Negative Blogs

The first of 33 trapped miners will be pulled to safety in a capsule barely wider than a man’s shoulders on Tuesday night as a two-month ordeal deep inside a Chilean mine draws to an end.

The men have spent 68 days in the hot, humid bowels of a gold and copper mine in Chile’s northern Atacama desert after an August 5 collapse. They now face a claustrophobic journey to the surface in the specially made steel cages, equipped with oxygen masks and escape hatches in case they get stuck.

The miners will be hoisted out one at a time in a two-day operation. The capsule will travel at about 3 feet/(1m) per second, or a casual walking pace, and speed to 10 feet/(3m) per second if the miner being carried gets into trouble.

With Chileans anxiously following the rescue on television, President Sebastian Pinera asked for all churches in the South American nation to ring their bells in celebration when the first miner emerges from the shaft.

Nervous wives, children, parents and friends waited on an arid, rocky hillside around 2,050 feet above the miners, and rescue teams planned to start the rescue operation after 10 p.m. (0100 GMT)

Local television showed engineers making last-minute checks of the capsule — painted red, blue and white, the colors of Chile’s flag — and hoisting it up on a yellow crane.

Florencio Avalos, 31, will be the first miner to be rescued, his mother told Reuters, citing officials. Married with two children, Florencio has been trapped along with his brother, 29-year-old Renan.

“Right now I’m calm, though still very anxious,” said Jessica Salgado, whose husband Alex is among the miners. “I hope my nerves don’t betray me when the rescue starts.

“The first thing I’m going to do is hug him hard, tell him how much I love him and how I’ve missed him all this time.”

Officials said all the men volunteered to go last, to ensure that their friends were pulled ahead of them to safety.

Rescuers on Monday successfully tested a capsule, dubbed Phoenix after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes, after reinforcing part of the narrow escape shaft with metal casing to prevent rocks falling and blocking the exit.

Engineers said the final stage of the rescue still had its risks but that the capsule was handling well in the shaft, and they expected a smooth extraction.

FOUND ALIVE

Rescuers originally found the men, miraculously all alive, 17 days after the mine’s collapse with a bore hole the width of grapefruit. It then served as an umbilical cord used to pass hydration gels, water and food, as well as letters from their families and soccer videos to keep their spirits up.

The men have set a world record for the length of time workers have survived underground after a mining accident, and have been doing exercises to keep their weight down for their ascent.

By reuters.com

The capsule that will carry the trapped miners to safety is brought into position at the start of the rescue operation at the San Jose mine in Copiapo October 12, 2010.

Tuesday night’s deadly China plane crash highlights the risks in China’s booming air travel industry. A disproportionate number of flights now have to take off and land at night without proper lighting.

The China plane crash that killed 42 people late Tuesday night was a rare blot on the country’s aviation safety copybook, say experts here. But it highlights the risks of flying in and out of some small regional airports at night, something more airlines are forced to do to meet the demands of China’s booming travel industry.

A domestic Henan Airways passenger jet crashed and burst into flames at a fog-shrouded provincial airport near Yichun in Northeastern China, killing 42 and injuring 54, according to official reports.

It is still not known what caused the accident “but from news reports I deduce that the reason is human error,” says Wang Yanan, deputy editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine. “I think it came down too fast or too steeply.”

It emerged Wednesday that another airline, China Southern, decided last August to avoid night flights into Yichun. A technical note on the airline’s website said that “in principle there should be no night flights at Yichun airport,” citing worries about landing strip lighting, weather conditions, and the surrounding hilly terrain.

The newly built airport, one of a number of such regional facilities springing up all over the country to serve China’s booming travel industry, sits in a forested valley. China will have 244 airports by 2020, up from about 175 today, according to figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC.)

“Over the last few years, because of the high demand and big market, regional aviation has developed very fast,” says Mr. Wang. “The quality of personnel and facilities may not be keeping up.”

Tuesday’s crash, however, was the first major commercial airline accident in China for nearly six years, Wang points out. “I think it is an isolated case,” he adds. “In general aviation safety in China is normal.”

The government credits this to a nationwide crackdown on safety that it ordered in 2004, upgrading aircraft and airports, after 10 serious airplane crashes in four years had given China a notoriously dangerous reputation.

