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| But questions about cockpit safety are recurring ones for the nation's airlines, not something fresh on the FAA radar screen. The Minneapolis case is notable because a major carrier, not a small regional airline, is involved. And the incident has garnered national attention for its eye-popping details. Flight 188 from San Diego overshot its pearl jewelry destination by 150 miles on Wednesday night, as flight controllers tried in vain to contact the crew for more than an hour. The plane was flying over Eau Claire, Wis., and the Air National Guard had put fighter jets on alert to possibly intercept the plane, by the time it finally turned around for a safe landing of its 144 passengers at Minneapolis, according to news reports. "The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness," according to a statement released by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident. The plane's black box was brought to Washington Friday, but the cockpit recorder is an older model that contains only the last 30 minutes of conversation, according to reports. Some aviation experts express doubt about the biwa pearl plausibility of the initial explanation from the flight crew. At the very least, it would be unprofessional to engage in an argument when a plane is nearing its destination. The pilots, who have been temporarily suspended, will be interviewed next week. Whether the explanation lies in bickering, sleepy pilots, or something else, the incident has raised new concerns about professional conduct in the skies. The incident is not an isolated case. In 2008, sleeping pilots overshot their destination on a flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii, but then landed safely. In fatal crash of a Colgan Air flight near Buffalo, N.Y., earlier this year, both fatigue and unprofessional banter in the cockpit may have played a role. At the hearing last month on Capitol Hill, some lawmakers voiced frustration that new regulations are not yet in place. "We need things to be done now," said Rep. Laura Richardson (D) of California. "We have people like myself and many people here in this room who are traveling every single day." In the case of fatigue, virtually all parties agree that new rules are needed to bring 50-year-old regulations up to date. On the wider issue of akoya pearl professional behavior, much can be achieved through better monitoring of flight crews, mentoring programs, and enforcing existing codes of conduct. But this too may require a strong effort by the FAA, safety experts say, not just voluntary actions by the airlines. | ||
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| Investigators are probing the mystery of how Northwest Airlines Flight 188 overshot Minneapolis by so far on Wednesday night. But the incident joins other recent cases that have drawn attention to issues of pearl jewelry flight-crew professionalism and alertness on US airlines. The prominent examples include: •Last year, two pilots for "go!", a subsidiary of Mesa Airlines, fell asleep during a mid-morning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. Traffic controllers finally got through to the pilots, and the plane landed safely. •Continental Connection Flight 3407, a flight operated by Colgan Air, crashed near Buffalo in February, killing 49 passengers and one person on the ground. Crew fatigue, distracting banter in the cockpit, and lack of training or experience may have played roles in the crash, along with wintry weather. •Pinnacle Airlines Flight 4712 skidded off a runway in Traverse City, Mich., in April 2007. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the crew shouldn't have tried to land. The captain was making his fifth landing on a short airstrip that day, according to the Associated Press, and had been working for biwa pearl 14 hours in mostly bad weather. And, according to AP, the NTSB has linked crew fatigue to at least 10 US airliner accidents (and 260 fatalities) since 1990. For years, the Federal Aviation Administration has considered updating old rules on fatigue prevention, but efforts stalled amid differing views from constituencies such as pilots unions. Since the Colgan Air crash, the FAA has tried to put the matter on a fast track, along with other safety issues such as a heightened focus on professionalism in the cockpit. But the agency's rulemaking efforts are still in process. In the Colgan crash, and one in Lexington, Ky., crews violated "sterile cockpit" rules, requiring that officers not chit-chat during takeoffs or landings, according to recent congressional testimony by FAA administrator Randolph Babbitt. Current rules on fatigue require that pilots not fly more than 8 hours in a day, or work more than 16 hours including time on the ground. But they don't take into account the varied experiences of pilots. An eight hour shift on short routes might include eight takeoffs and landings, for example, a much more stressful day than piloting a cross-country flight. Similarly, some crews work late at night or have long commutes by air before going on duty. New FAA rules, under review in draft form, are expected to akoya pearl address such issues. Fatigue issues have also surfaced as a safety concern in other transportation fields, including trucking and railroads. The Northwest Airlines incident this week, which ended with a safe (but late) landing in Minneapolis, could bring other issues to the fore, depending on where the investigation leads. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed an air safety bill backed by Rep. Jerry Costello (D) of Illinois. It includes provisions to establish pilot mentoring programs, boost training requirements for pilots, and create a pilot records database so airlines have access to a pilot's comprehensive track record. | ||
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| But why would a golf game with Melody Barnes – his chief domestic policy advisor – be newsworthy? Was it because right before she pearl jewelry faced a critical putt, he yelled out “Noonan!” Although that would be a great news story – no. No girls allowed It was news because – for those of you keeping score – up until yesterday, all of his golf partners have been men. And this past week, there was also criticism that Obama only plays basketball with male counterparts. We told you about that here. Even last March, Obama was criticized for not being an equal opportunity NCAA basketball bracket filler-outer. Who cares? Many of you said that. One visitor yesterday commented: “How about reporting news, not things nobody cares about? Who gives a damn about who golfs with who?” Networking Others, however, say that it’s important for the president to be more inclusive. And the sporting events represent a chance to network with the president. Therefore, they say, it’s only fair that the president expand his chromosomal outreach. So, at 1pm yesterday, Obama and Barnes (with two other guys filling out their foursome) played 18 holes at the biwa pearl Fort Belvoir golf course just outside of Washington, DC. Coincidental that Barnes played yesterday? Or an attempt to get the media off of the topic? After all, it was the weekend after an NBC reporter put the president on the spot about his male-only basketball games and the New York Times ran an article on the same topic yesterday. It was just a game It crossed the mind of one reporter this afternoon during the press briefing on Air Force One. And, as you would expect, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the thought of it being anything except a golf game. Ever. Period. Here’s the exchange: Q Robert, what was behind the akoya pearl decision to have Melody Barnes play golf with the President yesterday? Was it in any way related to the – | ||
