Image via EvWorld.Com:
This ultralight and ultrasilent solar and battery powered plane flew over San Francisco, 4/24/13. It previously flew for 26 hours straight, taking off from it’s home base in Payerne, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 7:00 AM and landing Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 9:06 AM.
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httpv://youtu.be/3Zaqi5DwCYE
Via Kottke.org, a Russian dashboard cam captures a plane crash. Apparently, according to Kottke, dashboard video is very popular in Russia. See Kottke’s earlier post Russians are dashboard-cam crazy.
I would disagree with Kottke. The Russians are not crazy. Apparently their legal and insurance systems are in such a state of failure that vehicle owners must be prepared to capture their own evidence in order to prove their claims. Thus a driver with a dashboard camera can provide proof of the facts of a case.
Maybe that’s a good outcome – better evidence, more accurate outcomes – but a sad way to come to it. On the other hand, as we have seen here in the United States, after members of the LA Police were filmed beating Rodney King, citizens with video have prompted the police to change their behavior.
Justice Antonin Scalia, interviewed on Fox News, talking about the July 20, 2012, massacre Aurora, Colorado, said,
Obviously the amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand carried. It’s to ‘keep and bear’ so it doesn’t apply to cannons but I suppose there are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes that will have to be decided…. My starting point and probably my ending point will be what limitations are within the understood limitations that society had at the time.
The segment can be watched here, on YouTube. Continue reading
BBC News has a gripping, if alarming, interview with a passenger on an Air France plane which made an emergency landing during a flight to the Azores:
Passengers on an Air France plane forced to make an emergency landing have spoken of people ”crying and screaming” as they feared it would crash.
The AF422 flight from Paris to the Colombian capital, Bogota, made a sudden descent and had to land on the island of Terceira in the Azores on Monday.
Passenger Eden Victoria Erlandsson said there was panic amongst both passengers and cabin crew.
‘Crying and screaming’ as Air France plane loses height (audio/video link on page)
Why the emergency landing? Air France is reported to have said faulty emergency warning notifications in the plane’s systems. A false positive emergency in an airplane is like a bomb scare in a hospital: the costs and risks of emergency measures are in and of themselves life-threatening.
See also Air France crash: The long hunt for answers (“Exploring the fate of Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic ocean on 1 June 2009, killing everyone on board”)
From the BBC:
A man has been overpowered by cabin crew on an Alitalia flight from Paris to Rome, after he drew out a small knife and demanded the plane divert to the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
A female flight attendant was slightly injured as the man was subdued.
The suspect, from Kazakhstan, was handed over to police and arrested after flight AZ329 landed at Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 2005 GMT.
He was “clearly agitated”, according to a statement from Alitalia.
There were 131 people on board.
The man was overpowered by four crew and passengers, and given a sedative by a doctor who was travelling on the flight.
Italian police named the man as Valery Tolmachev, aged 48. He is reportedly a member of the Kazakh delegation at Unesco in Paris.
Italian media say the man brandished a nail-clipper in the assault. He had no previous criminal record, nor any links with militants, the reports said.
The motive for the attack is not yet clear.
via BBC News – Man attempts to hijack Alitalia Paris-Rome flight.
