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The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the BP oil disaster or the Macondo blowout) is a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is the largest offshore spill in U.S. history and among the largest oil spills in history. The spill stemmed from a sea-floor oil gusher that resulted from the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. The explosion killed 11 platform workers and injured 17 others. On July 15, the leak was largely stopped by capping the gushing oil wellhead. The drilling of relief wells to permanently close the well is ongoing.

The quasi-official Flow Rate Technical Group estimated the oil well was leaking 35,000 to 60,000 barrels (1,500,000 to 2,500,000 US gallons; 5,600 to 9,500 cubic metres) of crude oil per day. This volume is approximately equal to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill every four to seven days. The exact flow rate is uncertain due to the difficulty of installing measurement devices at that depth and is a matter of debate. The resulting oil slick covered at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km²), fluctuating daily depending on weather conditions. Scientists have also reported immense underwater plumes of dissolved oil not visible at the surface.

The spill continues to cause extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats as well as the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. Crews have been working to protect hundreds of miles of beaches, wetlands and estuaries along the northern Gulf coast, using skimmer ships, floating containment booms, anchored barriers, and sand-filled barricades along shorelines. The U.S. Government has named BP as the responsible party, and officials have committed to holding the company accountable for all cleanup costs and other damage.

Background

The Deepwater Horizon was a 9-year-old semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit, a massive floating, dynamically positioned drilling rig that could operate in waters up to 8,000 feet (2,400 m) deep and drill down to 30,000 feet (9,100 m). It was owned by Transocean, operated under the Marshallese flag of convenience, and was under lease to BP from March 2008 to September 2013. At the time of the explosion, it was drilling an exploratory well at a water depth of approximately 5,000 feet (1,500 m) in the Macondo Prospect, located in the Mississippi Canyon Block 252 of the Gulf of Mexico in the United States exclusive economic zone about 41 miles (66 km) off the Louisiana coast. Production casing was being installed and cemented by Halliburton Energy Services. Once the cementing was complete, the well would have been tested for integrity and a cement plug set, after which no further activities would take place until the well was later activated as a subsea producer. BP is the operator and principal developer of the Macondo Prospect with a 65% share, while 25% is owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, and 10% by MOEX Offshore 2007, a unit of Mitsui. BP leased the mineral rights for Macondo at the Minerals Management Service’s lease sale in March 2008.

During March and early April, several platform workers and supervisors expressed concerns with well control. At approximately 9:45 p.m. CDT on April 20, 2010, methane gas from the well, under high pressure, shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform, and then ignited and exploded. Fire then engulfed the platform. Most of the workers were evacuated by lifeboats or were airlifted out by helicopter, but eleven workers were never found despite a three-day Coast Guard search operation, and are presumed to have died in the explosion. Efforts by multiple ships to douse the flames were unsuccessful. After burning for approximately 36 hours, the Deepwater Horizon sank on the morning of April 22, 2010.

On the afternoon of April 22, a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site. Two remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) unsuccessfully attempted to cap the well. BP announced that it was deploying a ROV to the site to assess whether oil was flowing from the well. On April 23, a ROV reportedly found no oil leaking from the sunken rig and no oil flowing from the well. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry expressed cautious optimism of zero environmental impact, stating that no oil was emanating from either the wellhead or the broken pipes and that oil spilled from the explosion and sinking was being contained. The following day, April 24, Landry announced that a damaged wellhead was indeed leaking oil into the Gulf and described it as “a very serious spill”. BP has not given a cause for the explosion. According to the US Congressional investigation the rig’s blowout preventer, a fail-safe device fitted at the base of the well, built by Cameron International Corporation, had a hydraulic leak and a failed battery, and therefore failed.

Investigations

On April 22 the United States Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service launched an investigation of the possible causes of the explosion. On May 11 the Obama administration requested the National Academy of Engineering conduct an independent technical investigation to determine the root causes of the disaster so that corrective steps could be taken to address the mechanical failures underlying the accident. On May 22 President Obama announced that he had issued Executive Order 13543 establishing the bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, with former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly serving as co-chairs. The purpose of the commission is to “consider the root causes of the disaster and offer options on safety and environmental precautions.” On June 1 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he has opened an investigation of the oil spill. According to Holder, the Justice Department is interviewing witnesses as part of a criminal and civil investigation. Besides BP, the investigation could apply to other companies involved in the drilling of the damaged well.

