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Monday, August 4, 2008

The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has announced it will take the unprecedented step of conducting a special review of flag carrier Qantas after three separate emergencies in two weeks.

In the latest incident, a Boeing 767 headed from Sydney to Manila was forced to turn back yesterday after ground staff at the airport noticed what they believed to be smoke emanating from the jet’s wing as it departed. It turned out to be fine spray from a hydraulic fluid leak, and the aircraft brought its 200 passengers back down safely at around 3:00 p.m., with ARFF trucks on standby.

Despite the aircraft being forced to turn around, the pilot did not request a priority landing and so Qantas refused to describe the event as an emergency landing.

Qantas has a largely good safety record, having never lost a jet aircraft or had a fatality on board one. Their last fatal accident was in 1951. However, recently two other events have led to some questioning of Qantas from within the aviation industry.

Last Monday, a Qantas Boeing 737-800 returned to Adelaide after experiencing pressurization problems caused by the failure of an undercarriage door to retract properly. This followed the July 25 accident on board Flight 30, a Boeing 747 headed from London to Melbourne that had just made a stopover in Hong Kong, in which an exploding oxygen cylinder caused an explosive decompression. An emergency landing was performed in Manila, with a hole blown in the aircraft’s side.

According to Qantas staff, the problems are not a new thing. Qantas flight attendants have asked senior management for an emergency meeting over these latest events. The Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia’s president Steven Reed said “We want some assurances from the company that these are isolated incidents. Or are they something we should be concerned about? We need to meet with the company at a senior level to have these assurances.” Such a meeting is said to be likely within a week.

Qantas engineers have been complaining for some time about maintenance issues, saying that cost-cutting and outsourcing are compromising the quality of maintenance. Much work is now being done in countries such as Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines. According to one engineering union official, recent incidents linked to outsourced maintenance include a failure of emergency lighting and flight attendants in the galley being electrocuted by faulty wiring.

According to the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers’ Association’s assistant federal secretary, Wayne Vasta, there has been a recent “change in culture” at Qantas, although he did say it would be inappropriate to blame only outsourcing. He said that while previously Qantas engineers had simply attempted to do the best they could, “Now it appears we have got to do the best job we can possibly do, within a budget.” He also expressed a welcoming of the CASA probe.

Qantas’ engineers are currently lobbying for a pay rise, and say the airline is risking safety with cost cuts.

Peter Gibson, spokesperson for CASA, said no trouble had been spotted in recent safety audits of Qantas, but they felt it ‘prudent’ to investigate given the recent string of incidents. He acknowledged that the review is unprecedented in CASA’s history, and announced the probe would be headed by senior official Mick Quinn.

“We want to look at their safety systems to make sure that the systems are operating the way they should. All these things are stated in manuals. We want to make sure that what is in the manuals is being done,” Gibson told reporters. He said the investigation should take around two weeks.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

A discussion group about weblogs, or blogs for short, that meets at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society last week began releasing video tutorials about how to blog using various web and software tools.

Harvard University‘s Berkman Center hosts the blogging discussion group, which has met weekly for the past two years.

After months of discussion and collaboration on the new tutorials, at Friday’s evening meeting presenters showed off some of their early video tutorials, which stream recorded audio, and previously-captured video of a computer screen, along with simultaneous live audio from a microphone.

Participants learned how similar tutorials can be constructed using free software tools such as CamStudio. Audio of the session was made available on the World Wide Web.

Shimon Rura, a local software developer, presented a recent screen-capture + voiceover flash file he had made, demonstrating how to use a bookmarklet in the Frassle blogging package. Other participants discussed video demonstrations of how to podcast, and how to use specific blogging tools such as WordPress.

There was also disussion of a recent initiative to set up a Blogging101 site for distributing and translating these instructional materials. Rebecca MacKinnon, a noted blogger and Berkman Fellow, spoke about the BloggerCorps initiative to connect non-profits who want broader exposure with local blogging enthusiasts.

The meeting was held inside the main conference room in the Berkman Center’s Cambridge offices on Massachusetts Avenue.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

French authorities have today revealed that Air France Flight 447 sent 24 error messages shortly before the plane disappeared during the flight between Rio de Janeiro and Paris with 228 people on board. They also said that the plane’s auto-pilot was not active, although they say that from the error messages it is impossible to determine the reason for it being inactive. The crash is said to be the world’s worst aviation disaster since 2001.

