News Stories

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Perhaps, the plane had defective parts that wasn't mentioned. Some old planes are still in service as passenger planes in which either the system within the plane needs serious repairs or the exterior plane itself. Plane with leaky tanks, wing-folding issues, etc.. are quite common, so maybe the same goes with the anti-shock armor of the plane. I don't know, lack of information these days.. Tons of Bermuda Triangle conspiracies yet actual information regarding the details of the plane are somewhat unknown.

It was a relatively new plane (put into service in 2005, the model itself dates from 1998), from a prominent company, so probably well-maintained. Deficiency is, of course, always possible, but it was not some old, leaky plane held together with faith and duct-tape.

And will you stop it with the Bermuda Triangle? Or are you going to tell us the Illuminati moved it several thousand kilometers south just to mess with us?

[Antares]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Can't have been just that. Planes get hit by lightning all the time, and nothing happens to them.

It's true that planes are designed to withstand lightning strikes but you can't assume that it will always work. Take that US Airway that crashed into the Hudson back in January. Its engines were designed to withstand impact from birds. It just so happened that some freakishly overweight birds were in the path of that plane. In reality, the possibility of something happen is extremely small doesn't mean that it can't happen.

I just hope that they figure out what caused the Air France jet to crash so we have a better chance of avoiding it in the future.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Another dimension? When was that mentioned in the first place? Bermuda Triangle was never spoke of as another dimension. It was just some sort of mysterious scientific base.

So there are mad scientists in the bermuda triangle huh? Do you have anything at all to support this? And if you have some evidence, do you know if the mad scientists are hiring research assistants? I'm not normally one to work for mad scientists, but with the economy the way it is, a career in supervilliany is worth considering. I hear evil is a growth industry.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

It was a relatively new plane (put into service in 2005, the model itself dates from 1998), from a prominent company, so probably well-maintained. Deficiency is, of course, always possible, but it was not some old, leaky plane held together with faith and duct-tape.

That it's from 2005 probably rules out a manufacturing defect. However, it's always possible it's something that wouldn't be an issue unless an extrodinarily unlikely chain of events took place, which happened to take place in this instance. Of course, as Vexx rightfully points out, we need the black boxes to learn more, so right now my speculation there has as much supporting evidence as Shadow's mad scientists in the Bermuda triangle theory.

Originally Posted by Antares

It just so happened that some freakishly overweight birds were in the path of that plane.

Canada geese. As soon as I heard that it was a bird strike, I knew it was those damn geese, and it was later confirmed. Anyone who has ever lived in that area and saw those geese was probably thinking the same thing. They're pretty big, they aren't afraid of loud noises, and they're everywhere.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Perhaps, the plane had defective parts that wasn't mentioned. Some old planes are still in service as passenger planes in which either the system within the plane needs serious repairs or the exterior plane itself. Plane with leaky tanks, wing-folding issues, etc.. are quite common, so maybe the same goes with the anti-shock armor of the plane. I don't know, lack of information these days.. Tons of Bermuda Triangle conspiracies yet actual information regarding the details of the plane are somewhat unknown.

Those people aren't from the Indonesian Air Force, I can assure you. Besides, most airline teches do a throughout check before letting the plane fly, a crack as small as 10 inches can get the whole thing grounded.

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

Canada geese. As soon as I heard that it was a bird strike, I knew it was those damn geese, and it was later confirmed. Anyone who has ever lived in that area and saw those geese was probably thinking the same thing. They're pretty big, they aren't afraid of loud noises, and they're everywhere.

Anyone supporting the creation of a Canadian goose liver export company to make air travel safer in the 21st century?

Actually I don't really think there is really large enough of a flock to down such a big plane, unless the entire flock flies through the engines.

[Saleh]

Bodies, debris retrieved from Air France crash

Originally Posted by Reuters

RECIFE, Brazil/PARIS (Reuters) - Brazilian search crews on Saturday retrieved the first bodies from a crashed Air France flight in the Atlantic, and investigators said faulty speed readings had been found on the same type of jets.

Navy ships found the bodies of two men and debris including a blue seat with a serial number matching Air France Flight 447, a rucksack containing a vaccination card, and a briefcase with an Air France ticket inside, rescue officials said.

"This morning at 8:14 a.m., we confirmed the rescue from the water of pieces and bodies that belonged to the Air France flight," air force spokesman Jorge Amaral told reporters in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife.

Brazilian air force planes and navy ships have been scouring a swathe of the Atlantic about 1,100 km (683 miles) northeast of Brazil's coast since the Airbus A330-200 plane disappeared on Monday, killing all 228 people on board.

