Passengers noticed nothing out of the ordinary, but Alps-crash copilot Andreas Lubitz had practiced his descent-programming skills on the previous flight. He apparently waited until the pilot had stepped out of the cabin for a few minutes, and then he … Continue reading →
The motivations behind the extraordinarily destructive act of Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz remain a mystery. We know a little more about him, though—the most salient fact so far being that investigators found a torn-up “doctor’s note that called for him … Continue reading →
The news is shocking and yet not shocking at the same time, because by now everyone had figured it out: the Germanwings co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane and killed himself and 149 souls on board. His motive? Unknown. Islamic terrorism … Continue reading →
According to The New York Times, a “senior military official involved in the investigation” of the Germanwings air crash has described an extremely disturbing scenario during the last eight minutes of the flight: …[O]ne of the pilots left the cockpit … Continue reading →
Facts learned today: Witnesses who saw the plane right before the crash report it as having been intact. So a bomb catastrophic enough to blow part of the plane off could not have been the problem. Despite the lack of … Continue reading →
A terrible air disaster: All 144 passengers and six crew were today presumed dead after the Airbus A320 crashed in a remote region of the French Alps en route from Spain to Germany. One of the plane’s black box recorders … Continue reading →
One wouldn’t think that news of wreckage and multiple bodies being pulled from the sea could be classified as “good.” But given what we already very strongly suspected—which was that AirAsia Flight QZ8501 had crashed, and that the likelihood of … Continue reading →
Sadly, an AirAsia flight leaving from Indonesia and bound for Singapore has gone missing with 162 souls on board. Unlike the still-disappeared Malaysian flight, the AirAsia flight lost contact in a specific area and had reported bad weather immediately prior … Continue reading →
…lie murdered somewhere in Eastern Ukraine. And their family wants them back, along with the families of all the other Flight 17 victims: “No words can describe it,” Fredriksz-Hoogzand [the mother of one of the victims] told AP. “Bodies are … Continue reading →
There’s not much more news on downed Malaysian Flight 17 than there was yesterday, but I thought I’d leave an open thread for you to discuss it as further news breaks during the day. Here’s a bunch of articles on … Continue reading →
Could this be? Horrendous if true: A passenger plane with 295 people on board has been shot down as it flew above eastern Ukraine, according to aviation sources. The Malaysia Airlines plane, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, … Continue reading →
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of an earlier post.] This first time I ever read about the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was in one of the volumes from Will and Ariel Durant’s humungous Story of Civilization series, which … Continue reading →