Officials have still not determined the reason for the flight’s disappearance or located the wreckage of the plane, but have said that it was flying through an area of “powerful cumulo-nimbus” clouds. The authorities continued saying, “these are found frequently in this area and in normal climactic [sic] conditions”. However other meteorologists said the jet was entering a zone with unusual storms and 100mph updrafts which could have formed a vacuum, sucking water up from the ocean.

Fourteen of the error messages sent by the system were done so within a period of one minute, 2:10 a.m. – 2:11 a.m. UTC. It is thought that some of the error messages are related to the flight speed and controls related to auto thrust. Paul-Louis Arslanian, director of the French air accident investigation agency, said that the error messages indicated systems had shut down one after another. He also confirmed that the plane in question had encountered difficulties with measuring its speed and that Airbus was currently completing “a programme of replacement, of improvement”.

Airbus and Arslanian insist that planes are still safe, however Airbus have since re-sent information regarding difficulties with calculating speed and confirming their advice in such situations.

Previous announcements by the Brazilian air force that they had successfully located part of the wreckage of flight 447 have turned out to be false after ships recovered unrelated debris from the sea. After recovering debris from the sea, including a cargo pallet and two buoys, Brigadier Ramon Cardoso, the director of Brazilian air traffic control said, “[U]p to now, no material from the plane has been recovered.”

He continued, “We confirm that the pallet found is not part of the debris of the plane. It’s a pallet that was in the area, but considered more to be trash. The pallet was made of wood, and the Air France Airbus A330 did not have any wooden pallets on board. That’s how we can confirm that the pallet isn’t part of the remains of the aircraft”. It is thought the pallet came from a passing ship which is also being blamed as to the reason for the oil slick spotted in the area.

David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine, said: “The fact that the autopilot was not working is not the cause of this accident”, continuing by saying it is “not at all unusual” for the autopilot to cut out, alerting the pilots with a loud warning, adding “it’s not the cause, it’s the symptom” of the accident.

He also said that it was “designed to cut out at any time that it receives conflicting messages, which we know it was” and that “It’s designed to cut out rather than controlling the airplane in an unsafe way – it’s not an intelligent system, it doesn’t know which of the data are correct.”

Rescuers have long since given up on attempting to find any survivors instead now trying to locate and recover the wreckage of the flight and more importantly the flight data recorders, without which they say they may never know what happened to the flight. The process of recovery is expected to be difficult with the seabed reaching depths of 3,000 to 4,000 meters. Both American and French specialist equipment has been sent to the area with the aim of recovering the recorders, however French officials say that the locator beacons attached to the boxes could possibly have become detached by the force of the impact.

Speculation has been rife as to the thought cause of the flights disappearance, ranging from a direct lightning strike to weather in the area, however recently a Spanish pilot has said, via his airline Air Comet, that on a flight in the area he saw an “intense flash of white light”. The report, initially released by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo and then confirmed by AFP also said a co-pilot and passenger also saw the bright light.

“Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds” the unidentified captain said.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

On Tuesday, NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was upgraded to fair condition at Pittsburgh’s Mercy Hospital. The extent of his injuries is now known. Roethlisberger lost two teeth and chipped others, suffered a concussion, a broken upper and lower jaw, a broken nose, broken facial bone, a 9 inch laceration to the back of his head, and road rash injuries to his knees which thankfully do not extend to the joints. Police confirmed that Roethlisberger was riding without a helmet and additionally, did not have a Pennsylvania motorcycle license; he had a learner’s permit, which expired March 29, 2006. Given this fact, Roethlisberger was in fact legally obligated to wear a helmet in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Steelers officials and Roethlisberger’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, confirmed that Ben had received a letter last year from team representatives warning him that parts of his contract might be affected if he were to be injured while riding a motorcycle. The letter was apparently sent in order to both put the team on solid legal footing were a major accident to occur, and apprise Ben of the risks he is taking by riding a motorcycle.

Records kept by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation indicate that 180 helmet-wearing motorcyclists died in wrecks in 2004 and 2005 in Pennsylvania. In the same period, 157 helmet-free bikers died in wrecks.

Pennsylvania’s 35-year-old law requiring helmets to be worn was amended in 2003 to make helmets optional under certain circumstances. According to the amended law, a motorcyclist will no longer be required to wear a helmet if the rider is:

• A person 21 years of age or older who has been licensed to operate a motorcycle for not less than two full calendar years.
• A person 21 years of age or older who has completed a motorcycle rider safety course approved by the department or the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
• A passenger 21 years of age or older if the motorcycle driver meets one of the qualifications for not wearing a helmet.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The Australian government has confirmed it will send an extra 200 troops to Afghanistan as part of a security and reconstruction team. Prime Minister John Howard says troops will leave from late July and will spend about two years in Afghanistan separate from the Special Forces and commandos already serving there. In a press conference in Canberra today, Mr Howard said the deployment was “further evidence of the government’s ongoing commitment to assist the people of Afghanistan in consolidating their embrace of democracy and resisting any attempt on the part of the Taliban to come back.”

