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| 5/24 |
| 2005/8/2-4 [Transportation/Airplane] UID:38942 Activity:kinda low |
8/2 What happens when your pilot doesn't know how to land a plane
correctly: (Paris -> Toronto, 309 passengers, Airbus 340)
http://csua.org/u/cw6 (Yahoo! News slideshow)
"Leah Walker, a radio reporter in Toronto, said she saw a third of the
plane fall and that the rest became a fireball." ...
Marx said he initially didn't think anything was wrong. But then,
"The guy I was with piped up, 'You know, he's getting pretty close to
the end.' Immediately afterward, right off he went."
\_ Isn't the A340 supposed to be auto-everything?
\_ Wheew. Apparently no one died:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8801366
\_ The pilot has killed himself:
\_ The pilot has killed himself: --danh
http://csua.org/u/cwc
\_ Some of you guys have wierd senses of humor.
\_ I laughed. Does that mean I'm demented?
\_ Yermummy!
\_ Whoever enjoys signing my name to the motd, I do
\- "Whomever" --psb
not add "--" to the beginning of my name, try
only 1 dash next time. - danh
\- The time has come for:
http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/News/SQ-crash1.txt
http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/News/SQ-crash2.txt
\_ I don't get it, why was this posted?
\_ I dunno but it made me look up the real facts:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/air-07n.shtml
Oh and haha, I just noticed it's from "world socialist"
web site. Whatever. I guess this is better:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/taiwancrash
If anyone cares.
\_ CNN - complete waste of airwaves... they can't report
anything on happening in real-time. -cnn_sufferer
anything on real, happening events. |
| 5/24 |
|
| csua.org/u/cw6 -> news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/wl/080205torontoplane;_ylt=ArH7qbt4tn0ilt2PECPaVhms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-- Multiple Photos Photo Reuters - Tue Aug 2, 6:02 PM ET Frame grab taken from CTV television footage of Air France plane in flame s after running off a runaway at Toronto airport August 2, 2005. The pla ne was on fire after apparently running off the runway at Toronto's Pear son International Airport, CP-24 Television said on Tuesday. The televis ion showed pictures of flames and smoke from the fuselage of the jet, ap parently a large, wide-body jet. CNN said it appeared that there were 20 0 people aboard. |
| msnbc.msn.com/id/8801366 World News Passengers recall a 'hell of a roller coaster' Airbus A340 skidded off Toronto runway, plunged into wooded ravine MSNBC staff and news service reports TORONTO - The 309 passengers and crew members aboard an Air France jet su rvived a "hell of a roller coaster" Tuesday as the aircraft skidded off a runway in Toronto and plunged into a wooded ravine before bursting int o flames. Steven Shaw of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority said at a news confe rence that there were "no known fatalities" in the crash and only 14 peo ple were known to have suffered minor injuries. Roel Bramar, a passenger who said he was the second person off the plane, told the CBC the plane came to rest in the woods after "a hell of a rol ler coaster going down the ravine," and that a flight attendant was able to deploy the escape chute before the plane erupted in flames. He said word of the crash spread quickly among friends and relatives at t he airport to pick up passengers, including his son. "It was only two mi nutes between the crash and me getting a call on my cell phone," he said . Both Bramar and another passenger, Olivier Dubos, said the jet lost power before it touched down. After it skidded off the runway, Dubos said, "t hen it was really, really scary; Air France jet erupts in flames after skidding off runway Leah Walker, a reporter for Toronto 680-AM Radio, saw survivors emerge fr om a gully where the Air France Airbus A340 came to rest. She reported t hat two busloads of passengers were transported to a triage area for tre atment of possible injuries. The jetliner erupted in flames after skidding off a runway while landing in a fierce thunderstorm at Lester Pearson International Airport. Walker said she saw a third of the plane fall after the impact and that t he rest quickly became a fireball. |
| csua.org/u/cwc -> www.anthroarcheart.org/tblx46.htm image # X 46 INCA MUMMY-at PACHACAMAC MUSEUM- PERU 1984 FOR STOCK PHOTOS ANTHROPOLOGY ARCHEOLOGY and ART; |
| home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/News/SQ-crash1.txt Breaking News Singapore Airlines Flight 006 Survivors Report Fatalities, Injuries Aired October 31, 2000 - 12:02 pm ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Jeanne Meserve in Washington. A welcome to our international viewers as we cover a breaking story: A Singapore Airlines jumbo jetliner bound for Los Angeles crashed today in Taiwan. It happened just after the Boeing 747 took off in severe weather from the international airport in Taipei. Officials say 179 people were onboard Flight 006 and some survivors are reported. One of them, John Diaz joins us now on the phone from Taipei. Mr Diaz, you were on the 747, describe to us what happened. JOHN DIAZ, SINGAPORE AIRLINES CRASH SURVIVOR: Well, the weather was absolutely horrendous. We got on the plane, we started taking off on the runway, it