Map Shows How Chinese Planes Nearly Collided in Russian Airspace
A Newsweek map traces the flight paths of the aircraft involved in the incident, which occurred high above Tuva-a southern Siberian region bordering Mongolia.
At the center of the mishap was an Air China Airbus A350, flight CA967, on route from Shanghai to Milan. The July 6 event began when the Air China jet unexpectedly maneuvered into the path of another Chinese plane.
The confusion appeared to have originated when the pilot was given instructions along with two other Chinese planes flying northwest of CA967, according to the South China Morning Post.
In a radio recording that circulated on Chinese social media, a Russian air traffic controller is heard instructing a Hainan Airlines jet and a second China Airlines plane to maintain an altitude of 36,000 feet. The authenticity of the recording could not be independently verified by Newsweek.
At around 9:40 a.m. local time, CA967 climbed unexpectedly from 34,100 feet to 36,000 feet within 15 minutes, according to Flightradar24 data. The pilot did not ask for air traffic control to approve the maneuver.
This sudden ascent brought the Air China jet into the path of a Boeing 767 cargo plane, flight CSS12, flying from Budapest, Hungary, to Ezhou, China. The two aircraft came within about 400 feet of each other-well below the internationally accepted 1,000-foot minimum.
Audio from the cockpit captured the cargo plane's pilot noting the unexpected presence of the Air China jet directly ahead, prompting the Russian controller to order immediate evasive maneuvers for both flights. The close encounter also triggered both planes' Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems, a last-resort automated alert designed to prevent midair collisions.
When the Air China pilot radioed to ask about the cause of the alert, the controller pressed: "Are you climbing with instruction or without instruction? Confirm, please." The Air China pilot replied: "No, thank you," which has drawn widespread commentary on Chinese social media.
The South China Morning Post reported that the two pilots communicated further with the Air China pilot appearing to blame a Russian air traffic controller for the incident, saying instructions had left pilots "confused".
A similar scare played out over the United States just days later.
On Friday, a Delta Air Lines passenger jet flying from Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota, was forced to execute a hard turn to avoid a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber.
The Delta pilot expressed surprise that Minot Air Force Base, which has a radar, had not put out a notification about the flight.
An Air Force spokesperson told Newsweek the service was "looking into the matter."
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Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Passenger plane crashes in Russia's far east, nearly 50 people on board feared dead
Russia Plane By Andrew Osborn and Gleb Stolyarov MOSCOW (Reuters) -A Russian Antonov An-24 passenger plane carrying about 50 people crashed in the country's far east on Thursday and everyone on board was feared to have been killed, emergency services officials said. The burning fuselage of the plane, which was made in the Soviet era and was nearly 50 years old, was spotted on the ground by a helicopter and rescue crews were rushing to the scene. Video shot from a helicopter and posted on social media, showed the plane came down in a densely forested area. Pale smoke could be seen rising from the crash site. The plane was on a flight by a privately owned Siberian-based regional airline called Angara. The aircraft's tail number showed it was built in 1976 and was operated by Soviet flag carrier Aeroflot before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The plane was en route from the city of Blagoveshchensk to Tynda, a remote town and important railway junction in the Amur region bordering China. It dropped off radar screens while preparing to land. There were 43 passengers, including five children, and six crew members on board according to preliminary data, Vasily Orlov, the regional governor said. The federal Russian government put the number of passengers on board at 42. Debris from the plane was found on a hill around 15 km (10 miles) from Tynda, the Interfax news agency quoted emergency service officials as saying. "During the search operation, an Mi-8 helicopter belonging to Rossaviatsiya discovered the fuselage of the aircraft, which was on fire," the emergency services ministry said on Telegram. "Rescuers continue to make their way to the scene of the accident." A representative from Angara told Reuters they could not offer any more details. The federal Russian government said it had set up a commission to deal with the aftermath of the crash and authorities announced an investigation into the cause. The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had been notified of the crash. 