Week 4 - TransAsia plane crashes in Taiwan river

A Trans Asia Airways flight in Taiwan carrying 58 passengers and crew careened past buildings clipped a highway and crashed into a shallow stream, killing at least 23 people.

Trans Asia GE 235, a domestic flight from Taipei to Kinmen – a small archipelago near mainland China – crashed at 10.56am local time, according to Taiwan’s aviation council, about three minutes after it took off. Astonishing dash-cam videos posted online showed the turboprop ATR 72-600 aircraft in its final airborne moments, turning vertical over a highway and clipping a taxi cab and a bridge with its left wing.

At the moment, things don’t look too optimistic,” said Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei Fire Department official who was coordinating the rescue, according to the Associated Press. “Those in the front of the plane are likely to have lost their lives.”

The driver of the clipped taxi cab “has been sent to a local hospital”, an assistant to the Crown Taxi Company’s general manager who identified himself as Mr Yang told the Guardian.

“He has head injury and concussion, but all of his vital signs are stable.” Yang added that the company planned to raise the topic of compensation with Trans Asia Airways at a later date.

he last communication from one of the aircraft’s pilots was “Mayday Mayday engine flameout”, according to an air traffic control recording on liveatc.net.

A flameout occurs when the fuel supply to the engine is interrupted or when there is faulty combustion, resulting in an engine failure.

The flight’s black box has been recovered, according to local media.

“Weather conditions were good and the pilot had 14,000 hours of flying hours and the co-pilot 4,000 hours,” Lin Zhiming, a representative from Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Authority, told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

Among the passengers were 31 mainland Chinese tourists, travelling with two local travel agencies: Teyung Group, and Flying Tours. Lin Liqing, manager of the Teyung Group, said that she had just arrived in Taipei to help with the handling of the incident.

“We are currently heading to the crash site and checking the passenger list with Trans Asia Airways,” Lin said. She added that the passengers had been sent to eight local hospitals, and that she had not yet been able to visit them.

The manager of Flying Tours said that among 15 mainland Chinese tourists on the plane who were travelling with the agency, he had only confirmed one injured passenger – one of the two infants on board. He had no information on the remaining 14 people.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS showed rescuers pulling a toddler alive from the wreckage and rushing him or her to safety.

The chief executive of Trans Asia, Chen Xinde, has publicly apologized for the crash.

Wednesday’s crash is the second by a Trans Asia flight within the past six months — in July 2014, Trans Asia flight ATR-72 crashed while attempting to land in the Penghu Islands soon after a typhoon, killing 48 people. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

URL: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/04/taiwan-plane-crash-lands-in-river

Key words

careen：傾斜

aviation：航空

vital sign：生命跡象

Mayday：「快來幫幫我」求救訊號

What: A Trans Asia Airways flight crashed in Taiwan River.
Where: Taiwan
When: not given
Why: engine flameout

How: A Trans Asia Airways flight careened past buildings clipped a highway and crashed into a shallow stream

Week 3 - Deadly attack on satirical magazine in Paris

Deadly attack on satirical magazine in Paris

Three heavily armed men have attacked a French satirical magazine based in Paris, killing at least 12 people, including four cartoonists and two policemen, officials have said.

The lawyer of the magazine confirmed that four cartoonists working with the publication, including the editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as 'Charb', were among the dead. Police said 11 people were wounded in the incident, adding that four were in a critical condition.

The cartoonists known as Cabu, Tignous and Wolinski were also killed in the attack, AFP news agency quoted a judicial source as saying.

Charlie Hebdo has drawn repeated threats for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, among other controversial sketches.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the assault was carried out by three attackers.

According to witnesses, one was a driver and the other two were attackers in terms of their role in the incident, police said. 

In amateur camera footage shared on the internet, the attackers are heard shouting: "We have avenged the Prophet Mohammad." 

The gunmen fled eastwards towards the suburbs, dumping their car in a residential area, police said. They then hijacked two other cars, wounded their drivers and ran over a pedestrian.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Paris, said journalists and cartoonists reported several masked men dressed in black entering the building who then began to fire with automatic weapons.

"Some journalists took refuge on the roof," Rowland said.

"Charlie Hebdo has pushed boundaries in the past, and continues to challenge the idea of censorship."

President Francois Hollande, speaking outside the office of the magazine, described the attack as having been carried out by barbaric people.

"This is an attack on free speech." he told reporters. "No one can harm the spirit of this country which is this newspaper".

The magazine had tweeted acartoon of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, minutes before the attack.Rowland said that a terrorism alert has been raised to its highest level in the wake of the attack.

France's Muslim leadership sharply condemned the shooting as a "barbaric" attack and an assault on press freedom and democracy.

"This extremely grave barbaric action is also an attack against democracy and the freedom of the press," the French Muslim Council (CFCM) said in a statement.

The body represents France's Muslim community, which is Europe's biggest and estimated to number between 3.5 million and five million people.

Hollande held a cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace over the incident on Wednesday.

Huge crowds gathered in Paris and other major cities in France in a show of support for the staff of Charlie Hebdo.

Demonstrators in Paris were seen holding up banners in support of free speech, including one written, "Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie)", a slogan that has gone viral on social media.

French authorities said that school trips and all school outdoor activities have been cancelled until further notice while the gunmen are at large.

US President Barack Obama's spokesman said the US "condemns [the attack] in the strongest terms".

Josh Earnest said US officials have been in close contact to assist the French in the wake of the incident.

Earnest said the French have been "stalwart allies" in the US fight against the ISIL, adding: "We know they are not going to be cowed by this terrible act."

Various countries, including Russia, Qatar, Kuwait, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Canada, have also condemned the attack.  

網址: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2015/01/french-newspaper-attacked-paris-gunmen-201517111836139681.html

KEY WORDS
confirm: 證實
hijack：劫機
refuge:避難

What: Three armed men have attacked a French satirical magazine based

Where: in Paris

When: NOT GIVEN

Why: NOT GIVEN

How: NOT GIVEN

Week 2 - Sydney siege: Hostages held in Lindt cafe

Sydney siege: Hostages held in Lindt cafe

The Lindt cafe in the city centre is surrounded by armed police. Officers have made contact with the gunman.

Five people have been seen running from the building. It is not clear how many remain inside. A black Islamic flag has been displayed at the window.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said it was "profoundly shocking" that people were being "held hostage by an armed person claiming political motivation".

He was speaking after chairing a meeting of the national security committee in Canberra.

Earlier Mr Abbott said: "Australia is a peaceful, open and generous society - nothing should ever change that and that's why I would urge all Australians today to go about their business as usual."

Senior police officers say they are on a footing "consistent with a terrorist event".

The incident began as people were arriving for work in Martin Place on Monday. Witnesses saw a man with a bag and gun walk into the Lindt chocolate shop and cafe.

Lindt said about 10 employees and 30 customers were thought to be inside at the time. Nearby offices were evacuated and police asked people to remain indoors and away from open windows.

The BBC's Jon Donnison in Sydney says an enormous police operation is in place, on a scale few Sydney residents will have seen.

About six hours into the siege, three people were seen running from the building housing the cafe. Two more people followed about an hour later. It is not clear whether they escaped or were released.

New South Wales Police deputy commissioner Catherine Burn said: "Those people are now being assessed to make sure their health is okay and then police will talk to them."

"Our approach is to resolve this peacefully. It might take a bit of time but that is our priority," she added.

網址: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-30473983

Key words
Prime Minister 首相
hostage 人質

Assess 暗殺

What: Hostages were held by the gunmen

Where: The Lindt café in Australia

When: NOT GIVEN

Why: NOT GIVEN

How: NOT GIVEN

Week 1- Airasia crash

AirAsia pilots may have turned off plane computer system before crash, report claims

The pilots of the AirAsia flight which plunged into the Java Sea last month had cut power to a critical computer system as they struggled to deal with the unfolding crisis, a report suggested on Friday.

All 162 people on board were killed when flight 8501 crashed on 28 December, en route from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore, in stormy weather.

On Thursday, Indonesian investigators said that the less experienced co-pilot was flying the plane as stall warnings began to sound, while the captain was monitoring him and communicating air traffic control.

The Airbus A320-200 climbed so rapidly - probably to avoid the bad weather in the area - that it lost lift and began falling.

The new report from Bloomberg, which cites two unnamed sources “with knowledge of the investigation”, said that pilots had shut down power to a flight protection system after trying to deal with a string of alerts from it.

The separate computers, which serve as back-up to each other, control the plane’s rudder - preventing it from making turns that are too sharp - and prevent the aircraft from going too slowly. If they lose power or go wrong they will shut down.

But it is not clear why the crew should have turned them off, nor why the plane then went into a steep climb, as the pilots should still have been able to fly the plane manually.

Investigators did not comment publicly on whether the flight augmentation computers were turned off in their Thursday briefing. They said their final report would not be ready for at least six to seven months.

The flight and cockpit data recorders showed that the jet was cruising at a stable altitude of 32,000 feet when the plane made a sharp left and the crew contacted ground control requesting permission to climb to 38,000 feet.  Controllers in Jakarta asked them to stand by. 

The chief investigator of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, Marjono Siswosuwarno, said satellite images from the time of the crash showed storm clouds in the area reaching up to 44,000 feet.

He added that the jet had been in a dangerously fast climb and stalled before falling to 24,000 feet, the last position recorded on radar.
“In many cases, the engine is not strong enough to fly in this high angle,” Siswosuwarno said.

He said investigators were examining whether turbulence or updrafts were a factor in the steep climb.

Indonesia Minister of Transportation Ignasius Jonan said previously that the Airbus A320 was climbing at around 6,000 feet a minute. 

Ertata Lananggalih, another investigator with the National Transportation Safety Committee, said the pilots were conscious during the three minute descent and trying to control the plane.

The Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed sources indicated that it was the first officer’s control stick which pulled the plane’s nose up.

Reuters meanwhile reported that officials believed Captain Iriyanto, 53, an Indonesia air force veteran with about 20,000 flying hours logged, had taken over control of the aircraft from his less experienced French co-pilot Remi-Emmanuel Plesel when it started to climb and then descend.

The investigation team told reporters that the aircraft was in sound condition when it took off and all crew members properly certified.

Asked about the status of the flight augmentation computers prior to the crash, a spokesperson for Air Asia said: “We are unable to comment at this time as we would like to avoid adding to speculations while the investigation by The National Transportation Safety Commission is still ongoing.”

Indonesian rescuers have so far retrieved 72 bodies. Unconfirmed reports said another body may have been found on Thursday, drifting around 1000km from the crash site.

網址: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/30/airasia-pilots-turned-off-planes-computer-system-before-crash-report

Key words

manually 手動地
augmentation 增加 增大
examine 檢查
turbulence (大氣)湍流
speculation 推測

What: AirAsia pilots may have turned off plane computer system before crash, report claims

Where: the Java Sea

When: last month

Why: the plane crashed in the Java Sea

How: NOT GIVEN