But at new airports a disproportionate number of flights take off and land at night, because airlines serving them can no longer get daytime slots at the busy hubs they fly to and from.

“At night in Northern China it is often cold and wet, so it may be foggy,” Wang points out, suggesting that Yichun airport’s landing lights may have been too weak to see properly in Tuesday night’s fog. “Small airports should install the right sort of equipment to cope with different conditions,” he adds.

The China plane crash that killed 42 people late Tuesday night was a rare blot on the country’s aviation safety copybook, say experts here. But it highlights the risks of flying in and out of some small regional airports at night, something more airlines are forced to do to meet the demands of China’s booming travel industry.

A domestic Henan Airways passenger jet crashed and burst into flames at a fog-shrouded provincial airport near Yichun in Northeastern China, killing 42 and injuring 54, according to official reports.

It is still not known what caused the accident “but from news reports I deduce that the reason is human error,” says Wang Yanan, deputy editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine. “I think it came down too fast or too steeply.”

It emerged Wednesday that another airline, China Southern, decided last August to avoid night flights into Yichun. A technical note on the airline’s website said that “in principle there should be no night flights at Yichun airport,” citing worries about landing strip lighting, weather conditions, and the surrounding hilly terrain.

The newly built airport, one of a number of such regional facilities springing up all over the country to serve China’s booming travel industry, sits in a forested valley. China will have 244 airports by 2020, up from about 175 today, according to figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC.)

“Over the last few years, because of the high demand and big market, regional aviation has developed very fast,” says Mr. Wang. “The quality of personnel and facilities may not be keeping up.”

Tuesday’s crash, however, was the first major commercial airline accident in China for nearly six years, Wang points out. “I think it is an isolated case,” he adds. “In general aviation safety in China is normal.”

The government credits this to a nationwide crackdown on safety that it ordered in 2004, upgrading aircraft and airports, after 10 serious airplane crashes in four years had given China a notoriously dangerous reputation.

But at new airports a disproportionate number of flights take off and land at night, because airlines serving them can no longer get daytime slots at the busy hubs they fly to and from.

“At night in Northern China it is often cold and wet, so it may be foggy,” Wang points out, suggesting that Yichun airport’s landing lights may have been too weak to see properly in Tuesday night’s fog. “Small airports should install the right sort of equipment to cope with different conditions,” he adds.

By Peter Ford

Chinese paramilitary policemen stand guard near the damaged Henan Airlines plane which has crashed on landing in Yichun in northeast China's Heilongjiang province Wednesday.

The plane went down about 100 miles from the border in what analysts say may have been a defection attempt.

A North Korean military aircraft crashed into a cornfield in northeastern China about 100 miles from the border in what analysts believe was a failed defection attempt, the Chinese government said Wednesday.

The pilot was killed in the crash Tuesday, according to China’s official Xinhua news service, which also reported that the government “is in communication on the matter with the North Korean side.”

Chinese authorities released little information about the crash which took place in Fushun prefecture, Liaoning province. But photographs reportedly taken by villagers were widely distributed on Chinese blog sites showing the wreckage with a red star in a blue circle, the insignia of the North Korean air force. North Korea’s first air division’s 24th regiment is headquartered in Uiju, just north of the border city of Sinuiju, and pilots frequently train near the Yalu River which forms the border with China.

The aircraft was identified as a Russian-made MiG fighter, most likely a MiG-21, although early reports had described it as a helicopter.

South Korean analysts said they believed the pilot was attempting to escape his impoverished homeland, possibly heading toward Russia, which is more hospitable to defectors than China. Along the way, he might have run out of fuel and attempted an emergency landing in the fields.

“This couldn’t be a training accident — the border is clearly marked,” said Kim Chul-woo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. “An attempted defection is the only plausible explanation.”

A respected military analyst in Seoul said that South Korean intelligence is still trying to determine what happened.

“I’m skeptical of what the Chinese government is saying,” said the analyst, who asked not to be quoted by name. The analyst said he believed the plane might have carried one or more passengers besides the pilot and might not have crashed accidentally.