'FLYING TRACTORS' Angara airline is based in the Siberian city of Irkutsk and serves airports in Siberia and Russia's far east. It operates 10 An-24s built between 1972 and 1976, according to the RussianPlanes web-portal. Angara was one of two Siberian airlines that last year asked the Russian government to extend the service life of the Antonov aircraft, many of which are over 50 years old, as Russian planemakers scramble to plug the gap left by an exodus of foreign manufacturers. Nicknamed "flying tractors" by some, the propeller-driven An-24s are regarded as reliable workhorses by the Russian aviation industry and are well-suited to the harsh conditions in Siberia as they are able to operate in sub-zero conditions and don't have to land on runways. But airline executives, pilots and industry experts say the cost of maintaining the Antonovs - which make up a fraction of Russia's fleet of over 1,000 passenger planes - has increased after Western sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine hit investment and access to parts. Many of the planes were due to be retired from service in the coming years, but regional airlines are trying to keep them flying until a replacement enters into service as they say there is no alternative until then. Mass production of the new Ladoga aircraft, the same class as the An-24, is not due to begin until 2027 at the earliest. Solve the daily Crossword
National Geographic
an hour ago
- National Geographic
How Louis Braille revolutionized a writing system—despite efforts to stop him
Changing attitudes before Braille's birth helped pave the way for tolerance. Philosopher Denis Diderot's 1749 Letter on the Blind argued blind people have the same intellectual capacity as sighted people. Schools for the blind opened in France and England in the late 1700s, but Braille's writing system provided a means of engaging with texts and scores. Braille, seen here on a collector's card from the 1920s, was motivated by his affection for the visually impaired community, a kindness and grace apparent in his letters. His will—with bequests to everyone down to the night watchman and directing to burn a box of IOUs people in debt had left him—mirrored his generosity. Where would we be without writing? From its origins over 5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, the history of writing echoes the history of humanity. The Greeks and Romans developed unique alphabets, the Chinese evolved complex characters, and today we read novels, newspapers, and social media. A bedrock of human civilization, writing is fundamental for the rule of law and the accumulation of knowledge and culture. Yet it was not until the 19th century that blind people had access to writing. Between 1824 and 1825, Louis Braille created a system of raised dot letters that could be read with the hands. Initially ignored, his invention would be universally adopted by the 20th century, opening a new world of learning for the visually impaired. In a speech at the Sorbonne on the centennial of Braille's death, Helen Keller said, 'We, the blind, are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg.' (How to make travel more accessible to the blind.) The youngest of four children, Braille was born in 1809 in the village of Coupvray, 22 miles east of Paris. His father, Simon-René, worked as a saddler, a trade that was always in demand. The family lived comfortably, also cultivating vines for winemaking. Luxuries, such as a bread oven, can be seen today in the house, transformed into the Louis Braille Museum in the 1950s. The centerpiece exhibit is the re-created leather workshop where Braille suffered the accident that would lead to his loss of sight, changing his destiny—and the course of history. As a curious three-year-old, Braille snuck into the shop when no one was around and played with the tools he often watched his father use. When he tried to punch a hole in the leather with an awl, the tool slipped and pierced his eye. This horrific injury led to an infection that spread to both eyes, leaving him blind by the age of five, as antibiotics were not yet discovered. Braille was born in Coupvray, east of Paris, in France's Brie region, famous for the cheese of the same name. His childhood home, which became the Musée Louis Braille in the 1950s, is a traditional three-story house built the 1700s. The family worked as saddlers in Coupvray for more than a century, passing on the profession. In the museum, the leather workshop, shown here, showcases an original table, horse bridles, and an awl of the type that blinded Braille in the horrific childhood incident. A marble plaque outside the house honors the inventor with these words: 'He opened the doors of knowledge to all those who cannot see.' His distraught parents did not want their son's fate sealed in an era when the visually impaired were treated as subhuman, often ridiculed for their disability. On French city streets, blind people were paraded in silly outfits or resigned to begging. Public school education was not yet mandatory in France, but Braille's parents understood the importance of literacy. To aid his son, Simon-René hammered nails into the shape of the alphabet's letters on panels, and a priest named Abbé Jacques Palluy began to instruct Braille. Lithuania's timeless city By the age of seven, he attended the local school, where he was the only blind student. His teacher was struck by his raw intelligence and happy demeanor—traits that were admired by Braille's friends over the course of his life. A few years later, a scholarship was secured for him to continue his studies at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, the world's first such school and one that's still in existence, now called the National Institute for Blind Youth, or INJA. At 10 years old, he would be its youngest ever student. Most astonishing of all was his close-knit family's consent in allowing him to leave home. 