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Osama's son Hamza asks jihadists to attack US, allies
Same-sex marriage bill introduced to Australian Parliament
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Morgan Freeman's granddaughter stabbed to death in Manhattan
First batch of Hajj pigrims departs from Mangaluru International airport

Technical snag,IndiGo flight 6E 178 from Mumbai to Delhi returns to Mumbai

MUMBAI: An Indigo flight to Delhi returned and landed in Mumbai 15 minutes after departure due to a technical snag on Saturday morning.

The flight 6E 178, which was scheduled for a 9.30 am departure took off at 9.45 am. About 15 minutes after take off, the pilot announced that the flight will return to Mumbai as the aircraft had developed a technical snag. The aircraft, with about 150 passengers on board is currently in Mumbai. "We are inside the aircraft, the engineers have told us that we will depart in the next 15 minutes," said Naheed Contractor, a passenger onboard the flight. At 11.10 am the flight was still on ground.

Earlier in the day, IndiGo passengers of the same flight had to put up with some inconvenince as there were no IndiGo cabin bag tags at self check-in or at the security gates, she added. "We had to walk all the way back to main check-in counters and the airline manager acknowledged the shortage and said some of the bag tag bins are empty," Contractor said. "The CISF security personnel also knew about it and said that I wasn't the first person to go searching for baggage tags after reaching security, as no tags were available at Indigo check in gates from A1 to A8," she said.

The Indigo spokesperson was not available for comment.
  • Published in Mumbai

Two Air India staff suspended after Jain pilgrims were served meat on flight

New Delhi: If populism and unionism weren’t enough to dent Air India’s credibility among flyers, careless staff could prove the key.

Tempers frayed onboard a Leh-Delhi flight on Saturday afternoon when meat was served to some Jain pilgrims returning from Sindhu Darshan festival.

Top Air India sources confirmed the incident to Mail Today with a quick addition: “The action was taken immediately and we suspended two catering staff of assistant manager rank following the complaint.” 

The immediate staff suspension was enacted to stop the bad news from leaving the airport as the fuming pilgrims landed in the Capital. But Mail Today managed to unearth the incident, which left many returning from the festival with bitter memories.

Chaos onboard 

Top sources said the incident happened on an Air India chartered flight which took off from Leh airport around noon on Saturday when many passengers belonging to the Jain religious community objected to non-vegetarian food packets being served to them for lunch, despite prior selection of a special “Hindu meal”.

The frustration and anger among passengers soon gained support from others, which resulted in chaos on board. 

The 182-seater Air India flight was chartered by about 122 pilgrims who had visited Sindhu Darshan, held from June 23 to June 26, in Ladakh capital city, and they were returning back to New Delhi on Saturday.

The Sindhu Darshan Festival, as the name suggests, is a celebration of River Sindhu, also known as the Indus. It was first started in the October, 1997 and continues to be held every year since then, attracting large number of foreign as well domestic tourists. 

“The return price for the chartered flight ticket was in the range of Rs 24,000 to Rs 26,000 and it was expected of Air India to serve a special treatment to the passengers, but in real, it turned out to be a big embarrassment for national carrier’s credibility among flyers,” said a senior Air India official, requesting anonymity. 

When contacted, AI Director (personal) NK Jain said: “We have suspended the two catering staff members on the basis of complaint filed by passengers and will issue a charge-sheet seeking explanation. Final penalty will be decided after that.” Slammed with mounting passengers’ complaints denting Air India’s credibility, Minister of State for Aviation Mahesh Sharma has asked his officers to crack the whip on errant ground staff and onboard crew members not ensuring a “memorable journey to flyers”. 

Speaking to Mail Today, Sharma said: “I am not going to take any indiscipline and incompetence lightly and will not be tolerated at any cost on the core services sector as aviation. The world is watching as we try to bring in more foreigners through better connectivity and hospitable staff.” 

  • Published in National

U.S., Russian aircraft came within 10 feet over Black Sea

Washington: A Russian fighter jet, flying at high speed, came within 10 feet of a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Black Sea late last month, several U.S. officials told CNN Thursday.

The Russian jet flew alongside the U.S. plane at the same altitude, broke off, and then shadowed the plane before leaving the area in the May 30 incident, the officials said. The U.S. aircraft took no evasive measures, and no other details were immediately available. Military officials could not say whether a diplomatic protest had been filed.