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But apparently a public humiliation and the end of a career is the vestige of older traditions incorporating human sacrifice. The sleep-deprivation/asleep at work/understaffed air traffic control centers issue is serious. This ritual suggests that person or persons higher on the food chain believe the public sufficiently credulous, enraged, afraid or overwhelmed that this will derail any requests for an accounting of what happened and how to prevent it – whether or not it fits neatly into a “Blame [insert name here]” template. From FAA head of air traffic resigns, byAshley Halsey III at WaPo:
The head of the Air Traffic Organization at the Federal Aviation Administration resigned Thursday morning amid recent reports of several controllers sleeping on the job. Hank Krakowski submitted his resignation Thursday morning to FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt, who said he accepted it, federal officials said. Krawkoski joined the FAA in 2007. Prior to that he spent about 30 years at United Air Lines in senior management positions, including as vice president of flight operations. “Hank is a dedicated aviation professional and I thank him for his service,” Babbitt said in a statement. “Starting today, I have asked David Grizzle, FAA’s chief counsel, to assume the role of acting ATO chief operating officer while we conduct a nationwide search to permanently fill the position.” Babbitt said recent reports of “unprofessional conduct on the part of a few individuals have rightly caused the traveling public to question our ability to ensure their safety.” On Wednesday federal officials ended the practice of leaving one controller on duty in airport towers during overnight shifts. The FAA also revealed that a Nevada air traffic controller allegedly fell asleep Wednesday morning as a medical flight carrying a patient tried to land.The plane landed safely at Reno-Tahoe International Airport with the help of a radar controller based in California, the FAA said. The controller was suspended and the incident is under investigation. However, the incident Wednesday was the fifth time this year that a controller apparently slept while on duty, including at Reagan National Airport, where a controller supervisor was suspended last month after he admitted to napping in the tower . The FAA plans to conduct a “top to bottom review” of the nation’s air traffic control system, Babbitt said. Babbitt announced last month that he was revamping air traffic control guidelines. He ordered radar controllers who guide planes as they descend from cruising altitude to confirm that controllers in airport towers are prepared to handle incoming flights before handing them off. Babbitt also said he would instruct controllers to offer the pilots an option to land elsewhere if a control tower is unresponsive for any reason.
Let’s hope that some reasonable and substantive change comes out of this.
on the ground after an emergency landing 4/1/11.
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What Conservatives and the Tea Party get right, and what they miss.
Anyone who looks closely at “Business as Usual” inside the Beltway or at local government can find waste and corruption. So it’s easy for conservatives, members of the Tea Party, liberals and progressives to rail against and rally around fighting waste, corruption, and abuse of power.
While liberals and progressives tend to focus on government corruption and the abuse of power, conservatives and the Tea Party tend to focus on what they see as waste in government. They advocate a laissez faire model of government – that government is best which governs least. It is difficult to argue against this. The United States is founded on freedom of expression and free enterprise. American citizens, residents, and guests are free to do what they want, as long as those actions don’t infringe on the rights of others.
However, this lack of infringment on the rights of others is a reasonable and restrictive qualifier which opens the door to regulations and enforcement. Simply put, just as we are free to pursue happiness, we are justified in establishing police forces to protect us from others whos pursuit of happiness infringes on our rights. Self-regulation is ineffective: a fox guarding a henhouse is going to eat chicken. Similarly, regulation without enforcement is pointless. Enforcement consisting of a slap on the wrist, a wink, and a martini sets up a positive feedback loop that reinforces the action rather than a negative feedback mechanism that changes the behavior. Continue reading
At approximately 1600 EST (2100 UTC) a suspicious package was found near the baggage claim at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, United States, leading to the closure of around half of the terminal. Police later determined that the package was harmless and reopened the affected areas of the airport. Parts of the airport had been closed for two hours before being reopened.
Officials from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said a canine unit was attracted to an unattended piece of baggage near the baggage claim. They did not disclose what the package contained, but an official said the package did not look similar to other suspicious packages sent to Maryland state government buildings earlier today.
Due to the package, four baggage claims and a United Airlines ticket counter were temporarily vacated. Flights continued to operate at the airport during the investigation
Cigarette Smoke
Mayor Bloomberg is concerned about air pollution in New York City. Bloomberg has data that show elevated levels of nicotinimides in non-smoking New Yorkers. Believing this results from second hand smoking, he wants to prompt New Yorkers to quit smoking. It’s logical – cigarette smoke contains nicotine. But what if the body produces nicotinimides in response to particulates and ozone?