Among the theories in circulation is that the pilot was heading toward a nearby airport in Shenyang and ran out of fuel. The plane was reported not to have sustained serious damage, making it conceivable that a passenger escaped.

Defections have increased in 2010 amid growing food scarcities in isolated North Korea, with most people escaping by foot across the border into China. However, there have been several famous incidents, one in 1983 and another in 1996, in which North Korean air force captains flew their planes across the demilitarized zone into South Korea.

By Barbara Demick

In northeastern China, people look over the wreckage of a North Korean military aircraft. (Yonhap / AFP/Getty Images / August 18, 2010)

One passenger was killed when an airplane crashed in bad weather and split into two when landing early Monday on the island of San Andres, Colombia, officials said.

The number of injured remained unclear Monday morning, but the national police said six of at least 127 people aboard the plane were not hurt.

There also were conflicting reports as to how many people were aboard the Aires airline 737-700 jet when it crashed around 1:49 a.m. (2:49 a.m. ET). The Colombian national police initially said the flight had 131 people — 121 adult passengers, four minors and six crew members. A list the police later released, however, indicated 127 people on board — 121 passengers and six crew members.

The passenger list included six Americans, five French, four Brazilians, four Costa Ricans and two Germans, said Col. Hector Carrascal, director of navigation services at the Colombian Civil Aviation Authority.

Police identified the woman who was killed as Amar Fernandez de Barreto. The passenger manifest, which goes by last name first, lists a Barreto Fernandez Paola Andrea.

There also was conflicting information about what caused the crash. The initial report from the national police said a downdraft may have shaken the airplane as it prepared to land. But Pedro Gallardo, governor of San Andres y Providencia state, told CNN en Español that lightning hit the plane. The pilot also reported a lightning strike, El Tiempo newspaper said.

A storm was reported in the area but not at the airport, Carrascal said.
The accident occurred about 260 feet (80 meters) before the start of the runway, Carrascal said. Wreckage was spread about another 328 feet (100 meters) on the runway, officials said.

Photos of the airplane on the runway show it split in two, with the nose and first eight rows of seat pointing in one direction and the rest of the aircraft almost pointing in the opposite direction.

The flight had taken off from Bogota, Colombia’s capital, shortly after midnight, police said.

By the CNN

The Aires airline 737-700 jet lies in pieces after crashing early Monday on the Colombian island of San Andres.

A shuttle bus carrying steel factory workers in eastern China burst into flame, killing 24 of those on board.

The accident happened in Wuxi, in Jiangsu province near Shanghai, on a bus from the Wuxi Xuefeng Steel Company.

Officials said there was no explanation for the fire yet, but investigations were continuing.

China’s safety record on the roads and at work is bad, with deadly accidents a regular occurrence.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua said the accident happened on Sunday night, with those on board being night shift workers.

“The reason for the fire is not yet known but the public security bureau is investigating,” a city official surnamed Wang told AFP.

Last year in Chengdu province, 27 people died when a worker ignited a can of petrol on a bus which had sealed windows and doors.

Residents took to carrying small hammers with them on public transport in order to break a way out should such an event happen again.

In May this year, 10 people were killed in a fire at a railway workers’ dormitory in Inner Mongolia.

By BBC

In this photo released by China's Xinhua news agency, a policeman checks on the wreckage of a shuttle bus in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu province, on Monday July 5, 2010. Twenty-four people were killed and 19 others injured after fire engulfed a steel company's shuttle bus Sunday night in Wuxi city, Xinhua reported. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Cheng Binghong)

BP Oil Spill Day 46: Cap Installed, Should Know Later Today How Much Oil is Being Captured.

A BP executive says he’s “confident” that a new cap placed over the leaking well will begin to capture some of the oil and prevent it from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

“I am actually pretty confident this is going to work,” BP COO Doug Suttles told “GMA.” “It probably won’t capture all of the flow but it should capture the vast majority…”

BP has siphoned some of the oil up a pipe, The Associated Press reported. Suttles told George Stephanopoulos on “GMA” that they should have their first indication of how much oil they are capturing later this morning.

“It is hard to put a precise number on it. But what we will be doing is monitoring it very, very closely as we slowly increase the production,” Suttles said. “And what we are trying to do is get the maximum amount we can with the minimum amount leaking by. But we will probably have to have some very small amount leaking around the bottom to make sure we don’t draw this water in.”

