Reno crash raises questions about the future of air races (The Christian Science Monitor)

[UPDATE: The number of people killed in the Reno Air Races crash Friday has risen to nine, according to the Reno police. Also, a T-28 aircraft crashed on the runway during a six-aircraft routine Saturday at an airshow in Martinsburg, West Virginia, killing the pilot. There were no other casualties, according to initial reports.]

The crash at the Reno Air Races in Nevada Friday afternoon – the worst accident in the history of the event – raises questions about the future of what’s billed as “the world’s fastest motorsport.”

Have the capabilities of the high-speed aircraft flown at very low level exceeded the abilities of even the best pilots? Should age be a consideration in allowing pilots to compete? Should the race course be moved farther away from the tens of thousands of spectators who gather there each September.

Sometimes likened to the top race cars as “Formula One with wings,” racing aircraft fly at up to 500 miles an hour and less than 100 feet above the ground. The fastest categories fly an 8-mile oval course around pylons.

The Monitor's weekly news quiz for Sept. 11-16, 2011

Many of the competing aircraft started out as vintage World War II fighters, such as the P-51 Mustang and the F8F Bearcat. But they are highly modified, with larger engines and aerodynamic characteristics that have been altered to increase performance during high-G turns that can stress airframes.

Jimmy Leeward, the pilot in the crash, was flying a P-51 named the "Galloping Ghost."

Mr. Leeward, a real estate developer and owner of the Leeward Air Ranch Racing Team in Ocala, Fla., was a veteran pilot who’d flown 250 types of aircraft. He was a long-time racer who’d flown at Reno since 1975, and he’d flown as a stunt pilot in such films as "Amelia," Cloud Dancer," and "The Tuskegee Airmen."

In an interview with the Ocala Star-Banner last year, Leeward talked about the P-51 – the aircraft flown in combat in World War II by famed pilot Chuck Yeager, who once shot down five enemy aircraft on a single mission.

"They're more fun. More speed, more challenge,” Leeward said of the P-51. “Speed, speed and more speed.”

Initial reports indicated that the pilot had pulled up and called a€?maydaya€

At this writing, three people (including the pilot) have died as a result of the crash and 56 were taken to local hospitals, many of them critically injured.

But given the total destruction of the aircraft, former NTSB investigator Greg Feith told MSNBC, the exact cause of the accident – perhaps a mechanical failure or a medical situation experienced by the pilot – may never be known.

Some have raised questions about Leeward’s age, initially reported as 80 but then corrected to 74. Those who knew him well reject the suggestion that he was too old to participate in such a stressful and potentially dangerous sport requiring physical strength, extraordinary reflexes, and the ability to react instantly to emergency situations including engine failure at low level.

Leeward's aviation medical records were up-to-date, and he was "a very qualified, very experienced pilot," said Reno Air Races President and CEO Mike Houghton.

Some witnesses to the crash suggested that Leeward may have maneuvered his aircraft away from the grandstands where the casualties could have been higher.

Four pilots have been killed in recent years. Over the years, there have been 19 deaths due to crashes and collisions at Reno, but none until this week had involved spectators.

Two pilots died at the event in 1994, and organizers softened two of the curves pilots negotiate after two more pilots crashed into nearby neighborhoods in 1998 and 1999, according to an Associated Press report. In 2007 and 2008, four pilots were killed at the races, prompting local school officials to consider barring student field trips to the event.

Air shows not involving races also have a long record of accidents involving pilots and spectators. There have been eight so far this year, five involving fatalities. The worst was in 2002 when a Ukrainian Air Force fighter crashed during an air show near Lviv, Ukraine, killing 77 people and injuring 543.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials have taken over the investigation in Reno. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is involved as well.

The Monitor's weekly news quiz for Sept. 11-16, 2011

View the original article here

NTSB probes plane's tail in Reno air race crash (Reuters)

RENO, Nevada (Reuters) – Federal investigators trying to determine why a World War II-era fighter crashed at a Nevada air race, killing nine people, said on Saturday they would focus in part on the plane's tail assembly.