The close call comes weeks after another incident between the U.S. and Russia over the skies of Europe, when a U.S. RC-135U flying a routine route in international airspace was intercepted by a Russian SU-27 Flanker in what authorities called an "unsafe and unprofessional manner."

And earlier this month, the U.S. Navy took the unusual step of releasing video of Russian Su-24 aircraft flying past the right side of the guided missile destroyer USS Ross in the Black Sea.

The video was distributed to make clear that the airplanes and ship had a routine encounter, contrary to Russian reports. It shows a warplane approaching from the distance and then quickly zooming past the American vessel.

The Russian aircraft were not armed, according to a U.S. defense official, and the entire matter was considered routine.

The U.S. officials say because there are more military aircraft from NATO and Russia flying over the Black Sea and the Baltics, there are more interactions. However, the two air incidents are of particular concern because of the danger they posed to U.S. aircraft and personnel.
  • Published in World

Singapore Airlines flight with 194 people onboard loses power mid-air

Singapore: Singapore Airlines said on Wednesday that it is investigating how one of its jets suffered a loss of power in both of its engines over the weekend and descended 13,000 feet (3,962 meters) before regaining altitude en route from Singapore to Shanghai.

The Airbus A330-300 was carrying 182 passengers and 12 crew members when the incident occurred on Saturday, the airline said in a statement. The jet lost power in both engines after hitting bad weather 3 1/2 hours into the flight, but one engine quickly resumed normal operations, it said.

"The pilots followed operational procedures to restore normal operation of the second engine by putting the aircraft into a controlled descent, before climbing again," the statement said.

Data from FlightRadar24.com and a report in the Aviation Herald showed the plane was cruising at 39,000 feet (11,887 meters) about 260 kilometers (162 miles) from Hong Kong when the Rolls-Royce Trent 772 engines stopped working.

The jet dropped to 26,000 feet (7,925 meters) before power was restored, and climbed back to 31,200 feet (9,510 meters) before it landed safely in Shanghai about 1 hour and 40 minutes later, the report said.

Singapore Airlines said no "anomalies" were detected in either of the engines after the plane arrived in Shanghai, and that it is reviewing the incident with Rolls-Royce and Airbus.

The plane later took off to return to Singapore after a two-hour delay, Aviation Herald reported.

  • Published in World

A380 crash: rescue is on

France:French rescuers resumed the search today for the remains of the 150 people, including 16 school children, killed when a Germanwings Airbus slammed into the side of a nearly inaccessible mountain in the Alps.

Helicopters took off from a nearby improvised base, heading for the rugged area where flight 4U9525 crashed Tuesday, spreading debris and body parts of the mostly German and Spanish victims over a wide area.

Officials are hunting for clues to why the plane, operated by German flag carrier Lufthansa's budget subsidiary, entered a fatal eight-minute descent on its route between Barcelona and Duesseldorf.

No distress signal was sent and the crew failed to respond to desperate attempts at contact from ground control.

The cockpit voice recorder recovered from the wreckage has been found damaged and has been taken to Paris for analysis, a source close to the inquiry said today.

"The black box that was found is the CVR," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) "was damaged. It has been transferred to Paris this morning."

A second so-called black box, in this case recording flight data, has yet to be found.
Video images from a government helicopter yesterday showed a desolate snow-flecked moonscape, with steep ravines covered in scree. Debris was strewn across the mountainside, pieces of twisted metal smashed into tiny bits.
Debris was believed to be scattered over four acres of remote and inaccessible mountainous terrain, hampering rescue efforts.

The plane was "totally destroyed", a local member of parliament who flew over the site said, describing the scene as "horrendous".

"The biggest body parts we identified are not bigger than a briefcase," one investigator said.

More than 300 policemen and 380 firefighters have been mobilised for the grisly task of searching the site.

Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marc Menichini said a squad of 30 mountain rescue police would resume attempts to reach the crash site by helicopter at dawn today, while a further 65 police were seeking access on foot.

Five investigators had spent the night camped at the site.
It would take "at least a week" to search the remote site, he said.

"Ground access is horrible.... It's a very high mountainous area, very steep and it's terrible to get there except from the air during winter," local resident Francoise Pie said.

Family members of the dead were to arrive today at the rescuers' logistics base in a village near the crash site.