'His mother and father could've just as easily kept him in the village,' explained Farida Saïdi-Hamid, the curator of the Louis Braille Museum. 'They are going to write his destiny without knowing it.' This familial support would prove a constant for Braille, and he would continue to return to Coupvray to rest and recharge throughout his life. (These scientists set out to end blindness.) This specially adapted dominoes set was owned by Braille. At seven years old, he was the only blind student at the local school. A chance for education Founded by pioneering educator Valentin Haüy, the institute was groundbreaking in its methodology and approach. The students learned a variety of academic subjects and a manual trade. Haüy had devised a means of embossing books with raised letters, which the children could read with their fingertips, albeit with great difficulty. The school would bring Braille's salvation and his demise, because it's likely where he caught the tuberculosis that would kill him. The building, situated in the longtime student hub of Paris's Latin Quarter, was filthy, damp, and run-down. It had even served as a prison during the French Revolution. But despite the noxious conditions, and the sometimes severe punishment doled out for rule-breaking kids, Braille thrived, making friends and excelling at his studies. Teachers noted his remarkable smarts and spiritual quality. His friend Hippolyte Coltat would later write, 'Friendship with him was a conscientious duty as well as a tender sentiment. He would have sacrificed everything for it, his time, his health, his possessions.' An ear for music Braille's passion for music was born at the institute, where professional musicians gave classes and students, shown playing in a 1903 illustration, could join the orchestra. He won the cello prize in his fifth year, developed a talent for the piano, and invented a tactile method for reading and writing music. As an organist, he played for multiple church parishes, which supplemented his meager income as a teacher. The catalyst for Braille's invention came in 1821. Capt. Charles Barbier, an artillery officer, had devised a means of 'night writing' for the French Army to transmit and carry out orders under the cover of darkness. Convinced of its merit for blind people, Barbier transformed this dot-and-dash code into a phonetics-based system he presented to the students. There were linguistic flaws—sonography reduced language to sounds, so spelling was inaccurate and punctuation nonexistent—but Braille had an epiphany. A dot system could provide an easy and efficient method for the visually impaired to read and write. An early 1900s chocolate card shows Braille at the organ He spent the next four years working to devise such a code. At the institute, he'd pull all-nighters after his classes had finished. Even on vacations home to Coupvray, villagers would describe seeing the boy sitting on a hill with stylus and paper in hand. At the age of 15, he succeeded in creating what would become known as braille writing. The basis was cells of six dots arranged in two columns and three rows. Each combination of raised dots represented a letter of the alphabet. It was elegant in its simplicity and logic. The school's students quickly embraced its use—allowed in an unofficial capacity by Director François-René Pignier. Braille humbly acknowledged his indebtedness to Barbier in his 1829 book Method for Writing Words, Music, and Plainsong by Means of Dots for the Use of the Blind: 'If we have pointed out the advantages of our method over his, we must say in his honor that his method gave us the first idea of our own.' Barbier's code gave Braille (whose statue in Buenos Aires, Argentina is shown here) his big idea: A dot system could enable blind people to read. Battle for Braille Despite Pignier's promotion of braille and letters to the government, the system was not immediately accepted. The established order, dictated by the sighted, was resistant to change and favored the uniform use of one writing system. Braille became a teacher at the institute at the age of 19. By 26, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, leading to long stretches of convalescence at home in Coupvray. Political machinations at the school led to the ousting of Pignier, whose replacement, Pierre-Armand Dufau, flatly