The crash of the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris was the world's deadliest air disaster since 2001 and the worst in Air France's 75-year history.

Rescuers, who said that only family members will be informed of the identity of the corpses, believe many bodies could have sunk or been devoured by sharks.

Searchers previously had retrieved debris from the ocean that turned out to be unrelated to the crash.

French investigators trying to establish the cause of the crash said on Saturday that Airbus had detected faulty speed readings on its A330 jets before last week and had recommended that clients replace a sensor.

AIR FRANCE CHANGING SENSORS

Air France later issued a statement saying it had begun changing airspeed sensors on Airbus long-haul aircraft due to icing fears five weeks before the crash, but only after failing to agree on a fix with Airbus.

Investigators are considering the possibility that the speed sensors on Flight 447 may have iced up, resulting in faulty readings that caused the pilots to set the plane at a dangerous speed as it passed thunderstorms.

But the head of France's air accident agency (BEA) said in a news conference in France that it was too soon to say if problems with the pressure-based speed sensors were in any way responsible for the disaster.

"Some of the sensors (on the A330) were earmarked to be changed ... but that does not mean that without these replacement parts, the (Air France) plane would have been defective," BEA chief Paul-Louis Arslanian said.

Airbus confirmed it issued a bulletin asking the plane's 50 or so airline operators to consider changing the speed sensors, known as Pitot tubes, but it said it was an optional measure to improve performance and not related to safety.

In its statement on Saturday, Air France said it began noticing airspeed problems from icing on both A330 and A340 planes in May 2008 and had requested a solution from Airbus.

According to Air France, Airbus proposed testing different sensors despite earlier doubting that they would resolve the problem, but the airline declined to wait and started changing them from April 27. Airbus was not immediately available to comment.

FLURRY OF MESSAGES

The doomed Air France plane sent 24 automated messages in a span of four minutes indicating a series of system failures before it vanished, Arslanian said.

In the middle of this stream of data was one message showing inconsistent speed readings from the A330's sensors, investigators said.

The messages also showed that the autopilot was off, though it was impossible to say whether it had disengaged itself, as it is designed to do when it receives suspect data, or whether the pilot had decided to turn it off, Arslanian said.

Airbus issued a reminder on Thursday that pilots should follow standard procedures -- to maintain flight speed and angle -- if they thought their speed indicators were faulty.

Meteorological experts said the jet crossed a storm zone but that the weather did not seem to pose a particular threat.

Investigators have said they are not optimistic that they will be able to locate the plane's flight recorders, which could provide vital information about the cause of the crash.

The search zone is a relatively uncharted patch of ocean that has deep ravines and a fine, muddy sediment.

France is sending a nuclear-powered submarine to try to locate the two flight recorders, which could be at a depth of anywhere between 2,835 and 13,120 feet, said Laurent Kerleguer, the French navy's deputy head of hydrography.

(Writing by Stuart Grudgings and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Will Dunham)

[Mystique]

The sad irony of this is whichever family the bodies they find belong to, they're the (lucky) ones who'll be able to make peace with it and somehow put closure on this tragedy.
Devoured by sharks?

Here's hoping they recover more, both bodies and plane wreckage over the next few days...

[Woopzilla]

Man died after ambulance detour
An emergency patient died after a paramedic allegedly diverted an ambulance because his shift had ended.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8087780.stm

Whoever the driver was has a real lack of good judgment... showing no regard to the stroke victim in the back and driving back to the Ambulance Station instead of the Hospital because his shift has ended. Seriously messed up.

No doubt he'll lose his job and get sued into oblivion by the family members.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Woopzilla

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8087780.stm

Whoever the driver was has a real lack of good judgment... showing no regard to the stroke victim in the back and driving back to the Ambulance Station instead of the Hospital because his shift has ended. Seriously messed up.

No doubt he'll lose his job and get sued into oblivion by the family members.

See, this is why Monty Python was "true" rather than "funny" ..... :P

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Woopzilla

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8087780.stm

Whoever the driver was has a real lack of good judgment... showing no regard to the stroke victim in the back and driving back to the Ambulance Station instead of the Hospital because his shift has ended. Seriously messed up.

No doubt he'll lose his job and get sued into oblivion by the family members.

I'm not familiar with the laws in Britain, but could the driver and technician face criminal charges in this as well? They had to realize that there was a good chance he could die if they didn't get him to the hospital as quickly as possible. That says negligence to me.

[Vexx]

If ambulance drivers there are not EMT or do not have ethics training ('hippocratic oath equivalence'), then you're going to have people who are reacting to being told not to run overtime by managers who are also being pressured to control payroll costs.