The United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce has conducted a number of hearings. On June 17, CEO of BP Tony Hayward testified before the Committee. The heads of Anadarko and Mitsui’s exploration unit will testify before the Committee July 22. On April 30, the Committee asked Halliburton to brief it as well as provide any documents it might have related to its work on the Macondo well. Attention has focused on the cementing procedure and the blowout preventer, which failed to fully engage. A number of significant problems have been identified with the blowout preventer: There was a leak in the hydraulic system that provides power to the shear rams. The underwater control panel had been disconnected from the pipe ram, and instead connected to a test ram. The blowout preventer schematic drawings, provided by Transocean to BP, do not correspond to the structure that is on the ocean bottom. The shear rams are not designed to function on the joints where the drill pipes are screwed together or on tools that are passed through the blowout preventer during well construction. The explosion may have severed the communication line between the rig and the sub-surface blowout preventer control unit such that the blowout preventer would have never received the instruction to engage. Before the backup dead man’s switch could engage, communications, power and hydraulic lines must all be severed, but it is possible hydraulic lines were intact after the explosion. Of the two control pods for the deadman switch, the one that has been inspected so far had a dead battery. Employee Tyrone Benton told the BBC on June 21 that a leak was spotted on a crucial piece of equipment in the oil rig’s blowout preventer weeks before the accident, and that Transocean and BP were emailed about it.

According to the testimony of Doug Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon, on May 26 at the joint U.S. Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service hearing, a BP representative overruled Transocean employees and insisted on displacing protective drilling mud with seawater just hours before the explosion. One of the BP representatives on the board responsible for making the final decision, Robert Kaluza, refused to testify on the Fifth Amendment grounds that he might incriminate himself; Donald Vidrine, another BP representative, cited medical reasons for his inability to testify, as did James Mansfield, Transocean’s assistant marine engineer on board.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating the incident. In a statement made in June they noted that in a number of cases leading up to the explosion, BP appears to have chosen riskier procedures to save time or money, sometimes against the advice of its staff or contractors.

In a June 18 statement, Jim Hackett, the CEO of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, said research “indicates BP operated unsafely and failed to monitor and react to several critical warning signs during the drilling. … BP’s behavior and actions likely represent gross negligence or willful misconduct.” BP responded by strongly disagreeing with the Anadarko statement and said that, despite being contractually liable for sharing clean-up costs, Anadarko is “refusing to accept responsibility for oil spill removal costs and damages”. BP has sent Anadarko a bill for $272.2 million; Anadarko is “assessing our contractual remedies”.

Other Information

• Location : Gulf of Mexico near Mississippi River Delta
• Date : April 20, 2010 – present
• Cause : Wellhead blowout
• Casualties : 13 dead 11 killed on Deepwater Horizon, 2 additional oil-related deaths, 17 injured
• Operator : Transocean under contract for BP
• Volume : up to 100,000 barrels (4,200,000 US gallons; 16,000 cubic meters) per day; up to four million barrels (170 million gallons) total (as of July 26, 2010) As much as 180m gallons (4.28million barrels)
• Area  : 2,500 to 68,000 sq mi (6,500 to 180,000 km²)

World’s Largest Oil Spills

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Hundreds of rescuers scrambled Tuesday to try to locate more than 60 workers trapped in a Siberian hydroelectric plant after an accident on Monday. But with only two survivors recovered, the acting chief executive of RusHydro, which owns the plant, said that most had probably drowned.

At least 12 people were confirmed dead after the bursting of a water conduit that leads to the turbines at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant in the Khakassia region of Siberia, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry. As many as 64 workers from the plant, Russia’s largest power generator, were still missing as of Tuesday morning, the ministry said.

“Finding survivors in the flood zone is not likely, but we are searching,” the executive, Vitaly Zubakin, said, according to the Ria Novosti news agency. A former director at the plant, Alexander Toloshinov, told the Interfax news agency that workers could only survive if they managed to stay out of the frigid water.

Vesti television of Russia showed what it said was cellphone video showing plumes of water spewing from the plant and several loud explosions in the first few minutes after the accident.

