Latest news with #Boeing-737
Buzz Feed
07-07-2025
- Climate
- Buzz Feed
Experts Mock MTG's Controversial Weather Bill
It looks like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has her head in the clouds. In a Saturday morning post on X, formerly Twitter, the far-right Republican announced that she was introducing a bill that prohibits 'the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity.' I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense. I have been researching weather… — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 5, 2025 @RepMTG / Via 'It will be a felony offense,' she said. 'I have been researching weather modification and working with the legislative counsel for months writing this bill,' the legislator continued, adding that the legislation will be similar to Florida's Senate Bill 56. 'We must end the dangerous and deadly practice of weather modification and geoengineering,' she concluded. Though she didn't mention the tragedy directly, the post seemed to be a response to the horrific flash floods, which killed at least 66 people after sweeping through central Texas on Friday. Conspiracy theorists have long claimed that the government or other shadowy organizations have been manipulating the weather by releasing chemicals in the air, leaving white streaks in the sky that they call chemtrails. The Environmental Protection Agency has explained that the cloud-like lines are condensation trails left behind after hot exhaust from aircrafts collides with cold air at high altitudes. More weather manipulation conspiracies have been fueled by the practice of cloud seeding, a way of triggering rain or snow by adding tiny particles into the air. Meteorologist and journalist Matthew Cappucci tried to debunk misinformation online around cloud seeding before calling out Greene for her lack of knowledge. In January, I teamed up with @VICENews to explain why cloud seeding is entirely unrelated to floods. 'Conspiracy theorists don't understand scale,' I explained. That discussion is very relevant tonight. Cloud seeding is for a tiny cloud — not a 4,000,000,000,000 gallon flood. — Matthew Cappucci (@MatthewCappucci) July 6, 2025 @MatthewCappucci / Via 'It's not a political statement for me as a Harvard-degreed atmospheric scientist to say that elected representative Marjorie Taylor Green doesn't know what the hell she's talking about,' he wrote on X. 'She'd be equally qualified to fly a Boeing-737, practice nuclear medicine or train zebras.' It's not a political statement for me as a Harvard-degreed atmospheric scientist to say that elected representative Marjorie Taylor Green doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. She'd be equally qualified to fly a Boeing-737, practice nuclear medicine or train zebras. — Matthew Cappucci (@MatthewCappucci) July 5, 2025 @MatthewCappucci / Via
Indian Express
22-06-2025
- General
- Indian Express
History Headline: 37 years earlier, another air crash in Ahmedabad
Ushaben Patel had just finished helping her son Mileen, 8, with his homework before school on October 19, 1988, when the driver she had sent to Ahmedabad airport to pick up her husband returned to their Naranpura residence without him. Sharadbhai Patel, 35, a finance director at Rexroth, a hydraulic and electrical systems firm, was flying back a day before their elder son Jaysheel's birthday. 'As soon as the driver told me that my husband's plane had crashed, I left for the airport. At the site, I saw bodies on fire. I said a quick prayer for them before fainting,' Ushaben, 75, who lives in Canada now, tells The Indian Express over telephone. At 6.53 am on October 19, 1988, an Indian Airlines flight (a Boeing-737) from Bombay to Ahmedabad with 135 passengers, including six crew members, crashed into a paddy field around 2.5 km from runway 23 of Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. While 130 died on impact, three succumbed to their injuries during treatment. Two men who survived the crash sustained grievous injuries. On June 12 this year — nearly 37 years later — Air India's Boeing-787 Dreamliner departed from runway 23 of the airport with 242 passengers, including 12 crew members, for London. Minutes later, the plane went down, its tail striking the first-floor mess at B J Medical College and Hospital, located a kilometre from the airport. While 241 persons onboard and several others on the ground were killed, one passenger survived the crash. A report dated October 20, 1988, in The Indian Express states that the Boeing, 'acquired in 1971…apparently lost height before landing and went shearing through branches of babul trees, hit a neem tree and also snapped a high tension power line before crashing'. Initially, five persons had survived the 1988 crash — Vinod Tripathi, Parag Vasavada, Jaikrishna Kaushik Rav, Ashok Agarwal and Rajiv. News reports say that these survivors, seated in the tail portion of the plane, were 'thrown out' after the aircraft broke into three parts on impact. At 13, Jaikrishna was the youngest survivor, but he lost his parents and brother in the crash. Residents of Sabarkantha district's Idar, the family had come to Gujarat nearly a decade after shifting to Zambia. In 1988, Dr M F Shaikh, then 30, was an assistant professor in the General Surgery and Plastic Surgery Department of BJ Medical College, which is affiliated with and located on the Civil Hospital campus. 