Archive for September, 2009
Been real busy but was sent this by a reader about the Iranian aircraft crash noted previously:
Iran Air Force Il-76 Crash Details and Video
Facts are now in concerning the tragedy at the 2009 Sacred Defense air show in Tehran. On the 22nd of September, at 09:02 hours, IRIAF Il-76MD “Simorgh” (Baghdad-2/Adnan-2, No. 1 with 5-8208 serial) crashed near Varamin City, killing all seven crew members aboard. At 09:02 hrs, the pilot radioed to Mehrabad control tower that the aircraft’s engines under the right wing had caught fire.
McChrystal to resign if not given resources for Afghanistan
Bill Roggio:
Today, the military is perceiving that the administration is punting the question of a troop increase in Afghanistan, and the military is even questioning the administration’s commitment to succeed in Afghanistan. The leaking of the assessment and the report that McChrystal would resign if he is not given what is needed to succeed constitute some very public pushback against the administration’s waffling on Afghanistan.
Iranian-made Saegheh fighter jets fly over the mausoleum of late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, during a military parade ceremony marking the 29th anniversary of the start of the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war, just outside Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009. An Iranian military plane crashed into fields just south of Tehran early Tuesday, according to the state IRNA news agency, saying the plane flew in the air force show that was part of the parade, but there was no immediate word of casualties or details about the plane. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
“Saegheh” apparently means “thunder.” Though, in this particular case, it may also mean “barreled fish.”
Here’s a little more (though not much) on the crash.
Russia general says missile plan not shelved
Russia’s top general said on Monday that plans to deploy missiles in an enclave next to Poland had not been shelved, despite a decision by the United States to rethink plans for missile defense in Europe.
Kalamazoo Gazette:
Mabel Rawlinson was killed on Aug. 23, 1943, when her plane crashed during a training exercise at a military base in North Carolina.
Rawlinson, 26, was a member of a newly formed unit of female pilots serving in World War II. But the pilots were not recognized as enlisted soldiers.
So the U.S. Army did not pay to bring Rawlinson’s body back to her hometown of Kalamazoo.
It did not pay for the small graveside ceremony at Mount Ever-Rest Memorial Park.
She received no medals.
“She was forgotten,” said Pamela Pohly, Rawlinson’s niece.
But not anymore.
Sixty-six years after a group of 1,102 women, including Rawlinson, broke the gender barrier in the sky, enabling generations of women to become military pilots, President Barack Obama has awarded the Women Airforce Service Pilots the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor accorded by Congress.
About time.
Silk Escape Maps Concealed in Game Boards Helped WWII Prisoners
During World War II, as the number of British airmen held hostage behind enemy lines escalated, the country’s secret service enlisted an unlikely partner in the ongoing war effort: The board game Monopoly.
It was the perfect accomplice.
Included in the items the German army allowed humanitarian groups to distribute in care packages to imprisoned soldiers, the game was too innocent to raise suspicion. But it was the ideal size for a top-secret escape kit that could help spring British POWs from German war camps.
I’d never heard of this.
Even Appeasers All Appeased Out
I can never figure out why so many people are opposed to missile defense.
Caving in more or less completely on the European shield is not a surprise, though.
Marine Corps Major John Glenn got up on the morning of July 16, 1957, strapped into a Vought F8U Crusader, and took off from Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in California like a cannon shot. Three hours, 23 minutes, and 8.4 seconds later (a time based on a National Aeronautic Association formula for records), he touched down at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, setting a transcontinental speed record: 725.55 mph.
Zoom.
Here’s an interesting tidbit:
The Crusader, sometimes called “the last gunfighter,” had no search radar, so for his three refuelings, Glenn had to find the AJ Savage tankers—North American’s converted twin-recip-engine bombers sent up in pairs for redundancy—using a direction finder to home on the tankers’ beacons.
During a practice refueling over Texas before the record flight, he recalls, “I was plugged in and taking fuel when the tanker’s right engine started belching black smoke. Then the left engine started doing the same thing. I pulled out the [refueling] drogue and flew wing on him, and he couldn’t hold altitude. He got down to around 3,500 feet and ordered a bailout.” Glenn watched the crew get out with three good chutes as the airplane descended and crashed in an open area. “It was full of fuel and went off like an atomic bomb,” he says. An investigation later revealed that the ground crew had mistakenly put jet fuel in the AJ’s gasoline tanks.
Oops.
Gun Prices Soar As Afghanistan’s Postelection Crisis Continues
The reliable measure of stability in many countries is the value of the currency or the price of equities, bread or fuel — but not in Afghanistan: here the key indicator that nearly every Afghan keeps tabs on is the price of a Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle. And the bad news is that the market is bullish. The stepped-up Taliban offensive and mounting discord over the outcome of last month’s election have seen the price of a Chinese-made AK smuggled in from Pakistan rise to $400 from $150 in just three months. “People are arming themselves,” a Western official in Kabul noted with alarm.
Of course, the rising prices could be influenced by things in addition to uncertainty about the election. If the perception is that insurgents are becoming bolder or that the US may be having second thoughts about fighting in Afghanistan, that could easily drive Afghans to spend a little extra on some additional household weapons. Or maybe they realize it’s just a matter of time before Mexican drug gang violence is blamed on Afghan assault weapons. (via Uncle)
Note: This is a re-post from 2004 of a summary of the first chapter of the 9/11 Commission report.
Chapter 1. “We Have Some Planes”
I’m reading the report. I’m not making very good time. As I mentioned earlier, everyone who’s truly interested in the events of that day should read the first chapter.
Here are some of my thoughts on the first chapter. This isn’t meant to be a summary of any kind. This isn’t a real analysis. This is what struck me as I read it, and a few of the random things that occurred to me as I muddled my way through. The quotes are from the report. All emphasis throughout is mine.
Before the first chapter even begins, I notice this in the Preface:
We learned about an enemy who is sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal. The enemy rallies broad support in the Arab and Muslim world by demanding redress of political grievances, but its hostility toward us and our values is limitless. Its purpose is to rid the world of religious and political pluralism, the plebiscite, and equal rights for women. It makes no distinction between military and civilian targets. Collateral damage is not in its lexicon.
I’d suggest that this isn’t news. I’d suggest that we’ve known this for quite some time, and even if we haven’t wanted to connect the dots or draw any conclusions we have been told this flat out by Osama bin Laden and others numerous times. Since there ARE many who don’t seem to get this, though, I’m glad they spelled it out so clearly.
The first chapter summarizes activity, flight by flight, in the air and on the ground during the time of the hijackings. One story I wasn’t familiar with took place on American 11, the first plane hijacked and the first to be flown into its target, the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
As this was happening, passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated in the row just behind Atta and Omari,was stabbed by one of the hijackers—probably Satam al Suqami, who was seated directly behind Lewin. Lewin had served four years as an officer in the Israeli military. He may have made an attempt to stop the hijackers in front of him, not realizing that another was sitting behind him.
What a difference one man might have made.
On United 175, passenger Peter Hanson called his father Lee. This is part of the call:
I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building—Don’t worry, Dad—If it happens, it’ll be very fast—My God,my God.
Then
The call ended abruptly. Lee Hanson had heard a woman scream just before it cut off. He turned on a television, and in her home so did Louise Sweeney [the mother of a different passenger on United 175 who had been contacted by her son earlier that morning]. Both then saw the second aircraft hit the World Trade Center.
The accounts of that morning are filled with similar tragic stories. There’s no mention of how Peter Hanson got the idea that the hijackers were going to fly into a building. Wild speculation? That doesn’t seem likely. I wonder how they knew.
Read the rest of this entry »
