RSS Feed     Twitter     Facebook

Posts Tagged ‘emergency’

Hole in US plane forces landing

The US carrier Southwest Airlines has inspected about 200 planes after a hole opened up in the passenger cabin during a flight, forcing an emergency landing.

The one-foot-square (30cmx30cm) hole appeared as the Boeing 737 was flying from Nashville to Baltimore on Monday.

Passenger Brian Cunningham told NBC television he had been woken up by "the loudest roar I’d ever heard", and saw the hole above his seat.

People then calmly put on oxygen masks, he said. No-one was injured.

The plane, with 131 passengers and crew on board, made the emergency landed in Charleston, West Virginia.

"After we landed… the pilot came out and looked up through the hole, and everybody applauded, shook his hand, a couple of people gave him hugs," Mr Cunningham said.

The cause of the damage is not known.

On Tuesday Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told the Associated Press news agency that the airline had inspected 200 Boeing 737-300 jets across the country overnight.

No similar problem was identified and Southwest is operating a normal schedule of flights, she said.</p


This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Obama Campaign Plane Emergency Could Have Led To Disaster

Reporting from Washington — Airplane control problems last summer could have led to disaster for then-Sen. Barack Obama and his presidential campaign, according to a report released Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Pakistan Facing New Censure

Commonwealth may suspend the country if emergency rule continues

LONDON – As Commonwealth foreign ministers debated whether to suspend
Pakistan from the grouping if it does not lift its state of emergency,
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto ruled out any more power-sharing talks
with President Pervez Musharraf and said her party may boycott the coming
elections if it’s held under emergency rule.

The Commonwealth Ministerial Action group met yesterday to consider the
suspension of Pakistan from the 53-nation group, as it did for five years
when Gen Musharraf seized power in a coup in 1999.

But its powers of persuasion are limited and suspension is the ultimate
sanction. Pakistan was restored to the group in 2004 after Gen Musharraf
promised to step down as military chief – something he has yet to do.

British officials said, however, that an immediate decision was unlikely,
with any action deferred to a meeting of Commonwealth heads of government
from Nov 23 to 25 in Kampala, Uganda.

Meanwhile, two-time former Premier Bhutto is set on collision course with
the military ruler. She had been in Western-backed negotiations with Gen
Musharraf before he declared a state of emergency on Nov 3, but said she
was changing tack.

“We are saying no to any more talks,” Ms Bhutto said. “We cannot work with
anyone who has suspended the Constitution, imposed emergency rule, and
oppressed the judiciary. That’s why we are holding the ‘long march’.”

She also said that “boycotting the election is an option” with her
Pakistan People’s Party.

It is the largest political group in the country and any boycott would
damage the credibility of the polls scheduled for January.

She promised to press ahead with a protest march from Lahore to the
capital Islamabad planned for today, despite warnings from officials that
they will not allow it.

“There will be no long march,” a senior government official in Punjab, the
province that includes Lahore, told AFP under cover of anonymity. “It will
not be permitted.”

“It’s a political decision,” Lahore police chief Malik Mohammad Iqbal
said, warning that the threat of militant attacks on the march was
“imminent and it is of the highest degree.” – AGENCIES