French President Francois Hollande, his German counterpart Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy were also expected to arrive in the area around 2:00 pm (local time).
  • Published in World

Airbus A320 carrying 148 people on board crashes

A passenger jet carrying 148 people crashed on Tuesday in the French Alps. France’s president said no survivors were likely as search-and-rescue teams raced to the remote region.

The Germanwings Airbus passenger jet crashed as it traveled from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, French officials said. Eric Ciotti, the head of the regional council in southeast France, said search-and-rescue teams were headed to the crash site at Meolans-Revels.

In a live briefing on Tuesday, Hollande said it was probable that a number of the victims are German. He said the area of the crash was remote and it was not clear whether anyone on the ground had been injured by the crash.

“It’s a tragedy on our soil,” he said, adding he would be speaking shortly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Germanwings is a lower-cost unit of Lufthansa, Germany’s biggest airline, that has been operating since 2002, part of traditional national carriers’ response from rising European budget carriers. It serves mainly European destinations.

The area where the plane went down is near a popular ski resort.

The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation is sending three people to France to join the investigation, spokesman Germout Freitag said.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, the country’s top security official, was headed to the crash site.
  • Published in World
MH370 search to continue, says Malaysia

MH370 search to continue, says Malaysia

Malaysia said on Friday that the search for the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared in March last year with 239 people on board will continue.

“So far, over 26,000 sq km of the seafloor, or over 40 percent of the total priority zone, have been searched for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370,” said Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, according to a Xinhua report.

The search vessels have been focussing on a 60,000 sq km priority zone, with the hunt scheduled to end in May.

Asked if the search for the jet would end after the entire priority zone was scoured, Liow said: “It totally depends on the conclusion of the experts, including those involved in the investigation of the incident.”

He said Malaysia had already spent about 60 million ringgit (about $18 million) on the search, which is also funded by Australia and supported by China.

The minister said that weather condition in the south Indian Ocean was comparatively good now and one more ship from Malaysia was expected to join the search operations.

The Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared enroute from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014.

So far no trace of either the plane’s debris or bodies of the people on board has been found despite the massive surface and underwater hunt.

The search is jointly carried out by Australia, Malaysia and China in the Indian Ocean some 1,600 km off Australia’s west coast, with four ships using sophisticated sonar systems to scour a huge underwater area.

Earlier, the Malaysian government had declared that the plane had met with an accident and all the people on board were presumed dead.
  • Published in World

Teams of Indonesian divers resume search for AirAsia recorders, victims


PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesian divers resumed their search on Saturday for the black box flight recorders and passengers and crew of an AirAsia passenger jet that crashed into the sea nearly two weeks ago.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501, with 162 people on board, lost contact with air traffic control during bad weather on Dec. 28, less than half way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia to Singapore. There were no survivors.

Forty-eight bodies, including at least two strapped to their seats, have been found in the Java Sea off Borneo, and the tail of the Airbus A320-200 has been located in shallow water.

But strong winds and currents and high waves have hampered efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor and to find the rest of the victims.

Search and rescue teams detected pings they believed were from the flight recorders on Friday, and two teams of divers resumed the hunt soon after dawn on Saturday.

"One team is for the tail and a separate team is sweeping the seabed for the black box," Supriyadi, operations coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters in the town of Pangkalan Bun, the base for the search effort on Borneo.

"We are still looking for the main body of the plane where most of the victims could be trapped."

The tail was found on Wednesday, upturned on the sea bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane's last known location at a depth of about 30 metres (100 feet).

The aircraft carries the cockpit voice and flight data recorders near its tail, however officials have said it looked increasingly likely that they had become separated during the disaster.

The recorders will be vital to the investigation into why the airliner crashed.

"LARGE AREA"

Supriyadi said the divers would try to home in on the pings but the search area was extensive and visibility in the water, churned up by rainy season weather, was poor.

"The black box could be covered in mud. The pings can only be detected within a radius of 500 metres (1,640 feet) so it can be a large area to cover," he said.

If and when the recorders are found and taken to the capital, Jakarta, for analysis, it could take up to two weeks to download data, investigators said, although the information could be accessed in as little as two days if the devices are not badly damaged.

While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said seasonal storms were likely to be a factor.

The plane was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.

The pilots did not issue a distress signal.

The Indonesian captain, a former Air Force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

Most of those on board were Indonesians.
  • Published in World
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