The live images of the leaking well show oil still flowing out from the cap, but Suttles said that is due to four vents that were installed in the top of the dome to prevent hydrates from forming. BP will begin successively closing those vents over the course of the day, Suttles said.

Later today President Obama will visit the region, his third trip since the spill began. He will be briefed by Adm. Thad Allen and meet with local residents and the governors of the Gulf states.

Obama postponed his trip, for the second time, to Indonesia and Australia that was scheduled for later this month.

At least 140 miles of the Gulf Coast have now been touched by oil. An oily sheen has been spotted less than seven miles from Pensacola, Fla.

 By KATE McCARTHY

THE SPILL'S HELPLESS VICTIMS: When Will It Stop?

Two transport accidents in China have claimed dozens of lives, with a passenger train derailed by a landslide and a truck colliding with a bus.

State media said 32 people were killed on Sunday when a truck travelling in the wrong direction on an expressway collided head-on with a bus in the country’s northeast.

Another 21 people were injured and sent to hospital.

The collision occurred on a section of the expressway that was undergoing maintenance in the city of Fuzin in Liaoning province, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Derailed

In another incident, Chinese state television said a landslide in eastern China derailed a passenger train early on Sunday morning, killing at least eight people and injuring 55.

The train was bound for the tourist destination of Guilin when it was derailed in a mountainous area near Fuzhou city in eastern Jiangxi province.

Heavy rains caused a landslide that buried the railway tracks, and the train derailed when it crashed into the huge mound of dirt and debris, China Central Television said.

Xinhua said about 2,000 rescuers, including firefighters, police and soldiers, managed to evacuate at least 280 people who were trapped inside the carriages.

Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into the accident.

Tens of thousands of people die in transport-related.

Seventy Dutch passengers were among the 103 people killed in the Libya plane crash in which an 8-year-old boy was the sole survivor, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

Officials had previously said 58 Dutch passengers died in the accident Wednesday.

Afriqiyah Airways confirmed on its Web site late Wednesday that the other 92 passengers and 11 crew members were killed when the plane crashed while trying to land at the Tripoli International Airport.

The child, identified as Ruben van Assouw, suffered multiple fractures in his lower limbs and underwent an operation at Al Khadra Hospital in Tripoli, a doctor at the hospital said.

He lost blood but is now much better, said the doctor, who declined to give her name.

The boy has seen a Dutch Embassy representative and is sedated and asleep, she said, adding that he will undergo multiple scans Thursday.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry, which had a representative at the hospital waiting to identify the boy, declined to confirm the child’s name.

The Afriqiyah Airways plane originated in Johannesburg, South Africa. As well as the 70 Dutch citizens killed, six South Africans died along with two Libyans, two Austrians, one German, one French, one Zimbabwean and two Britons.

Other passengers’ nationalities could not immediately be identified. The 11 crew members were all Libyan.

The plane, an Airbus A330-200, was at the end of its nearly nine-hour flight when it crashed at 6 a.m.

“We express our sincere regret and sadness on behalf of the airline. As well, we would like to express our condolences to the relatives and friends of those who had passengers on Flight 8U771 destined for Tripoli late last night, due to arrive around 6 o’clock this morning,” said Nicky Knapp, a representative of the Airports Company South Africa. She was speaking on behalf of Afriqiyah Airways.

Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament, said the child’s survival, “given this tragic event, is truly a miracle.”

At the crash site, workers with surgical masks combed through the smoldering wreckage, which spilled over a large area. A wheel lay atop a pile of bags. Two green airline seats sat upright and intact amid burned parts of the aircraft.

Officials recovered the plane’s flight data recorder, which investigators use to piece together a flight’s last minutes.

The Tripoli-based Afriqiyah (Arabic for “African”) operates flights to four continents. The planes in the fleet carry the logo 9.9.99: the date when the African Union was formed.

The plane that crashed was one of three Airbus 330-200s that the airline owns.

By the CNN

A Dutch boy is the sole survivor of a plane crash in Libya that killed more than 100 people. The plane crashed short of the runway at Tripoli airport en route to London's Gatwick airport.