seemed like we were just getting ready to liftoff and it felt like we hit something. And the next thing we know, the whole plane was shaking and gliding. The whole side started to split, and then it slid to a stop. and I ran to the door and there were two girls trying to open the door and it was stuck. I hit the door with my shoulder, it popped open, and I helped get the folks out and then the slider started to inflate, but we were on the ground; so I jumped out of the plane, got caught up in the slide, freed myself and one other person, I don't know who. We got out and just started running and the whole thing blew up... MESERVE: A Singapore Airlines spokesman just told us that he believed, at this point, there were no fatalities. I only saw about 20 people -- I only saw about 20 people that -- clearly I don't know -- they put us in a room. DIAZ: Yes, the tail end of the plane broke completely off from the plane and it slid around. Some of the people that were in the tail are with me right now. Some people got out of tail but there were a lot of fatalities. MESERVE: Was it your impression that the plane ever got off the ground? DIAZ: It seemed like it was either getting right off the ground, or -- I don't know, it's just like, it all just happened. It seemed like it was right as it was taking off when it -- it was like we hit something. maybe that was the wind sheer and we hit the ground, I have no idea. Did there seem to be any problem with the engines that you could detect? DIAZ: No, there didn't seem to be any problem with the engine, but there's a typhoon that's around here. I mean the wind was -- and the rain was just unbelievable. I told my wife I can't believe they're going to take off, but they kept saying this was all right; MESERVE: Mr Diaz, did you sustain any injuries, or are you OK? DIAZ: My lungs are a little -- seem a little -- I'm having, you know -- seem a little burned and I think -- I thought I had broken my arm, but I'm bruised from head to foot, I guess, I don't know. MESERVE: Mr Diaz, with me is Carl Rochelle, he's a pilot and knows something more about aviation. CARL ROCHELLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Mr Diaz, you said there was a typhoon. Were there any thunderstorms, any things associated with it? The rain right now is just falling -- heavy wind, heavy, heavy rain. ROCHELLE: Was the wind shifting from side to side and different directions? DIAZ: The wind is just blowing like crazy, shifting everywhere. I mean the wind is just unbelievable -- it's sheets of rain. I'm originally from New Orleans, so I'm used to hurricanes and that's what it seems like right now. ROCHELLE: When you felt the bump -- when you felt the bump, did it feel like it ran into something, like the airplane began to stop or slow down or was it a bump underneath... I mean, right next to my seat the carriage separated from the -- right next -- I don't know, and flames shot up right next to me and some poor fellow, not very far from me got, I guess, jet fuel splashed on him because he just got -- he lit up like a torch. ROCHELLE: What were they telling you onboard the aircraft before you took off? Did the pilot ever give you any warning about severe weather? I actually asked -- I mean, I, as a matter of fact, from my hotel today, this morning I started having the concierge call to see if the flight was taking off. I actually called my travel and said, I don't know, there's a typhoon approaching. the conditions were so bad, and I asked them to -- is this flight going to take off? MESERVE: Mr Diaz, even in the final moments was anything said to the passengers onboard? Was anything ever said to you guys about -- nothing was ever said. there weren't very many survivors that we saw, and we kind of saw everything, huh, guys? MESERVE: I gather, Mr Diaz, you are there with some other survivors. Do any of them want to speak to us on the telephone as well? MESERVE: Hi, this is CNN, you're on the air, can you tell me your name, please? MESERVE: And give me your rendition of events -- what happened as this plane tried to take off? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we were taxiing down the runway, approaching takeoff speed, and then all of a sudden there was a very loud noise, the lights went out, the plane started to come apart; we, obviously, realized at that point we were in a plane crash, and we thought we were all going to die. Eventually, the plane -- the tail section that we were in turned over several times and we ended up on our sides with all the passengers -- basically, passengers on one side of the plane were all up in the air. Couldn't do that because that was -- we couldn't get it open. So we all tried to leave and we tried to make our way to the front of what was left of the tail section. And, basically, we got to a certain stage and we could see that the whole plane had broken in two. So at that point, we tried to get as many people as we could out of the section. And there was a gentleman -- when I got out of the plane, there was a gentleman trapped underneath the tail section of the plane. At that point, there was smoke and flames blowing from the other section of the plane and it was engulfing the tail section. So we tried to get (UNINTELLIGIBLE), tried to make understood that we needed something to jack this section of the plane up so we could get this guy out. It seemed like the emergency crews took forever to get there, but I'm sure it was only just a few minutes. And I gather you are with Mr Diaz and perhaps some other survivors. How many of you are there and what condition are you all in? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, there were people with second-degree and third-degree burns. There was one woman who died while we were in the emergency room, or whatever room it was. There were people hurt, who were, you know, bleeding, cuts and bruises. I don't know what happened to her but it didn't look good. The total number of people in the emergency room was about 20, including several of the stewardesses. MESERVE: Can you describe the loud noise that you said you heard as the plane went down the runway? Can I just ask you, how long was it -- if you can even keep track of it -- how long between the time you heard the noise and felt the bump and the airplane actually broke apart? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was about a minute until the plane came in two. I mean, I'm, honestly, not looking at my watch at this stage in the game, you know. But the airplane continued to go down the runway after the bump -- the airplane continued to go down the runway after the bump, and then -- for a period of time -- and then it began to break apart? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I stood on the runway trying to get this guy out from underneath the tail section, yes. The captain of -- maybe one of the stewards on the plane. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe I'll put you on with somebody else. ROCHELLE: I'm sorry, did you recall looking around and seeing how far down the runway you were? I don't think we were off the runway, but we were way the hell down there, because it took a while for them to get to us. MESERVE: John, we just heard your acquaintance here talk about the response time of the emergency crews. Did it seem to you that they arrived promptly on the scene? DIAZ: When I -- I said that it seemed it took a while for them to get people a... |
| home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/News/SQ-crash2.txt Breaking News Reports Say Passengers and Crew Survived Singapore Airlines Crash Aired October 31, 2000 - 12:22 pm ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: There are survivors in an airline crash in Taipei this morning. Official reports say there were no fatalities, although eyewitnesses CNN has interviewed say otherwise. Right now, we're going to join ETTV in Taiwan, with English translation. so we do not get the exact numbers of injured passengers. What Singapore Airlines information so far about the accident? Many of the top officials of Singapore airplane returned to their Taipei office. But as they all (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but they do not give a latest list of passenger names. And he pointed out -- an official pointed out five passengers was in first class, eight is in economic class, 28 is in business class, and the rest in the economic class. But they still do not know the exact names of all the passengers right now. We want to know exactly numbers of how many of them are Taiwan passengers. Currently, Singapore Airlines do not know anybody died because of the accident, but many of them received medical care at two hospitals near the airport. This is the serious accident in Singapore Airlines history. Here just we see the injured victims' names at the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) hospital. Another actually, we have a -- have a question about Singapore Airlines. Why was it forced to take off at this bad weather conditions? Singapore Airlines does not want to give further explanation. They just say everything is under study, is under investigation. As you can see from the pictures, the weather was severe in Taipei a the time of the crash. FLIP SPICELAND, CNN METEOROLOGIST: There's a typhoon in the area. As a matter of fact, we believe the center of the typhoon is very close to the southern coast of Taiwan, although Taipei on the northern tip, but we think the center of it was very close to the southern tip of the island at the time. You can also see the very bright orange on here, and what this is, is enhanced satellite photography, which means the highest cloud, the heaviest convection was right over Taipei at the time. Generally speaking, in any tropical system, the most severe weather is in the northeastern quadrant, and that was what was over Taipei at the time. We've been trying our best, as has Carl Rochelle, to find out if there were thunderstorms in the area, which would be one of the indicators of downburst wind: thunder, lightning. However, what we can tell you is that at the time of the crash it was raining very, very hard, and thus visibility was very, very low, and wind speeds were sustained at about 40 miles an hour, but gusting to 60 miles an hour, and the wind associated with the storm up over 100 miles an hour. Some areas east of the mountains, which run right down to the center of the island, have received almost a foot of rainfall in the past 24 hours. Let me show what you is probably a more familiar graphic to those of you here in the United States. Xangsane seems to the pronunciation that everyone is using. You can see the locater here on the map, wind speeds at 167 kilometers an