“There was a large explosion, and the power went out,” said Irina Perepelitsina, a worker at the plant interviewed by NTV television. “The alarm went off, and we all ran to the exits.”

Sergei Shoigu, the emergency situations minister, suggested that a hydraulic pressure surge could have caused water to burst through the walls and ceiling in the engine room of Turbine No. 2, causing it to rapidly fill with water, a statement on the ministry’s Web site said. Investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office earlier said the accident could have occurred when a transformer exploded during repairs.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s general’s investigative wing, said Tuesday that prosecutors were not considering a terrorist attack or sabotage as possibilities.

Meanwhile, the environmental toll continued to grow. The damaged plant has released a vast oil slick on the Yenisei River, the Natural Resources Ministry said. Power was lost to five major factories, which will now be supplied by burning coal, company officials said. Restoring the plant could take years.

Dozens Presumed Drowned at Siberian Plant

Continue reading »]]> An Indonesian military plane has crashed, killing at least 97 people.  As Daniel Schearf reports from

The military transport plane crashed into homes near an air force base Wednesday morning as it was coming in for a landing.

Over one hundred military personnel and their families were on board the Hercules C-130 plane when it went down in an area of East Java.

Witnesses reported seeing parts of the plane falling from the sky and hearing explosions.

Indonesian television showed burning wreckage scattered across rice paddies.  The tail was the only section of the plane left intact.

First Marshal Bambang Sulistyo is a spokesman for the air force.  He says there is an investigation under way to determine what caused the crash.

He gives the death toll and says it may rise, but so far there are 15 survivors.

Indonesian authorities said the plane, which had been scheduled to fly on to Indonesia’s Papua province, was almost 30 years old.

Indonesia’s air force has suffered a series of deadly crashes.

In April, 24 military personnel died when their Fokker aircraft crashed into a hangar at an air base in West Java.

Indonesia’s commercial aircrafts have also in recent years suffered deadly crashes.

The poor safety record led the European Union to ban Indonesian airlines from its airspace.

Indonesian Military Plane Crash Kills At Least 97

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Continue reading »]]> An Alaskan volcano 100 miles (160km) south-west of the state’s largest city, Anchorage, erupted overnight, sending a plume of smoke up to 15,000 metres (50,000ft) into the air.

Mount Redoubt experienced four large explosions late on Sunday and early today, according to geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

The observatory has issued a red alert, meaning eruption is imminent or under way, with significant emission of volcanic ash into the atmosphere likely.

The current wind patterns are taking the ash cloud away from Anchorage and instead heading toward Willow and Talkneetna, two communities near Mount McKinley, North America’s largest mountain in Denali national park.

Geophysicist John Power said no cities have yet reported any ash-fall from the volcano, but noted that it was still early.

Using radar and satellite technology, the National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting ash to start falling later today .

Dave Stricklan, a hydrometeorogical technician with the NWS, said he expected very fine ash: “Just kind of a light dusting”. He said the significant amount of ash probably dropped immediately, right down the side of the volcano.

“The heavier stuff drops out very quickly, and then the other stuff filters out. There’s going to be a very fine amount of it that’s going to be suspended in the atmosphere for quite some time, but nothing to really affect anything such as aviation travel.”

Redoubt is a steep-sided cone-shaped volcano, about 6 miles in diameter, which last erupted nearly 20 years ago.

Observatory geologists monitored the eruption and posted updates in real-time last night. At 10.35pm, they reported: “At these heightened levels of seismicity, there could be a quick escalation to eruptive activity.”

Three minutes later, the first explosion took place, followed by a second about 20 minutes later. The third occurred 15 minutes after midnight and the final explosion was registered at 1.39am.

Geologists noted an increase in seismic activity at the volcano last week. Last Monday they reported a small explosion and “plume of gas and ash that rose to about 15,000ft above sea level” did not herald a significant eruption in the short term, but added: “Conditions may evolve rapidly.”

Alaskan volcano Mount Redoubt erupts

Continue reading »]]> Marines knew five months before a military jet crashed into a home and killed four members of a family that the aircraft may have trouble getting fuel from tank to engine.

That ignored warning was only one misstep in what the Marines called a string of bad decisions that led the F/A-18D Hornet to slam into a densely populated residential neighborhood Dec. 8.