The Australian Greens oppose the deployment of new troops. In a press release, Senator Bob Brown voiced his opinion on the matter, and said the following about Australia’s deployment: “The announcement that Australia will be sending 200 more troops to Afghanistan comes hard on the heels of the Bush administration announcing the withdrawal of 3000 troops from the same theatre,” he said. “Without the US withdrawal there would be no Australian deployment. This is John Howard once again using the ADF to meet the Bush administration’s political shortcomings. Our troops should be kept at home.”

“The ADF contribution will be a mixed security and reconstruction taskforce of approximately 200 personnel and will be deployed over a period of two years,” Howard told reporters. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) troops will be deployed from late July and work alongside Dutch soldiers as part of a NATO force. The extra 200 troops will bring the number of ADF personnel to more than 500.

Australia sent 1,550 troops to Afghanistan in 2001, including special forces, to join the U.S.-led strikes against the Taliban regime. Australia’s only fatality in Afghanistan came in February 2002 when a soldier was killed after his vehicle hit a land mine. Violence has intensified in Afghanistan in recent months, particularly in the south and east, with a wave of raids, roadside and suicide bombings killing dozens of people.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Legendary Emperor Qin Shi Huang of China had one more terracotta warrior guarding his tomb, recently. Pablo Wendel, an art student from Germany, disguised himself as one of the clay sculptures surrounding Qinshihuang in his final resting place, now a museum.

Police protecting the northern China museum searched for an extended period of time, as Wendel stood silently, among several thousand sculptures. When police found the 26-year-old performance artist, who later told them he was fascinated by the monumental display, they carried him away “as if he were a log.”

China was united by Emperor Qin Shi Huang over 2,200 years ago. The tomb in Xian, once the capital of China, is open to the public as a museum.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Council of the European Union voted yesterday to extend the term of copyright on sound recordings by twenty years, from 50 years to 70, preventing a number of early recordings of 1960s rock musicians including The Beatles from entering the public domain. The 1962 hit “Love Me Do” would have entered the public domain in 2012 if this legislation had not been introduced. EU member states have to enact the copyright extension within two years.

The news was welcomed by representatives of the recording industry and by some recording artists. Cliff Richard has campaigned for term extension. Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones said the decision was “obviously advantageous” to performers, and Bjorn Ulvaeus from Abba welcomed the continued control over the group’s recordings: “Now I won’t have to see Abba being used in a TV commercial”. Geoff Taylor from the British Phonographic Industry said “[a]n exceptional period of British musical genius was about to lose its protection. As a matter of principle, it is right that our musicians should benefit from their creativity during their lifetimes, and that they should not be disadvantaged compared to musicians in other countries.”

Extension of the copyright term also has critics. Jim Killock, from the British digital rights advocacy group the Open Rights Group (ORG), said the move “puts money into the pockets of big labels” but will be “unlikely to benefit smaller artists and it will mean that a lot of sound recordings that are out of print will stay out of print”. Singer Sandie Shaw, of the Featured Artists’ Coalition, said the move would be “extremely good news for record companies and collection agencies, but bad news for artists” and would lead to artists having “20 more years in servitude to contracts that are no longer appropriate to a digital age”.

The extension to 70 years is less than that EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy proposed in 2008. At that time, Wikinews interviewed Eddan Katz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Becky Hogge, then Executive Director of ORG, in Brussels. The two organisations were gathering like-minded groups to oppose harmonisation with the US’s 95-year term. Characterising the sought extension as “Cliff Richard’s pension”, Hogge asserted, “[w]hat you’ve got at the end of the day with copyright term extension is basically […] rent seeking by special interest groups lobbying governments to change the law in order that they may economically gain directly.”

Two reviews of intellectual property rights in Britain have concluded it would not be economically beneficial to extend copyright terms on sound recordings. The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property in 2006 concluded extension of the copyright term would “negatively impact upon consumers and industry”. The Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth in 2011 concluded it would be “economically detrimental”. A study conducted by Bournemouth University’s Center for Intellectual Property Policy and Management concluded 72% of the economic benefits of the term extension would go to record labels, with 28% going to artists, only 4% of which are going to less successful artists.