hour. That's the top sustained wind near the center of the storm. And it's moving to the north-northeast at 25 kilometers, which is about 17 miles an hour. That's Bad news, Jeanne, because what that means is the center of the storm would just hug right along the East Coast of the island, and we'll see bad weather there for about another 24 hour -- Jeanne. We're going to talk to someone now, who I, imagine, is very relieved. Joining us now on the phone from Los Angeles, his wife, Nancy Diaz. Nancy, your reaction when you heard your husband's voice? Actually, quite honestly, I didn't even -- he called me this morning at 6:30 Santa Monica time to tell me that he couldn't believe he was taking off, and then he -- I got another call at 7:30, and he had just got -- and he had just jumped out of the plane to tell me -- after it all happened, he said, you know, Nancy, you're going to hear all this over CNN. He goes, but I'm OK, I'm fine, and you know, I'm a little bit scorched -- not really scorched, but just upset, but he goes, I'm OK. So I didn't even -- you know, he called me before it even started broadcasting. MESERVE: When he called you this morning and told you how bad the weather was, did you tell him to stay put? DIAZ: Well, I -- you know, John's -- you know, he's from New Orleans. And you know, so -- and he's wanted to come home, and I wanted to tell him, you know, you have a choice here, don't worry about it. But he felt that the airlines was a really safe airline and that they said that it was OK to fly and that it was OK. DIAZ: No, he works for MP3com and he was on business in Taipei. MESERVE: And when he comes back, what are you going to do? MESERVE: Nancy Diaz, thanks for joining us on the telephone. MESERVE: And we'll be back with more coverage in just a moment. |
| www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/air-07n.shtml Use this version to print Less than three days after the fatal crash of a Singapore Airlines flight SQ006 at Taipei's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport, authorities bl amed pilot error for the accident. But facts have already begun to eme rge that point to a number of other causes, some of which are directly l inked to cost-saving measures by airlines and airport authorities. The death toll has risen to 82 people with the death of a survivor in hos pital. Only 16 people, including the aircraft's cockpit crew, escaped unhurt from the 747-400 jumbo. Investigations in Taiwan have confirmed that just before midnight on Nove mber 1 the Los Angeles-bound flight had attempted to take off in typhoon conditions from a runway that had been closed for repair. As it was lea ving the ground, the plane struck a metre-high concrete barrier and some construction equipment, split into three pieces and crashed, bursting i nto flames. Singapore Airlines had previously dismissed the suggestion that the aircr aft had been on the wrong runway, claiming it had veered across the medi um strip. After investigations ruled out this possibility, Chang Yu-hern , director-general of Taiwan's airport authority, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), pinned the blame on the aircrew. The three pilots must shoulder all responsibility, he said on Saturday. Singapore Airlines has accepted full responsibility for the crash, sayi ng it was obviously a case of pilot error. The airline has offered $40 0,000 in compensation to the relatives of each of the dead and announced it will meet the medical expenses of the injured and discuss compensati on with them. The pilots have been detained in Taiwan and may face charges of involunta ry manslaughter. John Findlay, general secretary of the Hong Kong Aircre w Officers Association, condemned the rush to judgement, saying that it could take months or even years to find out what caused the accident. To ascribe the crash to pilot error does not answer the key question: h ow could experienced pilots make such a fundamental and fatal mistake? M alaysian captain CK Foong who was in charge of the aircraft was a high ly competent pilot with more than 11,000 hours flying time. He knew the airport, having used it 10 times before the accident. At the time, tropical storm Xangsan, which had caused devastation across the Philippines, was appro aching Taiwan. Winds of up to 144kph and heavy rain were lashing the air port and causing poor visibility. The intended runway was near the one u nder repair and the two had almost identical identification numbers, add ing to the chance of confusion. International airport regulations require a runway under repair to be cor doned off. But the disused strip at Taipei had not been completely block ed off because it was frequently used for taxi-ing aircraft. CAA assista nt director Chang Kuo-cheng said closing down the runway entirely would have created serious delays for planes lining up for departure. Instead, a barrier of concrete blocks had been erected 1,000 metres down the runway at the beginning of the construction zone and marked with a l ight. Airport authorities have confirmed that visibility on the evening was below 500 to 600 metres. The pilots might not have been able to see the signal, because of the weather conditions, CAA deputy director-gen eral Billy Chang admitted. Questions have also been raised as to whether the runways were correctly lit. According to CAA spokesman Kay Yong, the