Low oil pressure killed the first engine shortly after takeoff, the Marines said Tuesday. The jet crashed with about 340 gallons of fuel that were choked off from the second engine, causing a fiery explosion that torched two homes and came close to a high school.

Potential problems with the plane’s fuel transfer surfaced in July, but the Marines sent the aircraft on another 146 flights before it crashed, said Col. John Rupp, operations officer for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

The dozens of successful flights after the warning “lured the maintenance personnel into a state of complacency,” Rupp said.

Military investigators faulted officers at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar for clearing the pilot, Lt. Dan Neubauer, to land at the inland base instead of the closest landing at a coastal Navy base — a route that also would have avoided flying over homes.

They also criticized the pilot for neglecting to consult a checklist of emergency procedures and failing to grasp the severity of his problems.

The military disciplined 13 members of the Marines and Navy for a series of errors that led to the crash, including four officers who were relieved of their duties. Investigators found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Neubauer, who ejected safely two miles from the runway, has not been disciplined but his actions will be reviewed at Marine Corps headquarters.

Recordings of conversations between federal air controllers and the pilot show the pilot was repeatedly offered a chance to land the plane at the Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado. The base sits at the tip of a peninsula with a flight path over water.

Instead, the Federal Aviation Administration tapes disclose that the pilot decided to fly the jet, which had lost one engine and was showing signs of trouble with the second, to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, which is about 10 miles north of Coronado.

The first engine indicated low oil pressure 10 minutes into the 47-minute training flight, which began from the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the San Diego coast, Rupp said. The pilot shut off the engine seven minutes later.

A squadron representative on the aircraft carrier told the pilot to land at North Island, which was a “conservative and prudent decision,” Rupp said.

A low-fuel warning occurred 25 minutes into the flight, when the plane was 61 miles off the coast from North Island, Rupp said.

Officers at Miramar, including the squadron’s commanding officer, cleared the pilot to go to the inland base, favoring Miramar’s longer runway and assuming the pilot was closer to the base than he really was, Rupp said.

Col. Kurt Brubaker, staff judge advocate of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, said no one person shouldered all the blame.

“Collectively, there were a number of judgment errors,” he said.

Four officers in Miramar-based Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, including the commanding officer, have been relieved of duty for failing to follow safety procedures and allowing the Hornet to fly over the residential area. Nine other Marine and Navy personnel received lesser reprimands.

Killed in their home were Young Mi Yoon, 36; her daughters Grace, 15 months, and Rachel, 2 months; and her mother Suk Im Kim, 60.

Marines: Multiple errors caused San Diego crash

Continue reading »]]> A gas explosion ripped through a coal mine in northern China on Sunday, killing at least 73 miners and trapping dozens in the still-burning shaft, state media said.

China’s mines are the world’s most dangerous with more than 3,000 deaths a year in fires, floods and explosions.

The pre-dawn blast occurred while 436 workers were in the Tunlan Coal Mine in Gujiao city near Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

At least 73 miners died and 113 were hospitalized, including 21 in critical condition, Xinhua said. It did not say how many workers remained trapped in the shaft but earlier reports said at least 65 were still underground.

State television CCTV showed rescuers in orange suits and red helmets with headlamps entering an elevator to be lowered into the mine shaft, while others emerged from the mine carrying workers on stretchers toward waiting ambulances.

Nearly 100 rescuers were onsite but their work was hampered by flames still burning in the shaft, CCTV said.

The injured miners were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, Xinhua reported, citing doctors at a nearby hospital. Exposure to carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless gas, can lead to death.

The mine is owned by Shanxi Coking Coal Group, one of China’s largest producers of coking coal, which is used in the production of steel. The company operates 28 mines.

No accidents have been reported at the Tunlan mine in the past decade, Xinhua said. The mine produces 5 million tons of coking coal a year.

Although China has worked to cut mine accidents by closing more than 1,000 dangerous small mines last year, the country’s mining industry is still the world’s deadliest. About 3,200 people died in coal mine accidents last year, a 15 percent decline from the previous year.

While China’s safety record is abysmal, the numbers mask great disparities. Large, state-run mines tend to have safety records nearing those of developed countries while smaller mines have little or no safety equipment and weak worker training.