'Jaikrishna had fractured his right femur (the strongest bone in the human body) and had burn injuries. A week after his treatment at the hospital, he was airlifted to Mumbai's Hinduja Hospital. However, he succumbed to his injuries within two days,' says Dr Shaikh, who retired as the Head of the Plastic Surgery Department. Besides Jaikrishna, Parag Vasavada and Rajiv too died during the course of treatment. Of the two survivors, Tripathi, then Gujarat Vidyapith Registrar, passed away in 2003, while Agrawal, a textile businessman, died in March 2020. The first to treat the Registrar, Dr Shaikh says Tripathi 'ran from the blazing plane despite burns in both legs'. Tripathi, who retired as Vice-Chancellor, was carrying 170 degrees to get them signed by then Chancellor Morarji Desai. The Vidyapith reissued these degrees. Agarwal's family, which has moved to another area in Ahmedabad, declined requests by The Indian Express to talk about the incident. One of his old neighbours says, 'He lost his wife Abha, 22, and their daughter Ruhi, 11 months, in the crash. He never recovered from the loss of his family.' Dr Drupad Chhatrapati, 92, then medical superintendent at the Civil Hospital, recalls, 'Within 48 hours of the post-mortem, we emptied out a ward at the hospital. The bodies, covered in white sheets, were lined up there for identification. Since there was no DNA testing then, families were asked to identify the remains.' According to reports, bodies, luggage and plane debris were found strewn over a radius of half a kilometre near the Kotarpur Water Works, under construction then. Pinakin Dikshit, then Deputy Commissioner, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, says, 'It was a foggy morning. Construction lights were on at the water works compound. The pilot could have mistaken those for landing lights.' Today, a memorial — a concrete airplane on a 10×10 platform — stands at the crash site, located inside the compound. Since 1990, victims' families have been visiting the site annually on October 19 to pay their respects. A rusted board near the memorial, with the words 'Smriti Van' painted in white, leads to a 'mini forest', where the families had planted 133 saplings in 1991. Anil Pathak, 75, a reporter who had done stories on the crash, recalls, 'Among the belongings recovered was a potli (cloth bundle) of gold. I remember the parents of a Mumbai-based cabin crew member wandering around the site in search of their daughter for months. They were convinced that she had survived the crash.' The crash posed many challenges, says ex-Chief Secretary P K Laheri, then Principal Secretary to CM Amarsinh Chaudhary. 'There were no mobile phones then. The police control room called me 20 minutes after the crash. Limited resources meant we had to call the fire brigade from Vadodara (around 100 km away). There were no rescue teams then. All rescue work was undertaken by the fire department,' he says. US resident Pankesh Patel, 64, lost his brother Rakesh and sister-in-law Bhavnaben, both 24, in the crash. He says, 'The June 12 crash revived memories of the 1988 incident— the shock and how my parents were left devastated. Like us, these families too will go through the same trauma.' Though the authorities had announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh per victim of the 1988 crash, their families have been fighting a legal battle for 'fair' compensation based on a victim's age and income . The writer is an Assistant Editor, The Indian Express
The Hindu
14-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
When Tamil Nadu's prominent political leader, Mohan Kumaramangalam, died in 1973 air crash
Recall stories, carried by the media in the wake of the A1-171 flight crash in Ahmedabad on Thursday about prominent leaders who died in similar events, have not given much importance to the air crash that killed one of Tamil Nadu's leading political leaders, Mohan Kumaramangalam, in New Delhi in May 1973. Mohan Kumaramangalam, who was Union Minister for Steel and Mines, was returning to New Delhi from Chennai when the flight in which he travelled - Boeing 737 of the Indian Airlines [which was merged with Air India in 2007] crashed about five km from the Palam airport in New Delhi at about 10 pm on May 31, 1973. Apart from him, 47 others perished in the crash. They included K. Baladhandayutham, Communist Party of India (CPI)'s Member of Parliament representing the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency, and Gurnam Singh, Punjab's former Chief Minister. At that time, the event was the first such accident in the country, involving Boeing-737. The Union government had immediately constituted an enquiry panel headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar of the Delhi High Court to go into the circumstances leading to the crash. One and a half months later, the panel's report was placed in Parliament. Karan Singh, who was the then Union Minister of Tourism and Civil Aivation, told the Lok Sabha that the judge had 'clearly held' that there were several errors committed by the pilot [who had survived in the crash]. Dr Singh informed the House that the government was taking a 'whole package of measures' to improve and strengthen pilot training. At the time of death, Kumaramangalam held portfolios, generally perceived to be not glamorous. But, in a span of a little over two years (March 1971-May 1973) of his presence in the Council of Ministers headed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he had emerged as the most conspicuous Union Minister. The Hindu, in its report of June 2, 1973 pointed out that Kumaramangalam interested himself in the overall policy for the promotion of the objectives of social justice which the Congress had set for itself. Whether it was land reforms