Industrial Smog
In her piece Use Bio-Heat as a substitute for #2 Heating Oil, the architect Ellen Honigstock of The Toeprint Project points out that 9,000 of the 960,000 buildings in New York City – less than 1% – use #4 and #6 oil – the dirtiest heating oil. Those 9,000 buildings are responsible for over 86% of the soot and ozone pollution in the air.
Honigstock explains:
No. 2 and No. 6 Heating Oil
These particulates contribute to the failure of New York City’s air to meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and the failing grade received from the American Lung Association’s State of the Air Report not to mention all the unnecessary cases of childhood asthma in New York City’s kids.
Generally speaking, when crude oil comes off the boat into the refinery, the sludgier oil (called residual oil) sinks to the bottom while more refined products, which are less viscous such as propane, gasoline, kerosene etc… (called distillates) rise to the top.
#6 oil is barely refined sludge. It’s the least expensive of the heating oils and has the highest fuel content which starts to explain why people continue to use it.
It is solid at room temperature. This means that the entire oil tank must be kept to at least 90 degrees at all times in order for the oil to burn properly. #2 oil, while more expensive per gallon, burns much cleaner, doesn’t require any additional energy to make the combustion process work properly and typically requires less maintenance than boilers burning #6.
Environmental Defense Fund, with support form the Urban Green Council issued a very informative report called “The Bottom of the Barrel: How the Dirtiest Heating Oil pollutes our Air and harms our Heath” including a great interactive map showing all the buildings currently using #6 and #4 oil.
There’s more at The Toeprint Project – including how New York City residents can find bio-fuel to heat their buildings.
Matthew Wald of The New York Times, assisted by Liz Robbins, adds some details to current knowledge of the Alaska plane crash of August 9th. From Communication Problems May Have Delayed Search Following Alaska Plane Crash:
The search for the plane that crashed on an Alaska hillside Monday night, killing former senator Ted Stevens and four others, may have been delayed by hours due to communication breakdowns on the ground and a problem with the plane’s emergency beacon, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday.
Two investigators for the safety board were briefly on the site Wednesday, while other investigators are waiting to interview the four survivors who are at Providence Alaska Medical Center. The crash killed the pilot, Theron “Terry” Smith, 62.
The conditions of two of the survivors improved on Thursday, as a spokeswoman for the hospital said that James Morhard and Kevin O’Keefe were upgraded from serious to fair condition. Kevin O’Keefe’s father, Sean O’Keefe, the former NASA administrator, is still in critical condition. William Phillips, 13, is still in good condition. His father, William, died in the crash.
Board investigators are having trouble piecing together a timeline of the crash, because they say they have received conflicting reports of when the plane took off and when rescuers reached the scene, said the chairwoman, Deborah A.P. Hersman.
Reports have put the plane’s departure from a hunting lodge anywhere from 2 p.m. to 3:15 p.m., and discovery of the plane between 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. It would have taken the group about 15 minutes by air from the take-off to the crash scene, unless they had “flown around a little bit, trying to make their way” in the poor visibility,” Ms. Hersman said.
A flight plan, according to the Times, was not required, “was not required and would not have made the crash any less likely, but would have alerted authorities earlier that it was overdue.”
What inferences can we draw based on current information? What questions are raised?
We’ll try to keep up with this story as it unfolds.
President Barack Obama
In response to the Christmas Day attempted terror attack, President Obama’s actions and former Vice President Cheney’s comments highlight the differences between the two administrations: The Bush Administration was famous for not being “Reality Based” (NY Times). The Obama Administration investigates first, thinks, and ACTS(Reuters), while accepting responsibility for any failures. “Ultimately, the buck stops with me,” Obama said. “As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people.” (CS Monitor)
On 12/29/9, President Obama said it was a systemic failure (Christian Science Monitor). On 1/3/10, he said the attack was planned in Yemen (NY Times). We also know he approved US counter-terror strikes in Yemen, which occurred on 12/24/09 (NPR / NYTimes) and which killed Al Queda Terrorists. Continue reading
has this report by Sholnn Freeman on the Northwest Pilots who missed their destination by about 150 miles. The plane was also out of contact (that is, not responding to radio hails for over an hour. Northwest pilots say they were distracted by laptops. Interestingly, the pilots don’t allege fatigue as a factor; they claim
Aviation safety experts described the mishap as “stunning.”
to have been having a conversation about new scheduling rules and referring to their laptops.