A photograph of the modified P-51 Mustang in the seconds before it slammed into an airfield at the 48th Annual National Air Championship Races on Friday afternoon appears to show a component of the plane's tail section falling off.

"We have seen the photos and the video and clearly that is one aspect of this that will be investigated intensely," National Transportation Safety Board member Mark Rosenkind said at a press briefing.

"Clearly that is a focused area for us to look at," Rosenkind said, adding that parts of the tail section had been recovered from the crash site, which left a 3-foot deep crater on the tarmac of Reno Stead Airport.

Seven people were killed at the site when pilot Jimmy Leeward slammed the sleek silver fighter plane, which was dubbed "The Galloping Ghost" in the 1940s, into a box seat area in front of the grandstand.

Leeward, a 74-year-old real estate developer who was well known in air racing circles and had worked as a stunt pilot in movies, was among the dead.

A total of 54 other people were transported to area hospitals, where two died of their injuries, Evans said.

Astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, had been scheduled to fly in a P-51 Mustang in the Reno air show on Saturday, a Giffords spokesman said.

Kelly was in Reno the day of the deadly accident, but Giffords spokesman Mark Kindle said he was going back to Houston after the plane crash resulted in the cancellation of the races, originally scheduled to run through the weekend.

Giffords was shot in the head during a meeting with constituents in Tucson, Arizona in January in an attack by a gunman that killed six people.

The NTSB investigation in Nevada began on the same day that a vintage plane crashed in a fireball at a Martinsburg, West Virginia air show, killing the pilot.

NTSB TO PROBE RACE SAFETY

The incidents raised questions about the safety of air shows and races, and Rosenkind said investigators would evaluate the Reno Air Races to see if proper safety protocols were followed.

On August 20, the pilot of an aerobatic airplane died in a fiery crash in front of onlookers at a weekend air show in Kansas City. The following day a wingwalker fell to his death at an air show near Detroit as he tried to climb onto a helicopter in midair.

But proximity to the planes is clearly a draw for the annual Reno race, which advises on its website, "Always remember to fly low, fly fast and turn left."

Mike Draper, a spokesman for the races, said the planes sometimes fly at high speeds "about 50 feet off the ground and it's an exciting, exciting sight."

The thrill has been a deadly one on occasion, with the nine deaths on Friday marking 28 people killed in the history of the race, flown every year in Reno since 1964, Draper confirmed.

Reno Mayor Bob Cashell told reporters this year marked the first time that spectators had been killed, saying that past fatalities had been limited to pilots.

In an interview for the May issue of Sport Aviation magazine Leeward, who bought the plane in 1983, described the modifications he made to the fighter, saying he had trimmed the wings by 10 feet, among other things.

The magazine said it was built during World War II and named after Chicago Bears running back Red Grange, who went by the nickname "The Galloping Ghost."

Asked by the magazine how fast his plane could go, he said: "There are some things you never tell the competition and that's one of them. But it's fast. Really fast."

A website for Leeward Air Ranch Racing Team features pictures of "The Galloping Ghost" and says such planes can race at more than 500 miles per hour.

"These (pilots) are always on the edge knowing one wrong move, in one split second, could mean the end," the site says.

By Saturday afternoon, makeshift memorials had sprung up at the airfield north of Reno, including flowers and tiny white, wooden crosses memorializing the dead.

A wooden sign leaning against a fence read: "To the men, women, and children who lost their lives on 16 September 2011 you're in God's hands now. Rest in peace. galloping ghost #177 clear for take off ... fly to the angels."

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Mary Slosson; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

View the original article here

What happened on night of deadly Afghanistan helicopter crash? (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – Late last Friday night, special forces troops from the NATO-led coalition launched an operation to capture a Taliban leader in an inaccessible valley southwest of Kabul.

A few hours later 38 troops -- 30 of them Americans -- lay dead in a transport helicopter destroyed in the worst single incident suffered by foreign forces in 10 years of war in Afghanistan.

Little, if any, information was available soon after the crash, mainly because "a cone of silence had been ordered from the top," one senior military official said.