The Andrew J. Barberi, involved in a fatal accident seven years ago, apparently suffered mechanical failure and slammed into a dock. None of the injuries is considered life-threatening.

A Staten Island ferry that crashed seven years ago, killing 11 people, apparently suffered mechanical failure and slammed into a dock as it was approaching Staten Island on Saturday morning, authorities said. None of the more than 30 injuries was considered life-threatening.

Riders aboard the Andrew J. Barberi, which had left Lower Manhattan about 9 a.m., said the ferry did not seem to slow down as it approached the St. George terminal on Staten Island nearly half an hour later. At a news conference, Deputy Fire Chief William Tanzosh said that if crew members had not yelled warnings and herded people away from the boat’s front deck as it neared the dock, the result could have been far worse.

“That made all the difference in the world,” Tanzosh said.

The city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, said indications pointed to mechanical problems as the cause of the crash.

“There was not an ability to pull back on the throttle as it approached the dock,” said Sadik-Khan, adding that other than the boat involved, Saturday’s incident bore no resemblance to the one on Oct. 15, 2003, the worst in the ferry service’s history. In that crash, ferry pilot Richard Smith lost consciousness as the boat barreled toward the terminal. No warnings were sounded to the estimated 1,500 passengers on board.

Smith, who had been taking painkillers that caused drowsiness, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced in January 2006 to 18 months in prison.

The ferry Saturday was carrying about 250 passengers and 18 crew members. Many passengers said they heard warnings from crew members just before the crash, which occurred as the ferry was traveling at about 5 knots, just under 6 mph.

“I heard a series of alarms go off and someone said, ‘Red, Red, Red!’ ” said Dwayne Forrest, a tourist from Tennessee.

“It didn’t seem like it had slowed down any. I didn’t notice the engines letting up at all,” added Forrest, who grabbed an empty seat and helped his wife, Sheila, brace herself.

Ferry service was suspended briefly, but by noon, the distinctive orange boats were again making the 5-mile trip between Manhattan and Staten Island. Gov. David Paterson paid a visit to the St. George Ferry Terminal, calling the crash “another scare” in a tense week for New York City. On May 1, there was an attempted car bombing in Times Square, another of New York’s biggest tourist draws. Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen from Pakistan, was arrested in connection with the case.

“You always see this on TV,” Forrest said, “but you never think you’ll be a part of it.”

By Tina Susman

A New York City firefighter leans over to listen to a crash victim speak. The ferry involved in the accident, the Andrew J. Barberi, is the same one that was involved in a 2003 wreck that killed 11 people and severely injured many others. That accident also occurred at the St. George terminal, when the ferry failed to slow down and hit a pier at full speed. (Robert Mecea / Associated Press).

Rohan Vos, Rovos Railways: “We had a lot of Americans on the train”
Brake failure is being investigated as the possible cause of a luxury train crash in South Africa which killed four people, a safety official says.

The train derailed near the capital, Pretoria, on Wednesday with 55 tourists on board and 30 members of staff.

The victims were all female employees, one of whom was four months pregnant and went into labour at the scene, losing her baby.

According to train owners Rovos Rail, seven people remain in hospital.

Rovos Rail’s Rohan Vos said one person is in a critical condition, the South African Press Association reports.

There were about 40 US tourists, along with French, German and British citizens, on board the Pride of Africa when it derailed.

Mr Vos told Associated Press news agency that the passengers had been relatively safe in wood-panelled carriages - some dating back to the 1920s - but the staff had been in a kitchen area that was less protected.

Emergency worker Chris Botha at the scene said the railway coaches were lying on top of each other.

“It’s absolute carnage,” he told AFP news agency.

Rail Safety Regulator spokesman Carvel Webb said a full report into the causes of the accident would take two weeks.

“It appears from the initial measurement and assessment that were done that there was not adequate braking left on the train during the coupling and uncoupling process,” AFP quotes him telling South Africa’s Radio 702.

Rovos Rail offers “unique train safaris” and some of its coaches have hot showers and air conditioning.

The two-day Cape Town-Pretoria trip can cost from about $1,500 (£974) to nearly $3,000 per passenger, AP reports.