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| Two weeks ago, the new vice chancellor of the University of Free State called for the school to reinstate four white students who were kicked out after making a racist video in which they forced black staffers to eat food that was apparently laced with urine. Criminal charges against the pearl jewelry four students remain, but Vice Chancellor Jonathan Jansen – himself a black South African – said that the University of Free State as an institution was as much to blame for these students' behavior as the individual students were themselves, and needed to transform itself into an institution that encouraged understanding. "To dismiss the video as a product of four bad apples is too easy an explanation. This video-recording was preceded by a long series of racial incidents protesting racial integration, especially in the residences of the university," Professor Jansen said in a speech at the University of Free State in Bloemfontein. (See full speech here.) "I have spent many nights in tears regretting what we – yes, we – did to the five black workers of the University of Free State. This institution begs your forgiveness." Many white South Africans welcomed Mr. Jansen's speech as a sign of reconciliation, in the mold of Nobel peace prize laureates President Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Many blacks – and much of the leadership of the ruling African National Congress party – attacked the speech as naive and not tough enough on the racism that persists even 15 years after the fall of the white-dominated apartheid government. All of this raises troubling questions about how much has actually changed in racial attitudes in South Africa, and what it will take to bring both reconciliation and social change to segments of society that, seemingly, are not quite ready to change. Pressure for vice chancellor "It's quite possible that [Jansen] needed a tradeoff, since he is a black vice chancellor operating in a racist environment," says Aubrey Matshiqi, a political analyst at the Center for Policy Studies in Johannesburg. "He has to give the environment something so that the environment will give him space to carry out reforms." "But I'm not persuaded by his logic, that the four students are products of their environment," Mr. Matshiqi adds. "If you take that logic to biwa pearl its conclusion, then there are many criminals who should not be in jail, because they are victims of their environment." That the video taken at Reitz Men's residence caused such an uproar is not surprising. To have four relatively comfortable white college boys humiliating five black house cleaners and have it called humor served as a reminder that many white South Africans simply haven't changed their attitudes toward their black fellow citizens, who make up 80 percent of the country's population. Under apartheid, such attitudes of racial superiority were used as a justification to impose white rule on the country – and to impose it with force. When the video first broadcast, the four university students defended their video as a form of harmless satire, and political commentary on what they saw as the forced integration of their university. But the video caused an uproar, far beyond the Free State. The five black cleaning staffers soon became causes célèbres of the vast South African underclass which has benefited little from 15 years of political freedom. Jansen speech renews old debate Now, Professor Jansen's speech – an attempt to make peace on his campus – has reignited the debate. "The view of the department of higher education and training is that we cannot allow victims of racism to be unconditional unilateral forgivers," said Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande. "This would constitute a superficial trade off which further impugns the dignity of the victims and is akoya pearl unfortunately an apology for the perpetrators of racism." The cleaning staffers, too, say they oppose the decision to readmit the four white men. "We are pained by the dropping of the charges," four of the five cleaning staffers said in a statement. "We are totally not satisfied by what Jansen said, because he took decisions without consulting us." | ||
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| Monday's deadly crashes involving US helicopters in Afghanistan highlight the extent to which American forces depend on helicopters for travel throughout that vast, mountainous country. Depending on the model, US copters are flying in Afghanistan and Iraq three to five times more than they would in peacetime. That may be indicative of how hard American units are using all their large pieces of equipment, from cargo aircraft to armored mine-resistant vehicles. "We're flying the rotors off helicopters in Afghanistan," says Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the pearl jewelry Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington. Helicopter crashes killed 14 US personnel on Monday, making it the deadliest day for American forces in Afghanistan in more than four years. In the country's west, a US helicopter went down after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing seven troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents. The personnel had been involved in an antinarcotics operation, according to a military spokesman, who added that hostile action was not the likely cause of the crash, as the helicopter was not taking fire when it took off. Separately, two US Marine helicopters collided in flight over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more. Helicopters are at a premium in biwa pearl today's wars, according to US officials. Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, American copters have flown more than 3 million flight hours, pointed out Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, deputy chief of staff of the Army, in an appearance before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year. Yet mission-capable rates for Army aircraft have met or exceeded their 75 percent standard, said Speakes. Given the heavy usage, the Pentagon budget for 2010 has penciled in a $500 million increase to field and sustain more helicopters. Budget documents call the increase necessary because copters are "a capability that is in urgent demand in Afghanistan." The focus of any new resources would be in recruiting and training more Army helicopter crews, according to the budget documents, "because the principal limitation on helicopter capacity is a shortage in maintenance crews and pilots rather than a lack of airframes." The trouble with helicopters is that they are a scarce resource that is in demand everywhere, says Mr. Biddle of akoya pearl CFR. There is no question more of them would be useful in Afghanistan. But other sorts of military resources, such as more ground troops, might be useful, as well. Given limited manpower, it is a difficult trade-off to set priorities. Blizzards, high winds, and the high altitudes of Afghanistan have all played havoc with helicopter equipment. But in some ways, US helicopter flight perhaps has been easier than commanders expected. That is because the military threat to the helicopters has been "relatively modest," Biddle says. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, they were bedeviled by hand-held US Stinger antiaircraft missiles fired by the Afghan mujahideen. Today, the Taliban do not appear to have a similar ground-to-air capability. | ||
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