Reuters has been able to reconstruct a clearer picture of the circumstances of the crash after interviews with officials from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the U.S. military.

Unless identified, all spoke on condition of anonymity because investigations are still being carried out.

The disaster unfolded after an ISAF Special Operations Command (SOC) team that included at least some U.S. Rangers began a raid in the Tangi valley in central Maidan Wardak province under darkness late Friday.

Typically carried out in conjunction with Afghan soldiers, "night raids" anger ordinary Afghans who complain they do not respect their privacy or Islamic culture. However, they are one of the most successful tactics used by foreign troops hunting insurgents who hide among Afghan civilians.

Only 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Kabul, the valley is ringed by rugged mountains. Rocky outcrops are dotted around the surprisingly lush valley, making it easy for insurgents to hide, monitor troop movements and control access to the valley.

There are a couple of sparse settlements, with outlying compounds near narrow waterways that snake through the valley.

Despite -- or because of -- the valley's proximity to the capital, it has long been a hub for insurgents. The Taliban, the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network and others are active in one of central Afghanistan's most dangerous areas.

An earlier SOC mission had killed Taliban cell leader Din Mohammad and Friday's mission targeted Mullah Mohibullah, who led a network of 12 fighters in the Tangi valley.

UNDER FIRE

"It was a capture operation, a standard night operation," one senior ISAF official said.

As the SOC team moved through the valley, they soon saw insurgents armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, the most common weapons used by insurgent foot soldiers for their ease of use, maintenance and resupply.

Military officials in Kabul say six members of Mohibullah's network had already been killed as the SOC team engaged them. The Taliban said Saturday that eight of its fighters had been killed during the exchange.

That firefight is believed to have taken place around one of the compounds in the valley.

"The ground force was assaulting the objective and were in contact with the insurgents," another military official told Reuters, adding that a small number of Taliban fighters soon broke away from the main group.

At that point, very early Saturday, the SOC ground team called in what ISAF describes as an "Immediate Reaction Force" (IRF), a standby unit.

An IRF is different from a Quick Reaction Force, emergency units that have been deployed in response to "spectacular" attacks by insurgents in Kabul and elsewhere.

Despite widespread speculation to the contrary, that means the extra force called in to assist the ground team was not sent on a "rescue" mission. Neither was it caught in any kind of elaborate Taliban trap.

"A group started breaking away and fleeing," the second military official said. "That's when they called in the IRF, to come in and get those guys."

Military officials have said that, under such circumstances, it is not unusual for insurgent leaders to break off from an engagement and leave behind "low-level fighters."

"That's when the helicopter coming in got hit," one said.

Several military and diplomatic officials have said it appeared the devastating death toll -- 30 U.S. troops, seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter -- was the result of nothing more than a lucky shot.

"It just has to be the right angle, the right shot," one said.

ISAF says insurgents had been using RPGs during the initial engagement and that the helicopter had been fired on, but still refers to the incident as a crash.

"While it has not been determined if enemy fire was the sole reason for the helicopter crash, it did take fire from several insurgent locations on its approach," ISAF said.

While it is not unusual for rocket-propelled grenades -- normally an anti-tank weapon -- to hit helicopters, it is extremely rare for them to actually bring one down.

Coalition officials have effectively ruled out that the helicopter was brought down by anything more sophisticated than an RPG launcher. That dispels fears the Taliban had suddenly acquired more sophisticated weapons such as the Stinger missiles used to such devastating effect by mujahideen fighters against Soviet aircraft during the occupation of the 1980s.

RPGs have an effective range of about 300 metres, although officials in Kabul say the shot that downed the Chinook would have to have been fired well within 100 metres of its target.

"The shot could have come from a low angle, or even from above the helicopter," one military official said.

What is not known for sure now is whether the helicopter caught fire or exploded, or whether it fell from any considerable height. Officials acknowledge that the destruction was devastating, something supported by the fact it took about four days to gather all of the wreckage and remains.

"Whether it was a fire or if it exploded, it was catastrophic," another military official said.

"It's a bloody big target, and a slow-moving target."