centre lightsgreen on the closed runway and white on the active onewere on. While the centre lig hts were operating, investigators have yet to determine whether the edg e lights running along the sides of the closed runway were on or off. If the lights on the runway were not on, then the runway would not have looked like a runway, Yong said. The airport is not equipped with ground radar so the control tower could not visually check if the plane was on the correct runway. Yong said tha t on the night visibility was too low to physically see the jet from th e tower. Ground radar is in operation at many large airports internatio nally but like all sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment it is e xpensive. The installation of ground radar at Taipei airport would have been costly and would have required an additional air traffic controller to constantly monitor it. According to San Francisco-based attorney Gerald Sterns, who specialises in representing air crash victims' families, under such conditions the c ontrol tower should have warned the pilots by radio about the closed run way. The black box' cockpit recorder indicated that wasn't done with t he Singapore Airlines flight, he said. Decisions about bad weather Questions are also raised about whether the aircraft should have been att empting to take off at all in the prevailing bad weather. The Taiwanese carrier EVA Air had scrapped three flights shortly before t he Singapore Airline crash, because crosswinds had reached more than 88 kph. While the Taipei control tower provides the most precise weather da ta available, the airport authority acknowledged that the information is not real timethat is, it is dated, but the authority refused to say by how much. Significantly, at Taipei and many other airports around the world, the pi lot decides whether or not to take off in bad weather. Runways are only closed if pilots insist on flying in conditions that the airport authori ties feel present an immediate danger to the aircraft. Airport operati ons are maintained even when wind conditions are higher than the safety levels recommended by aircraft manufacturers. Obviously pilots are under pressure from airlines to maintain tight sched ules and avoid costly delays. Hong Kong-based aviation expert Jim Eckes this week called for the procedure to be changed, insisting that it shou ld be the responsibility of airports to shut down in extremely bad weath er. Eckes pointed out that the fatal crash of a China Airlines aircraft at Ho ng Kong's Chek Lap Kok airport in August last year also happened under t yphoon conditions. He said that it was too soon to say whether the storm had played a role in the Taipei crash but the incident highlighted the problems bad weather could cause. My feeling is that the airport authorities should exercise the decision- making about their own airportdo they keep it open or don't they? Hong Kong airport says, we stay open and the pilot can make his own decision '. In the United States, whenever you have a hurricane coming up the Eas t Coast, all the airports are closed in its path. Eckes pointed out that unlike the pilots, the airport authority has the b enefit of advanced radar technology and other instrumentation on which t o base a decision. There are turbulence or wind shear problems which the plane's system d oesn't indicate, he said. Taken together, all these factors point to the conclusion that pilot err or is a convenient way of making the aircrew the scapegoat for the SQ00 6 crash. Dr Graham Braithwaite, an aircraft safety expert at the University of New South Wales, told the World Socialist Web Site, when air authorities sp eak of pilot error it should be borne in mind that this is a complex i ssue. Pilot error is not the cause but a symptom of a whole number of f actors that have come together to produce the disaster, he said. There should have been other ways and procedures to prevent the accident happening. The use of ground monitoring would certainly have ensured th e crash in Taiwan would not have occurred, he added. Speaking on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio, Braithwaite said t hat over the last 30 years, air safety statistics had remained fairly st atic with an accident rate of one per million departures. But he warned that the increasing number of flights would result in an alarming rise i n the accident rate in the next 10 to 15 years. The Boeing Company has predicted that by 2010 or 2015 at the latest, there will be one wide-bod ied aircraft crashing every week, he said. This staggering prediction does not tell the whole story, however. Air sa fety is being compromised by cost-cutting, economic restruc... |
| www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/taiwancrash -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/taiwancrash/ Taipei emergency personnel attend to the wreckage of Singapore Airlines S Q-006 late Tuesday. Post reporter Clay Chandler answered questions about the crash of S ingapore Airlines flight SQ006, from Taipei. Singapore Airlines Crash The chairman of Singapore Airlines apologi zed for the crash and said the pilot had used the wrong runway. Closed Runway Cited In Taiwan Air Crash: Jet Struck Repair Equipment, Sources Say (Post, Nov. Jetliner May Have Hit Equipment on A Closed Runway: Americans Among 8 0 Dead in Taipei Crash (Post, Nov. |