or ceiling on urban property, he had a big say in the matter and the party committees which went into these questions of far-reaching importance had inevitably to include him as a member and the reports submitted by them 'bear an unmistakable impression of his genius,' the report stated. Kumaramangalam, who was born to P. Subbaroyan, former Premier of the erstwhile Madras Presidency, had his early education in England. After passing his Barrister examination in 1939, he returned to India the same year. He was enrolled as an advocate in April 1940 by Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar. In politics, he was initially with the CPI. In 1940, he was arrested and tried in the well-known Madras Communist conspiracy case and awarded three and a half years rigorous imprisonment. He served in the jail for about two years. In July 1966, he was made Advocate General when the last Congress regime was in power. The same day, he quit the CPI. After the DMK came to power eight months later, he resigned the post. Four years later, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Puducherry. In the last leg of his life, Kumaramangalam came in for severe criticism for the Union government's decision in April 1973 to make Justice A. N. Ray the Chief Justice of India, superseding three senior judges. He defended the decision with 'force and vigour' both in Parliament and outside, The Hindu wrote, after his death. Indira Gandhi, in her condolence message to the widow Kalyani Kumaramangalam, pointed out that 'he had left a mark on whatever he did and made a distinctive contribution to social change,' added the report.
Business Times
12-06-2025
- General
- Business Times
Air India plane with 242 on board crashes at India's Ahmedabad airport
[NEW DELHI] An Air India plane headed to London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from India's western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday (Jun 12), the airline and police said, without specifying whether there were any fatalities. The plane was headed to Gatwick airport in the UK, Air India said, while police officers said it crashed in a civilian area near the airport. Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service. 'At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates,' Air India said on X. The crash occurred when the aircraft was taking off, television channels reported. One channel showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge cloud of fire rising into the sky from beyond the houses. Visuals also showed debris on fire, with thick black smoke rising up into the sky near the airport. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up They also showed visuals of people being moved in stretchers and being taken away in ambulances. According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad airport, the aircraft departed at 1.39 pm (0809 GMT) from runway 23. It gave a 'Mayday' call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter no there was no response from the aircraft. Flightradar24 also said that it received the last signal from the aircraft seconds after it took off. 'The aircraft involved is a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with registration VT-ANB,' it said. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The last fatal plane crash in India involved Air India Express, the airline's low-cost arm. The airline's Boeing-737 overshot a 'table-top' runway at Kozhikode International Airport in southern India in 2020. The plane skidded off the runway, plunging into a valley and crashing nose-first into the ground. Twenty-one people were killed in that crash. REUTERS
Otago Daily Times
12-06-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Plane with 242 on board crashes at India airport
An Air India plane headed to London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from India's western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, the airline and police said, without specifying whether there were any fatalities. The plane was headed to Gatwick airport in the UK, Air India said, while police officers said it crashed in a civilian area near the airport. Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service. "At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates," Air India said on X. The crash occurred when the aircraft was taking off, television channels reported. One channel showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge cloud of fire rising into the sky from beyond the houses. Visuals also showed debris on fire, with thick black smoke rising up into the sky near the airport. They also showed visuals of people being moved in stretchers and being taken away in ambulances. According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad airport, the aircraft departed at 139pm (local time) from runway 23. It gave a "Mayday" call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter no there was no response from the aircraft. Flightradar24 also said that it received the last signal from the aircraft seconds after it took off. "The aircraft involved is a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with registration VT-ANB," it said. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The last fatal plane crash in India involved Air India Express, the airline's low-cost arm. The airline's Boeing-737 overshot a "table-top" runway at Kozhikode International Airport in southern India in 2020. The plane skidded off the runway, plunging into a valley and crashing nose-first into the ground. Twenty-one people were killed in that crash.
