Amtrack derailment
This is a bad one. I don’t have much commentary or speculation right now, because we know so little about the causes. What we do know is that at least six people are dead and 146 injured in the derailment … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Disaster
Pilot practiced for that Alps crash on the previous flight
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 →
Further thoughts on the Germanwings co-pilot
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 →
It was the co-pilot
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 →
Report: voice recorder incidates pilot was locked out of cockpit
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 →
More on the Germanwings crash
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 →
Air crash in the Alps
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 →
Found
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 →
Another missing airliner
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 →
A beautiful young Dutch couple, who seemed to have their lives ahead of them…
…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 →
The downed Malaysian airliner
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 →
Malaysian passenger plane reportedly shot down over Ukraine
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 →