rejected the use of braille. He even burned books and punished students caught using it. Braille also devised the decapoint system in which raised dots form standard Latin letters. His friend Pierre-François-Victor Foucault developed the raphigraphe, shown here, to write decapoint. The system was unwieldy, but Braille used the machine to write letters, including to his 'dear mom.' Gracefully, Braille persisted in his fight for the acceptance of his new writing system. A letter that he wrote in 1840 to Johann Wilhelm Klein, the founder of a school for blind people in Vienna, shows his humble efforts of persuasion when describing yet another invention, decapoint, a means for blind and sighted people to communicate: 'I will be happy if my little methods can be useful for your students, and if this specimen is in your eyes the proof of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be, sir, your respectful and very humble servant, Braille.' A 2009 coin from Italy dedicated to Braille A moment of recognition finally came in 1844, at the inauguration of the school's new premises on the Boulevard des Invalides. By this time, Dufau had changed his mind about braille, thanks to the insistence of assistant director Joseph Guadet. Following a speech about the raised-dot system, students demonstrated its use by transcribing and reading verse. Guadet later wrote: 'Braille was modest, too modest ... those around him did not appreciate him ... We were perhaps the first to give him his proper place in the eyes of the public, either in spreading his system more widely in our musical instruction or in making known the full significance of his invention.' Louis Braille did not live to see the universal adoption of braille. He died on January 6, 1852, surrounded by his brother and friends. Not a single newspaper carried a death notice for the man called 'the apostle of light' by Jean Roblin, the first curator of the Louis Braille Museum. Students raised money for Parisian sculptor François Jouffroy to create a marble bust based on Braille's death mask. In 1878 in Paris, a global congress for deaf and blind people proposed an inter- national braille standard. Braille was officially adopted by English speakers in 1932, and postwar UNESCO efforts unified adaptations in India, Africa, and the Middle East. Braille's profound legacy cannot be overstated. On the centennial of his death, Braille's accomplishments were finally celebrated in a national homage. His body was exhumed from the Coupvray cemetery and transferred to Paris's Panthéon, the resting place of France's great citizens. (His hands remained in an urn decorated with ceramic flowers at the Coupvray grave.) The parade through the streets of Paris included hundreds of blind people, elbows linked, some wearing dark sunglasses, tapping white canes on the cobblestones. Braille died of tuberculosis, age 43, in 1852 and was buried in Coupvray. In 1952 his body was reinterred in a tomb in Paris's Panthéon, the mausoleum reserved for France's greatest figures. Yet 200 years after the invention of braille writing, the fight continues. It is a fight to preserve not only the memory of Louis Braille, the subject of surprisingly few biographies, but also the use of his system in the digital age. Increasingly, visually impaired children are learning via screens and audio programs. But neuroscientists argue that writing is essential for thinking, brain connectivity, and learning. The cognitive benefits of writing are fundamentally important. Studies have shown that when a blind person reads braille through touch, the visual cortex is illuminated. With a shortage of braille teachers worldwide, braille literacy has plummeted, and its very future is in peril. Saïdi-Hamid, the curator of the Louis Braille Museum for nearly 17 years, equates her fight to defend braille as a 'combat to defend intelligence itself.' Noting Braille's 'extraordinary personality,' Saïdi-Hamid said, 'he always perceived his disability as a strength and not as a limitation.' As Braille fought during his lifetime, the fight must go on. (How the wheelchair opened up the world to millions of people.) U.S.S.R and India: Alamy; Qatar: Shutterstock Six million people around the world use braille today. Its future is secure in a high-tech world. It can be easily converted to digital formats, and it can be read and written on tactile displays on computers or tablets. An expert braille user can read 200 words a minute (most sighted people can read 250). Although braille literacy is declining, it will be necessary for a future in which an aging population increases the number of blind and visually impaired people. Its strength as a universal system that can be used by anyone, regardless of their linguistic background, has attained international hero status for its French creator. Numerous countries have paid homage to Braille in their postage stamps, including these stamps (clockwise from the left: the U.S.S.R., Qatar, and India). This story appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of National Geographic History magazine.