Co-pilot Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., told National
Transportation Safety Board investigators that he was giving instructions about monthly crew scheduling procedures to the plane’s captain, Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash. The NTSB said each pilot used the computers during the discussion. Northwest’s merger with Delta Air Lines last year has led to numerous policy changes for pilots.“There is no reason that pilots not impaired by fatigue or other problems should allow themselves to become this distracted,” said Bill Voss, president of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation. “I think they are probably telling the truth, because you would not have been able to make up a better lie.”
WaPo, Northwest pilots say they were distracted by laptops
, Sholnn Freeman.
“Plane sent 24 error messages” prior to vanishing and presumably crashing, according to the BBC.
The Air France jet which went missing over the Atlantic sent 24 error messages before it crashed, French investigators say. Continue reading
From the Houston Chronicle, Inspector blasts FAA for Southwest relationship“Southwest Airlines exerted undue influence within the Federal Aviation Administration, creating an atmosphere that let the carrier fly aircraft after cracks had been discovered in a jet’s fuselage, inspectors told a House panel.”
And from the Washington Post, FAA Derailed Safety Alarms, “They also said the FAA had gone from aggressively regulating airlines to treating them like customers or clients. Lawmakers and outside safety experts have expressed similar worries about regulators’ coziness with the carriers.”
I won’t fly if in order to get on a plane and be confident that it will take off, fly, and land, I’ll have to go to the airport and inspect the plane. Forget the fact that I’m not qualified; it’s inefficient for every passenger, or even one out of 10,000, to go to the airport, review the maintenance records, and study the planes. But isn’t that’s why we have an FAA? Isn’t that why we have a government?
Isn’t it the role of government to provide police and defensive forces to protect law abiding citizens from thieves, scoundrels and external threats; from invaders and from thugs who would point a gun at me and say ‘your money or your life’? That doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to self-defense; it means that I have the right to expect that the police and the courts will protect my rights, including my right to self-defense.
Take that one step further. If I can count on the government to protect me against a thug who will steal my money at gunpoint, then I should be able to count on the government to protect me from someone who, in Woody Guthrie’s words, will ‘rob me with a fountain pen’ by pouring toxic wastes into the air we breathe and rivers we drink from and swim in, or perhaps by ignoring airplane maintenance regulations.
This doesn’t make me a liberal or a conservative, but it sure doesn’t make me a Bush Cheney McCain Republican. It might make me a John Warner Republican, but they pushed him out of the Party. I guess it makes me a liberal because it leads me to believe that the government has the obligation to inspect and regulate airplanes, taxis, roads, cars, and to make sure that we have clean air, clean water, and healthy food, and to educate our children and to do the kinds of things that Edwards was talking about on the stump.
When you believe, as Reagan put it, that “the scariest sentence is ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’” you’re saying we don’t want foxes guarding the henhouse, we don’t want anyone guarding the henhouse, in fact we’re going to sell the wood, the chickens will stay put.
Who said this:
” If there is a philosophical issue that you can’t trust private industry to do anything, then I have to say, you’ve got no business getting on an airplane.”
Answer after the jump. Via Open Target, the blog of Clark Kent Ervin, the honorable former IG of the Department of Homeland Security, and before that, the Department of State.
Answer: Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary Chertoff appears to have said this on the record, testifying before Congress last fall. Remarkable. From Clark Kent Ervin’s post “The Law Is what We Say It Is.”