People are remarkably amoral when it comes to this sort of thing. You tend to focus on the things your boss measures your performance by. In a call center, you are not rewarded for solving customer problems - you're rewarded for
1) answering calls within a certain amount of time
2) keeping the calls as short as possible
3) sticking to the scripts, not for actually having problem solving skills
4) getting on and off the clock on time.

Bets that this ambulance driver was recently hammered for going over the clock too often. Course it could also be he *is* a moron, and had a hot date or a pub crawl in mind after shift.

[Shadow Kira01]

Aso Cabinet support flat at 29.5% / Hatoyama preferred over Aso for PM

On the reasons for not supporting the Aso Cabinet, 28 percent of respondents cited a "lack of leadership," an increase from 21 percent who chose this answer in a survey conducted between May 8 to 10.

It seems that the results of the general election in a few months from now is already available.

[Hari Michiru]

Originally Posted by Vexx

People are remarkably amoral when it comes to this sort of thing. You tend to focus on the things your boss measures your performance by. In a call center, you are not rewarded for solving customer problems - you're rewarded for
1) answering calls within a certain amount of time
2) keeping the calls as short as possible
3) sticking to the scripts, not for actually having problem solving skills
4) getting on and off the clock on time.

This really explains why those stupid help lines never work for my phone and internet company.

[Shadow Kira01]

Brazil says 17 bodies recovered from jet crash

Bermuda Triangle conspiracy dies, 17 bodies recovered. This is definitely a plane crash!!!

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Brazil says 17 bodies recovered from jet crash

Bermuda Triangle conspiracy dies, 17 bodies recovered. This is definitely a plane crash!!!

So the being nowhere near the bermuda triangle alone didn't kill off the conspiracy? Though maybe some discussion about the bermuda triangle would make an interesting thread...

edit: and there's already one from 2004. http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...rmuda+triangle

[Shadow Kira01]

N. Korea court sentences U.S. journalists to 12 years of labor

''The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor,'' the KCNA said in a short dispatch.
The report did not specify what the ''grave crime'' was.
With the ruling in place, the focus shifts to diplomatic efforts by the United States to secure the release of the reporters.

Looks like these ladies are really unlucky..

Now that they are sentenced to 12 years of labor in North Korean dungeons, I don't think it would be possible for any nation alone to save them without a military movement. Generally, unless they manage to sneak out on their own, saving them is pretty much out of the question.

The thing I don't understand is why they snuck into North Korea in the first place as that it pretty much danger zone. It may be easy to sneak in there but getting out is probably tougher than doing the same thing in the Middle East...

Perhaps, this is what they call the pride of journalism!

[Vexx]

They weren't IN North Korea, they were IN China ... the North Korean army guards crossed into China to arrest them for pointing their cameras at North Korea from China. I suppose the PRC is okay with the concept of such an "invasion" by North Korea :P

This whole thing is simply a game for the North Korean leadership in which these poor women are pawns. What will probably happen is that Al Gore or some equal celebrity will go visit, give Great Leader the feeling of importance he wants and if the women are lucky they'll be released in a "Great Magnaminous Gesture" from "Great Leader". :P

[aohige]

India, man on the roof of the train, refusing to get off, touches electrical line and explodes. Caught on camera.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fc0_1243424473

It's not too graphic to be NSFW, but it is quite shocking. No pun intended.
Good god, he exploded twice. o_O

This is why kids, you don't get on the roof of a train... and don't ever touch electric lines.

[LeoXiao]

if the women are lucky they'll be released in a "Great Magnaminous Gesture" from "Great Leader". :P

Speaking of which, there'll be a new one soon!

[killer3000ad]

Originally Posted by aohige

India, man on the roof of the train, refusing to get off, touches electrical line and explodes. Caught on camera.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fc0_1243424473

It's not too graphic to be NSFW, but it is quite shocking. No pun intended.
Good god, he exploded twice. o_O

This is why kids, you don't get on the roof of a train... and don't ever touch electric lines.

Well that was electrifrying.

[Woopzilla]

Originally Posted by aohige

India, man on the roof of the train, refusing to get off, touches electrical line and explodes. Caught on camera.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fc0_1243424473

It's not too graphic to be NSFW, but it is quite shocking. No pun intended.
Good god, he exploded twice. o_O

This is why kids, you don't get on the roof of a train... and don't ever touch electric lines.

Whoa. I guess the only graphic stuff there is that he starts smoking and his hairs on fire!

The chatter didn't seem to change a lot after he died, but obviously people were freaked out running away the second he 'exploded'. :S