caravan occupants requested the court to declare that they were legally entitled to make use of their constructions at Armier in virtue of an agreement entered into with the government in 2003. They also requested a declaration that the eviction order issued against them by the Commissioner of Lands was not enforceable.
Armier Bay is illegally occupied by boathouse owners who built their summer huts over 67,000 square metres of seafront in an outside development zone. And this is not the only bay taken over by squatters. I am not sure when the rot started, but the problem we are facing today is down to the two political parties (PL & PN) granting favours to garner votes. And I am not saying anything new here.
The judge pointed out that in April 2003, the then Minister for Home Affairs (Tonio Borg) had informed Armier Developments Ltd by means of a letter that the government was ready to accept the construction of a number of units in the area subject to a number of conditions.
So instead of righting a wrong, the now European Commissioner was then aiding and abetting Armier Developments Ltd. The judge also said that the Leader of the Opposition (Alfred Sant) had confirmed, in 2007, that the agreement reached between plaintiffs and the Labour Party about the boathouses would be honoured. More aiding and abetting.
Nineteen days before the 2008 general election and just five days after announcing he was taking over responsibility for MEPA, to redress the country's “environmental deficit”, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had written to the Armier squatters promising to legalise the illegal boathouse community, six months after being re-elected.
“Promising to legalise the illegal”, is that no clearer proof of aiding and abetting the lawbreakers. Was that redressing the country’s environmental deficit? Of course not and our new government is about to follow suit. In March this year, Armier Developments Ltd wrote to its members saying that Joseph Muscat has confirmed an agreement originally reached in 2002 with Labour MP Joe Mizzi. So the rot continues to rot.
What intrigues me is this: despite all the promises made by the political parties to the people who want to continue breaking the law, how does each party know who, in fact, the secret vote went to? They would have got their way anyway whoever finally governs.
Mr Justice Ellul pointed out that the caravans in question were very close to the sea and were built on public land, which was in the public domain. The foreshore, said the court, could not be subjected to private rights. The court added that the letter sent by the government in April 2003 could not be deemed a binding contract for the parties were conducting negotiations.
The letter was explaining what the government was proposing. It was inconceivable, the court said, that that letter could be construed as a binding contract allowing persons who had illegally occupied public land to continue occupying it. Neither was the confirmation issued in 2008 a binding contract between the parties, for no one was entitled to occupy public land without a legal title. Transfers of public land had to be carried out in terms of law.
Yet, both political parties have blithely ignored the rule of law and made up their own rules to suit as they went along. The court also referred to the fact that the caravans had been provided with water and electricity services adding that the fact that Enemalta had provided the caravans with services gave rise to many questions. Indeed, who is going to be held accountable for that gross mismanagement?
Alternattiva Demokratika has welcomed the judgement and noted that in past years it campaigned actively for the demolition of the Armier shantytown. The issue formed part of AD’s electoral manifesto in the last elections. Unfortunately, people are still not prepared to give AD a fighting chance.
Its deputy chairman, Carmel Cacopardo, said that land next to the sea should be accessible to all and not just a select few. Who can disagree with that? He called on the Prime Minister as the minister responsible for the Lands Department, to “call in the demolition people next Monday”.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he would wait for advice on this morning's ruling before taking any action and pointed out that it could still be appealed.
Come on Prime Minister, just having public consultation meetings will get us nowhere unless action is taken. This is your chance to prove that you are indeed different and let’s hope the appeal judges will not overrule Mr Justice Ellul’s sane judgement, which should set a precedent and give back all the bays taken over illegally back to the public domain.
Published on Sunday, 30 June 2013
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