Government figures show that almost 80 percent of China’s 16,000 mines are small, illegal operations.

73 miners die, 113 injured in China mine blast

Continue reading »]]> SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico police say they found the mutilated remains of a woman floating in a seaside cave near the site of a small plane crash.

Police spokeswoman Yaira Rivera says investigators believe the woman found Sunday in a cave under a cliff near the northwestern town of Camuy was one of the plane’s passengers.

The Cessna 206 plunged into the Atlantic about a half-mile (kilometer) off shore on Feb. 8 with six people aboard.

Witnesses said they’d heard an engine struggling and saw an explosion.

Authorities recovered the remains of one man last week amid heavy rain and high seas, but could not immediately identify him because he had been mutilated by sharks.

Police said the pilot and five passengers were Puerto Ricans.

Police find remains near Puerto Rico plane crash

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A commuter plane coming in for a landing nose-dived into a house in suburban Buffalo, sparking a fiery explosion and killing all 48 people on board and one person in the home. It was the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the U.S. in 2 1/2 years.

Witnesses heard the twin turboprop aircraft sputtering before it went down in light snow and fog around 10:20 p.m. Thursday about five miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J., came in squarely through the roof of the house, its tail section visible through the blazing rubble.

“The whole sky was lit up orange,” said Bob Dworak, who lives less than a mile from the crash site. “All the sudden, there was a big bang, and the house shook.”

One person in the home was killed, and two others inside escaped with minor injuries. Among the 44 passengers killed was a woman whose husband died in the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A fellow 9/11 activist said Beverly Eckert was heading to Buffalo for a celebration of what would have been her husband’s 58th birthday.

By morning light, with the rubble still smoking, the task of retrieving remains had not yet begun.

The plane “basically dove right into the top of the house,” said Clarence emergency control director, calling it “clearly a direct hit.”

“It’s remarkable that it only took one house,” Bissonette said. “As devastating as it was, it could’ve easily wiped out that entire neighborhood on a strafing run type of thing.”

No mayday call came from the pilot before the crash, according to a recording of air traffic control’s radio messages captured by the Web site LiveATC.net.

Neither the controller nor the pilot showed concern that anything was out of the ordinary as the airplane was asked to fly at 2,300 feet.

The 74-seat Q400 Bombardier aircraft, operated by Colgan Air, was flying from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security in Washington said there was no indication terrorism was involved.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team of crash investigators to Buffalo early Friday.

After the crash, at least two pilots were heard on air traffic control messages saying they had been picking up ice on their wings.

“We’ve been getting ice since 20 miles south of the airport,” one said.

While residents of the neighborhood where the plane went down were used to planes rumbling overhead, witnesses said this one sounded louder than usual, sputtered and made some odd noises.

Neighbor David Luce said he and his wife were working on their computers when they heard the plane come in low.

“It didn’t sound normal,” he said. “We heard it for a few seconds, then it stopped, then a couple of seconds later was this tremendous explosion.”

Dworak drove to the site after hearing the crash, and “all we were seeing was 50 to 100 foot flames and a pile of rubble on the ground. It looked like the house just got destroyed the instant it got hit.”

One person in the home was killed, and two others inside, Karen Wielinski, 57, and her daughter, Jill, 22, were able to escape with minor injuries. Twelve homes were evacuated near the crash site.

The plane was carrying 5,000 pounds of fuel and apparently exploded on impact, said Erie County Executive Chris Collins.

Firefighters got as close to the plane as they could, he said. “They were shouting out to see if there were any survivors on the plane. Truly a very heroic effort, but there were no survivors.”

It was the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner took off from a Lexington, Ky., runway that was too short.

Houston-based Continental Airlines issued a statement saying that preliminary information showed the plane carried 44 passengers and a crew of four.

About 30 relatives and others who arrived at the airport in the overnight hours were escorted into a private area and then taken by bus to a senior citizens center in the neighboring town of Cheektowaga, where counselors and representatives from Continental waited to help.

“At this time, the full resources of Colgan Air’s accident response team are being mobilized and will be devoted to cooperating with all authorities responding to the accident and to contacting family members and providing assistance to them,” the statement said.