As soon as the helicopter crashed, the SOC ground troops rushed to the secure the scene. It now appears Mohibullah and his remaining fighters then escaped.

Mohibullah and the unidentified man who fired the shot at the helicopter attempted to flee the country, ISAF said, most likely to Pakistan, but were tracked to a wooded area in a nearby district. Both were killed by an air strike Tuesday, ISAF said.

Questions have been asked in the United States why the second unit -- which consisted of 25 members of the Navy's Seal Team 6 -- was traveling in a U.S. Army CH-47 instead of a more sophisticated MH-47 more commonly used by special forces.

Part of that explanation might lie in the fact it was not the primary unit used in the raid and was only on standby.

(Reporting by Paul Tait, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)

View the original article here

China sacks 3 senior officials after high-speed train crash (Reuters)

WENZHOU, China (Reuters) – China sacked three senior railway officials Sunday after a collision between two high-speed trains killed at least 43 people and raised new questions about the safety of the fast-growing rail network.

A bullet train Saturday night hit another express which lost power following a lightning strike, state media said, in the country's deadliest rail disaster since 2008.

The power failure knocked out an electronic safety system designed to alert trains about stalled locomotives on the line.

As rescue teams and firefighters with excavators searched for survivors, state television said a 4-year-old boy and a male toddler had been pulled alive from the wreckage.

It was not known how many people were on the trains, which collided on a bridge near the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, some 860 miles south of Beijing.

"The task for us now is to clear the debris and also to check for survivors in those areas that we have not gone to," said 35-year-old rescue worker Wang Jun. "Also, we are trying to get the railway line to be operational again."

Authorities moved quickly to assuage public anger by sacking the head of the Shanghai railway bureau, his deputy and the bureau's Communist Party chief, the Railways Ministry said in a statement on its website (www.china-mor.gov.cn).

The three will "also be subject to investigation," the statement added.

Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, visiting the scene, "pledged that the investigators will find out the cause of the accident and those responsible will be seriously punished according to the law," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Rescuers found more bodies Sunday afternoon, bringing the death toll to 43. Almost 200 people remain in hospital, 12 of them in critical condition, Xinhua said.

Two foreigners died in the accident, according to the semi-official China News Service, including a woman in her 20s.

Rail is the most popular method of long-distance transport in China and trains are usually crowded with as many as 1,000 passengers.

The reliability of China's rail network was called into question recently when the flagship Beijing-Shanghai high-speed line suffered a series of power outages soon after opening to great fanfare a month ago.

China's rail network has also been hit by a series of scandals. Three railway officials have been investigated for corruption this year, according to local media reports.

In February, Liu Zhijun was sacked as railways minister for "serious disciplinary violations." He led the rail sector's investment drive over the past decade.

Chinese internet users took to popular Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo to vent their anger about the accident, with some calling for Railways Minister Sheng Guangzu to resign, posting his picture online with a large red cross through it.

"The Railways Ministry should realize that passengers are not just little white mice," wrote Yang Chunxiao.

"Do you think officials are really trying to help? It's all for show," added A Cige.

"FLYING INTO THE AIR"

One train was heading from Beijing to the coastal city of Fuzhou, and the other was running from Hangzhou to Fuzhou.

Both trains were made by China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp Ltd (CSR).

The force of the collision sent "the head of the train flying into the air," said Cai Qi, a 30-year-old villager who saw the accident and rescued five children, four women and one man. "Some of them had their hands or legs broken. Some were crushed inside debris and we pushed and carried them out."

"Suddenly, there was a loud bang," said 32-year-old survivor Yin Caohui. "After that, the train broke. It was all dark and we could not see anything."

A 31-year-old survivor, who gave his last name as Yu, said the train stopped suddenly and the lights immediately went off but the passengers "didn't think it was so serious."

"Only when we got down, we saw so many train carriages falling down," Yu said.

In 2008, an express train traveling from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Qingdao derailed and collided with another train, killing 72 and injuring 416 people.

(Additional reporting by Aly Song in Wenzhou and Sally Huang and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Writing by Sui-Lee Wee and Ben Blanchard)

View the original article here