Air France Flight 296 was a chartered flight of a new fly-by-wire Airbus A320-111 operated by Air France. On June 26, 1988, it was flying over Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport (ICAO code LFGB) as part of an air show. The low-speed fly-by was supposed to take place with landing gear down at an altitude of 100 feet (30 m). Instead, the plane slowly descended to 30 feet, and crashed into treetops at the end of the runway. Three passengers died. This was the first crash of an Airbus A320. The cause of the accident is disputed, as many irregularities were later revealed by the accident investigation.
The official report states the causes of the accident were:
Very low flyover height, lower than surrounding obstacles.
Very low speed, slowing down to reach maximum possible angle of attack.
Engines at minimum idle flight power.
Late application of go-around power.
This combination led to the impact of the aircraft with the trees.
The Commission assumed that if the descent below 100 feet was not deliberate, it may have resulted from failure to take proper account of the visual and aural information intended to give the height of the aircraft.
A Dutch salvage company may be hired to try to save the Costa Concordia. There are two options: Patch up the 50-meter (160-foot) gash in the Concordia’s hull and attempt to refloat it, or carve up the liner where it lies into chunks small enough to be carried away on barges.
Refloating the ship would be the cleanest of the two options, but is extremely difficult because of the luxury liner’s size, the ship had about 45,000 tons of steel alone.
To refloat the stricken liner, salvage crews would likely use pulling barges strongly anchored to the sea bed and cables secured to the ship. They would likely also put cables on the land side of the ship to prevent its huge bulk from sliding toward the pulling barges as the vessel is righted.
Forces involved in attempting to pull upright a ship built of tens of thousands of tons of steel make refloating the Concordia unlikely.
That means salvagers are more likely to cut up the ship where it lies, a process that risks releasing pollutants into the waters off picturesque Tuscan coast near a maritime sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.
Emergency teams in Italy are racing to rescue about 40 people still believed to be missing after a cruise ship ran aground off the country’s west coast.
Divers are searching rooms in the Costa Concordia, which is lying on its side 200m (650ft) off Giglio island.
It sank on the first night of a Mediterranean cruise on Friday. Most of its 4,000 passengers and crew reached land by lifeboats but some swam ashore.
The ship was eight kilometers off of its intended location. It was less than a half a kilometer from shore. The ship is five years old and had all the top state-of-the art navigation technology. Somebody was not paying attention on the bridge.
God forbid if this is what the captain and crew were up to.
The tragic deaths in the states of Missouri and Oklahoma again bring to the forefront the deadly power of tornadoes. 120 fatalities in Joplin, Missouri alone is one of the worst tornado disasters in U.S. history. Being prepared for these twisting devils is a major priority in the states that get hit hardest.
The mayor of Oklahoma City was on the radio today and said building codes in his city make it mandatory for new homes to build underground tornado shelters in garages. So if there is ample warning and the tornado sirens are howling, people will have time to get into the shelters.
If there are marital problems a guy could grab a little TV and some refreshments and head down there to wait until peace terms are offered.
The situation in Japan is getting more dire by the minute. The major concern right now is the potential meltdown of the Fukishima nuclear plants. The Tsunami badly damaged the plants as it hurtled inland.
The governor of the region at the centre of Japan’s nuclear crisis has criticised official handling of the evacuation of the area around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
Engineers are racing to avert a nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi, badly damaged by Friday’s quake and tsunami.
The government has declared a 20km (12-mile) evacuation zone around it.
Another 140,000 people living between 20-30km of the facility were told on Tuesday not to leave their homes.
Thousands of people were killed in the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami. In a rare public appearance, Japan’s Emperor Akihito has said he is “deeply worried” about the crisis his country is facing.
The atomic crisis has been caused by the tsunami wrecking back-up diesel generators which kept the nuclear fuel cool at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 220km (140 miles) from Tokyo.
Workers have been dousing the reactors with seawater in a frantic effort to stabilise their temperatures, since the first in a series of explosions rocked the plant on Saturday.
Helicopters deployed to dump water on the facility on Wednesday were pulled out amid concerns over radiation levels in the air above the site. Reports suggest another plan is now under consideration to use water cannon.
Earlier, the plant’s operators evacuated its skeleton crew of 50 workers for about an hour as ground-level radiation spiked.
And yet another fire broke out in a reactor, while steam billowed from another one.
The power facility has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo, spreading alarm in the city and internationally.
A huge explosion has rocked a Japanese nuclear power plant damaged by Friday’s devastating earthquake.
A pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima. Four workers were injured.
Japanese officials say the container housing the reactor was not damaged and that radiation levels have now fallen.
A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which are thought to have killed at least 1,000 people.
The offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami which wreaked havoc on Japan’s north-east coast, sweeping far inland and devastating a number of towns and villages.
47°44′58″N 7°25′34″E / 47.74944°N 7.42611°E / 47.74944; 7.42611Coordinates: 