“Continental extends its deepest sympathy to the family members and loved ones of those involved in this accident,” said Larry Kellner, chairman and CEO of Continental Airlines, in a later statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the family members and loved ones of those involved in the flight 3407 tragedy.”

Manassas, Va.-based Colgan Air said in a statement that airline personnel and local authorities were working to confirm the number of people on board and their identities.

As family members of the victims trickled into the airport overnight, they were escorted by airport personnel to a private area.

Chris Kausner, believing his sister was on the plane, rushed to a hastily established command center after calling his vacationing mother in Florida to break the news.

“To tell you the truth, I heard my mother make a noise on the phone that I’ve never heard before. So not good, not good,” he told reporters.

Clarence is a growing eastern suburb of Buffalo, largely residential but with rural stretches. The crash site is a street of closely spaced, older, single-family homes that apparently back up to wooded area.

The crash came less than a month after a US Airways pilot guided his crippled plane to a landing in the Hudson River off Manhattan, saving the lives of all 155 people aboard. Birds had apparently disabled both its engines.

On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people.

Continental’s release said relatives and friends of those on Flight 3407 who wanted to give or receive information about those on board could telephone a special family assistance number, 1-800-621-3263.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, Linda Franklin in Dallas, Daniel Yee in Atlanta, Ron Powers in Washington, and Cristian Salazar and Jennifer Peltz in New York.

The Associated Press: Fiery plane crash in upstate NY kills 49 people

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A passenger jet with 153 people on board tonight crashed landed into the Hudson River in New York.

The US Airways Airbus A320 came down after hitting a flock of birds, disabling both of its engines.

It landed intact and passengers started fleeing into the freezing waters as boats flocked to the scene to help.

More than a dozen people wearing yellow life vests were seen on the wings of the downed plane as it floated in the river. The plane was carrying 148 passengers and five crew and had just taken off from La Guardia Airport.

New York City fire-fighters, federal transportation officials and an armada of boats responded to the accident.

“I just thought, ’Why is it so low?’ And, splash, it hit the water,” said witness Barbara Sambriski.

The plane was initially submerged in the icy waters up to the windows and rescue crews had opened the door and were pulling passengers in yellow life vests from the plane.

The plane then slowly sank into the river.

One passenger said there had been an explosion a few minutes after the plane took off.

Jeff Kolodjay, from Norwalk, Connecticut, said: “The engine blew. There was fire everywhere and it smelled like gas. People were bleeding all over. We hit the water pretty hard. It was scary.”

Another passenger told CNN: “I was standing on the left wing for a little while.

“I did see the engine flame out and it seemed either to be on fire or smoking.”

Jeff Koladjay was one of the first passengers picked up by a liferaft. “I’m wet from my waist down, it’s a little cold in New York right now,” he told The Times.

“It was really scary, the plane filled with water really quick. The guys on the plane did a great job of getting women and children off first. Kudos to the pilot and kudos to the people who got us off the boats.

“I’m just really happy that everyone on that plane lived. It ain’t gonna be a golf trip, but thank God we’re alive.” Stiro Katehs and his father witnessed the emergency landing as they drove down 77th street

“My father said: ‘Look, there’s a plane falling’. It was gliding, gliding, gliding, then it hit the water at Pier 83. When it hit the water it erupted just like a volcano,” Mr Katehs said.

“It hit the water in the Hudson at the end of 47th street and has now floated down as far as 40th street.”

The aircraft was submerged initially in the icy waters up to the windows. Rescue crews opened the door and pulled passengers from the aircraft. It then sank slowly into the river. Laura Brown, a Federal Aviation Administration official, confirmed that the US Airways Flight 1549 had just taken off en route to Charlotte, North Carolina, when the crash occurred.

“There is no information at this time to indicate that this is a security-related incident,” Laura Keehner, a Homeland Security official, said.

LaGuardia airport has a long history of aircraft ending up in the river. The runways are built out over the water and have been criticised repeatedly for being too short. The New York authorities decided it would be too costly to extend them.

*In 1992, 27 people died when a US Air Fokker F28 toppled into the river at the end of the runway after struggling to take off because of ice on the wings. The water was only five feet deep but the fuselage broke up and turned upside down.