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
Killer Whales Attack Boat Again
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Two French sailors were rescued off the coast of northern Spain after their boat was rammed by orcas. They were taken safely to shore by the Spanish coastguard after the killer whales attacked their boat's rudder around two miles from the town of Deba, near Bilbao, according to several local media reports. A pod of orcas made headlines in 2023 for their repeated attacks off the Strait of Gibraltar at Spain's southern tip. Why it Matters Rescuers have said orca attacks like this are uncommon in the Basque region, close to France, where they had never before been called to assist in such circumstances. This has sparked questions about whether this is a one-off or the start of more attacks. The recurrence of these encounters is raising questions about animal behavior, the risks for boaters, and the future of human—orca interactions in a rapidly changing sea environment. Newsweek has contacted the Spanish coastguard, via email, for comment. What To Know On July 21 two French sailors were rescued off the coast of Deba, in Spain's Basque Country after their 10-meter yacht lost steering following an encounter with two killer whales, said the sources, including Cadena SER. According to the Spanish maritime safety agency Salvamento Marítimo, the sailors issued a distress call when their rudder was broken, leaving them adrift, though they did not take on water. The rescue vessel Salvamar Orión towed them safely to the port of Getaria. Researchers and sailors have reported a pattern of orcas approaching from behind and targeting boat rudders. If the vessel is immobilized, the whales often lose interest. British wildlife conservation professor Volker Deecke warned British sailors to be cautious, especially in orca hotspots like the "orca alley" of the Strait of Gibraltar. "For some unknown reason, the killer whales have developed a penchant for breaking the rudders of sailboats and once they have achieved this, they leave the boat alone," he told The Telegraph. Orcas have been causing problems for years in the Strait of Gibraltar and around the Iberian coast, but these attacks have intensified and spread in recent years. Data shows the attacks peaking in 2022 and making headlines in 2023 but have been common since 2020. File photo of killer whales, taken off Rausu, Hokkaido, northern Japan, on June 13, 2025. File photo of killer whales, taken off Rausu, Hokkaido, northern Japan, on June 13, 2025. AP What People Are Saying Captain Dan Kriz, who has been ambushed at least twice by the same pod of orcas, previously told Newsweek: "There is not much one can do. They are very powerful and smart … First time, we could hear them communicating under the boat. This time, they were quiet, and it didn't take them that long to destroy both rudders. Looks like they knew exactly what they are doing. They didn't touch anything else." Biologist Alfredo López Fernandez, from the University of Aveiro in Portugal and a representative of the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica (Atlantic Orca Working Group), previously told LiveScience: "The orcas are doing this on purpose, of course, we don't know the origin or the motivation, but defensive behavior based on trauma, as the origin of all this, gains more strength for us every day." What Happens Next Spanish authorities continue to monitor incidents, issue advisories during peak activity periods from May to August, and advocate boaters' compliance with best-practice guidelines to avoid escalating confrontations. Scientists remain divided on the causes behind this pattern, proposing theories from learned behavior due to trauma, playful social learning, or even practice for hunting. Both researchers and conservationists continue to emphasize the importance of protecting the endangered orca subpopulation while safeguarding sailors. Increased surveillance, further study, and public education campaigns are anticipated as both communities seek sustainable coexistence.