*In 1989, a US Air flight bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, the same destination as the aircraft in yesterday’s crash, rolled into the East River after aborting take-off. Three people died.

*In 1959, an American Airlines aircraft crashed on approach into the East River, killing 65 of the 73 people on board.

US Airways Airbus A320 crash lands in New York’s Hudson River – Times Online

Continue reading »]]> DENVER (AP) — Investigators took photos and measurements at the charred wreckage of a Continental Airlines jet Monday, searching for clues about why the plane veered off a runway and skidded into a shallow ravine. The twin-engine Boeing 737-500 still sat in a shallow, snow-covered ravine where it came to rest after its aborted takeoff Saturday at Denver International Airport.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators made preliminary reviews of the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder on Sunday, agency spokesman Peter Knudson said.

No information has been released, but Knudson said “we do have good data” from the recorders.

Investigators planned to interview the captain and the first officer later Monday. Both had clean safety records with the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said. He wouldn’t release their names.

FAA records show the plane, built in 1994, had to make an emergency landing in Denver in 1995 when one of its two engines failed, but the aircraft touched down safely and no injuries were reported. The engine was replaced.

The latest accident forced the 115 passengers and crew aboard Flight 1404 to flee through emergency exits as the plane burned. The jet had shed its left engine and both main landing gears. The entire right side of the jet was burned, and melted plastic from overhead compartments dripped onto the seats.

Of the 38 people injured, at least five remained in Denver hospitals Monday, one in serious condition, one in fair condition and three in good condition. Knudson said one member of the cockpit crew was injured, but it wasn’t immediately clear if it was the captain or first officer, and Knudson didn’t know how seriously.

Bill Davis, an assistant Denver fire chief assigned to the airport, said it was a miracle that no one was killed.

The weather was clear but cold when the plane attempted to take off for Houston about 6:20 p.m. Saturday. Winds at the airport were 31 mph, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

“No other aircraft opted against taking off due to wind” before Flight 1404 tried to lift off, Gregor said.

The plane veered off course about 2,000 feet from the end of the runway and did not appear to have gone airborne, city aviation manager Kim Day said.

Davis said the plane came to a rest about 200 yards from one of the airport’s four fire stations. Passengers walked out of the ravine in 24-degree cold and crowded inside the station, he said.

A crack encircled much of the fuselage near the trailing edge of the wings, Davis said.

“It didn’t really sound like an explosion. It was more like a big thud,” said Maria Trejos, 30, who was sitting on the right side of the plane with her husband, who had their 1-year-old son on his lap.

She told The Associated Press on Monday she thought the plane was about to take off when it veered off the left side of the runway. She felt a bump and saw a fireball through the window, and it felt briefly like they were airborne, but she said that may have been when the plane was dropping into the ravine.

Trejos then smelled fuel and thought, “I hope the plane doesn’t explode.”

At first, the cabin was eerily quiet, with no one screaming, she said, but then it quickly got hot from the fire and people began to panic when they saw smoke and flames.

“I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to burn. I don’t want my baby or my husband to burn,’” said Trejos, who is also four months pregnant.

They scrambled onto a wing and slid to the ground. She said their son has cuts on his legs and she her husband are bruised and sore, but all three are otherwise fine.

They were headed to Houston to visit her husband’s family but instead went home to Pueblo West, about 100 miles south of Denver, happy to be alive.

“It’s going to be the best Christmas ever,” she said.

Many passengers from the flight arrived in Houston, its original destination, on Sunday afternoon, some clearly injured, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The gate where relatives waited at Bush Intercontinental Airport was blocked off from the rest of the terminal. One woman limped off the flight with red-rimmed eyes; another was in a wheelchair, wearing a neck brace, the newspaper reported. A young boy was taken by stretcher straight to an elevator.

Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB member, said the damaged plane would remain for several days in the 40-foot-deep ravine where it landed. That runway will remain closed during the investigation, he said.

Jim Proulx, a Boeing spokesman, said the company was supporting the NTSB investigation.

“We will also do whatever we can to learn the cause of this accident so that we can prevent a recurrence at Continental or at any other airline,” said Larry Kellner, Continental’s chairman and chief executive officer.

The airport was back to normal on Monday, almost fully operational with five of its six runways open, spokesman Jeff Green said.

The Associated Press: