#Public Safety aircraft

[nocternalrandomness]

Huntington Beach PD departing KSNA

[tornadoquest]

Tornado Quest Top Science Links For November 2 - 9, 2024 #science #weather #climate #climatechange #hurricane

Greetings to all. I’m glad you stopped by. As of this post, Rafael is stirring the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and is proof positive that even a hurricane can quickly reach major status in November. There’s always a chance for another one, so I’ve plenty of hurricane preparedness information for you. Along with this week’s US Drought Monitor update there are several good reads, so let’s get…

[reportwire]

Biden's trip to Kyiv delivers the starkest rebuke possible to Putin | CNN Politics

CNN  —  There is no more powerful symbol of Vladimir Putin’s failure. A year ago, the Russian leader launched a blitzkrieg against Ukraine, mocking its history and sovereignty, sending his tanks churning toward Kyiv to obliterate the democratically elected government led by a former comic actor. His purpose was clear: To crush once and for all Ukraine’s dreams of joining the West and to force…

[ceasarslegion]

I work in aviation safety. Let's talk statistics, before the fear mongering train leaves the station.

Around 45,000 flights take off and land in the US every day.

3 aircrafts have crashed in the last week.

That means 99.996% of flights took off and landed without incident. None of those 3 aircrafts were commercial passenger planes, ie none of them were the types of planes you will likely fly on throughout your life. Unless you're in the military, wealthy, or part of a special travel group like a sports team, a diplomat, high-risk prisoner transport, or an air ambulance, you will likely never fly on a private charter flight or military aircraft.

That means all public commercial flights in the US on the days of the recent crashes took off and landed safely, as far as I have been able to find.

Is 2 crashes within a week an absolutely unacceptable number? Yes.

Is this likely connected to the recent firings of the American aviation safety and ATC personnel? Yes.

Is this indicative of a wider trend that I should be worried about as an average citizen of the US, or someone traveling to or within the US? As of now, February 1st, 2025, no. Flying is still, statistically, the safest mode of transportation. Even with the recent crashes included in the numbers, even if you're travelling within the US.

Does this have anything to do with DEI? No. The aviation safety industry has some of the most stringent job training regimens in the world. No one who can't cut it in ATC will get anywhere near an ATC tower, regardless of their minority status. I don't work in ATC, but I'm under the wider aviation safety umbrella, and it took 3 months to finish my training. 18 people started out in my training class and 7 of us passed. No one in an airport terminal can get the badges we wear without passing that along with an INTERPOL background check that we have to do all over again every few years.

Why are you telling me that? Does it really matter if he gutted the ATC? It does, actually. My point is that the people they let work in airports are some of the most competent and capable individuals you can find. You don't cut it if you can't think on your feet or juggle unexpected and unprecedented situations and handle emergencies and contingencies. On average, an air traffic controller handles 5-15 planes at the same time, but they're trained on handling many more in the event of emergencies and unprecedented situations. It's not ideal right now, it's really not, but considering all the things I just told you about aviation safety employees, and the fact that ATC is THE hardest career to cut it in within that umbrella, even the worlds worst air traffic controller is as capable and trustworthy to handle your life as a good neurosurgeon.

And please, please support the american ATCs right now. Just because they CAN handle emergency-level workloads doesn't make it easy or sustainable for long periods of time. Do not blame the ATCs who were handling the crashed flights, it wasn't their fault that they were overworked and overstressed and numbers and directions started scrambling in their heads. They already have to live with what happened for the rest of their lives, they don't need other people making value judgements of them too.

[cod-imagines-fanfiction]

Jealous Alejandro kidnaps Valeria's girlfriend (1.6k words part 4)

Summary: Valeria breaks into the headquarters of the Mexican Army in search of her wife.

TW: implied sexual violence, violence more generally (and Google Translated Mexican Spanish)

Note: I'm back from my home country y'all and free to write gay fanfiction once again. I'm working on the next part ASAP but I wanted to post this because you guys have been waiting forever. Thank you for all the lovely comments and the interactions!! means a lot to me that you guys enjoy reading this :>

Link to A03 Link to part 1, part 2, part 3. Next part: part 5

'Army soldier' was more than a type of occupation, more than any other job title; it was a lifestyle. It is truly a different way of life, a way of life that most people are simply not built for. A soldier's form - their straight back, their way of taking in the world around them within a second, their way of assessing everything as either hostile or neutral, their battlefield instinct - it all became an inseparable part of who they are. There is a certain instinct that gets drilled into soldiers, the instinct to act immediately and fast. The instinct to not think twice about running into danger. It is triggered immediately and triggered intensely. So when the emergency siren at the Mexican Army Headquarters wailed, the whole place came alive. No time was wasted before troops placed themselves in position. Snipers grabbed their rifles and headed for the rooftops, Captains and sergeants tuned into their mics, barking orders to their subordinates, assembling their troops as quickly as possible. Guards ran to their posts and pilots rushed to where their aircraft were getting readied by flying personnel, prepared to take off to gain an advantage in the airfield and a much-needed vantage point of what was happening. The armoury opened as many hands reached within for ammo and other equipment.

From the outside, it was a perfect scene of military efficiency and readiness. But from the inside, anxiety bubbled, threatening to cut loose.

"Why did this have to happen today of all days?" A soldier grumbled as he tightened his weapon belt.

"Someone planned this. It's the most popular day for annual leave," another responded as he grabbed his shoes.

"Dia de los Muertos," the first one said, his voice low and grim.

The Day of the Dead. Celebrated annually around November 1st but spanning over the course of multiple days. A day of celebration for life and death, a day to pay respects to those who have passed on. A time of parades on squares and community gatherings, with crowds of people in traditional costumes and painted faces taking to the streets to rejoice with others. A time when many troops were stationed outside the headquarters for public safety. A time, therefore, of relatively little staff being left behind to man the fort.

It was so perfect, Valeria almost giggled as she withdrew her knife from someone's body and let them drop to the floor.

She had infiltrated the headquarters from the underground tunnels that connected to some fields further out, which were created to be used in emergencies but had been long forgotten over the years. These were the same tunnels she took many years back when she wanted to see you on a day that she hadn't booked off. She would wait until most of the barracks were asleep before slipping away in the shadows, passing the guards and quietly unscrewing the lid that separated the tunnels from the world above ground. It was even more exciting once she taught you when and where to wait for her, at the end of the tunnel, among greenery and orange trees. Among the fields that you would lay on for the rest of the night underneath your blanket, touching each other's bodies and talking to the stars. Whispering how badly you'd missed each other, hearing the hum of insects in between short gasps and warm moans. Now, she had unscrewed these same lids and stabbed the person in front of her, dragging them out and passing the body along to the staff that followed her. They dumped the body back in the fields. Part of her found it annoying that these tunnels were always standing between her and her wife. And yet there was some charm, too. Travelling the bowels of the Earth for her love.

Having officially stepped on ground owned by the Mexican Army, El Sin Nombre and her people spread like a virus, taking down certain key spots and hiding bodies. Not enough damage to create immediate alarm, but good enough progress to feel confident about the next step. Her heart sped up in excitement as she thought of her wife, who was only one building and a lock away from her. And right in front of that building, was him.

Valeria looked out from one of the windows and saw Alejandro standing with his back straight, his face possessing a deep scowl as he conversed with Rudolpho. It had been many years since she last saw him, which was nothing memorable. There was no goodbye, no farewell. She had simply gotten up in the middle of the night and gazed at his face one final time; he glistened beneath the moonlight. He was younger then, his face smoother, his voice gentler; not yet hardened. A mass of muscle on a standard issue Army bed, he was unaware that the woman he loved was slipping right through his fingers. Unaware that by the time he woke up, she'd be gone.

There'd be nothing left behind to prove that she even existed. All of her things just went missing alone with her. She didn't even leave a picture behind to immortalise their love, to have something to look at during those nights when his heart almost gave out, when he realised that he was starting to forget what she looked like. That he could no longer remember her voice. Now, as she looked at him, she wondered why they even started a relationship in the first place. He was attractive, sure, but nothing special. Not like the woman in the box.

He was older now, his face more wrinkled. Valeria was raised with the idea that in women, this quality had the same visual effect as decaying fruit. When Valeria looked in the mirror and saw her signs of age - the smile lines that wouldn't smooth out when her smile fell, the lines around her mouth that could not be covered by cosmetics, the wrinkles around her eyes - it reminded her of something that was starting to fade. But in men, the quality was different, more merciful. More like maturing. It enraged her to see him getting older. To see him in the exact same place that she left him. The memories attached to this place were too much to handle. Memories of her younger years kept materialising at the edge of her vision, like a trick of the light; a shadow figure that kept pursuing. It used to be her, out there in the yard. Talking with Alejandro and Rudy, passing along jokes during a long day. But right now it was just the two of them, talking with ease like she had never been there at all. And right at that moment, as she gazed down at them, the alarm went off. What a glorious opportunity to have a front-row seat to witness Alejandro's reaction once she pulled the rug from underneath his feet. There was no more time to waste. She forced herself to stop gloating at these shadows of the past and to move forward. With each step, she got closer to her wife, her sweetheart. Valeria felt weightless, she felt herself glide through the space between herself and Y/N. She would pause here and there to ensure she did not reveal herself to her enemies. At times, she stealthily murdered someone who could have easily been her roommate back when she was a cadet. But that was another lifetime, a lifetime of making the wrong friendships and choosing the wrong lovers. She wasted no time on these obstacles. At last, her hand encircled the handle of the container. She pushed her weight into it and entered, ready for anything. Be it to murder a guard, or to embrace her love; her instincts were on the front seat. She could kill a hundred men if it came to it.

“Valeria. Bienvenida.”

The metal door crashed into the threshold behind her, the echoes reverberating, she felt, for eternity. There was nothing beyond these metal walls anymore, the whole world went silent. The wrath that burned in her eyes met the hatred that dripped out of his. Darkness met darkness; loathing encircled within their dark glares like an ouroboros, its dark scales flashing where the light hit it. Valeria and Alejandro were a perfect mirror, they were tuned into the same frequency, a frequency of violence. They were built of the same clay; two destroyers meeting at last.

He was right in front of her, waiting. Standing tall and armed to the teeth, Colonel Alejandro Vargas. Her jealous ex-lover, the kidnapper of her wife, the annihilator of peace, the snake that infiltrated the garden. The evil eye incarnate. And here was she, the abandoner, the backstabber; the woman lover.

“Y/N.” Valeria spoke with steel in her voice.

“Is no longer with us, I’m afraid.” The lines of his mouth fell into a pout, feigning sadness. Mocking her. “She’s not a fighter, like you or me. You know what happens to the weak here,” he scoffed. “What was it that you used to say? That the weak exist to serve the strong and die? Yeah,” he said diabolically, a grin etching itself on his face. “That’s what happened.”

She knew he was lying; Y/N walked this earth still. She and her wife’s souls were so intertwined, Valeria would have felt it if her wife was gone. Y/N could never leave without her heart knowing. Valeria would put her hand through fire to prove her conviction.

“If I thought she was dead, I would have shot you on sight,” she said. Her hand gripped a blade tightly, willing herself to stop shaking.

Alejandro laughed. “Oh, I didn’t mean she was dead.” His gloved hands held onto his vest as he looked down at her. “I meant that your wife served me.”

Unable to contain her wrath any longer, Valeria lunged at him with a scream.

tag list: @justmare @silas-222 @m0rganit3 @blarba-girl @sleepiemain @caffeineliker @ashy-kit @00ops1e @lesvii @therapyneeds @lez-zuha @starre-eyes @7smexy7diva @hello-kitty-festival @konigmeu @cassiecasluciluce @gay-ass-country-boy @starwars-theclonewhore @bi-witch-bxtch @somnoslvt @ashthepillow @b3ns0ne  @idiotwrites @danart501 @deakyspuff @mistresssiri @angethehimbosimp

thanks for supporting me!!

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sam Olley

There are "major gaps" in surveillance of new pathogens from animals and countries should prepare for a pandemic worse than Covid-19 in our lifetimes, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Covid-19 technical lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove also said that New Zealand, being an island nation, was not protected from this risk.

It has been five years this month since scientists believe Covid-19 began to spread from animals to humans, triggering a global pandemic that the WHO estimates to have caused at least 20 million deaths and $16 trillion in lost revenue.

Van Kerkhove told 1News she did not think this pandemic needed to be as bad as it was.

"And in fact, this was not really the big one, we have to prepare for an even worse one."

WHO was not trying to scare people, she said, but instead called on them to be prepared.

"Hopefully we won't have one in our lifetime, but I am sure that we will have another outbreak and another pandemic during our lifetime."

Surveillance of new human infections has improved but the WHO is highly concerned about "patchy" surveillance of pathogens spreading between animals that could be transmitted to humans.

"Right now, we have some major gaps," Van Kerkhove said.

When asked if the loss of some specimens was a problem for pandemic preparedness, Van Kerkhove said: "I don't have direct evidence, because this is not something that's shared quite widely, that some samples that have been collected over time that are stored in freezers, some of those samples are starting to be destroyed."

"If we look at coronaviruses, we want to go back in time."

She said she was also grappling with the impact of geopolitical conflicts taking money from health.

"I do find it striking that there always seems to be money for an aircraft carrier. There always seems to be money for war, but we are yet to provide consistent funding for global health threats."

There was no place for complacency, she said, and island nations were not exempt from the risk.

"These pathogens do not respect borders."

Van Kerkhove addressed New Zealand public health experts this week at the Te Niwha conference to relay the latest updates and research from the work of the WHO.

Those attending included Sir Ashley Bloomfield who is currently the interim chief executive for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). Earlier this year, he co-chaired a working group for 196 countries to agree to amendments to the International Health Regulations to better protect health and safety in response to future outbreaks and pandemics.

These included the introduction of a universal definition for a pandemic emergency, a commitment to solidarity and equity on access to medical products and financing, as well of the establishment of a States Parties Committee and the creation of National IHR Authorities.

Sir Ashley said a theme of these negotiations was that developing countries felt there was "an overreaction" from other countries around travel and trade if there was a new variant reported.

"The other issue that developing countries had is that they would often provide samples that were then used to develop vaccines that they could not access. So these are issues that collectively countries need to address."

The WHO is working alongside New Zealand health leaders to upskill new frontline workers and leaders to reduce burnout.

Sir Ashley said some people in key roles are "quite burnt out".

"They probably don't feel they would be able to make the same effort if they were called upon in the near future."

Te Niwha director Te Pora Thompson (Ngati Hauā) said: "We cannot go through subsequent pandemics — which we will, we absolutely will — with very tired, very broken people, at all."

She also reinforced the importance of a diverse workforce to reduce inequities in pandemics.

"There are a few more seats that we need to be pulling up to this table."

Asked about her own experience with burnout, Van Kerkhove said she was not necessarily the best example of this.

"I'm working through it with my family. I was not present for my kids — I have two little boys — for years."

Around the world in health systems, "we need a deep bench to be able to work with," she said.

Noting the praise New Zealand's Covid response received, she was optimistic Aotearoa could continue at a high standard in future pandemics.

"I think New Zealand can absolutely be a leader."

[feathered-mushrooms]

Scott Summers ahead Cannons

he is my favorite loser boy

Due to growing up on it, Scott tends to throw himself into the danger room whenever he feels an emotion more than fine. He does not know a limit, which his led to “Scott patrol”. Oh Scott hasn’t left the danger room for five hours? Rouge it’s your turn, I pulled him out last time. 

Scott can’t handle to much down time, or being bored. He constantly feels like there is something he should be doing, and therefore will constantly find something to do. 

Charles has done a number on him. He is the reason Scott is so high strung, why failure isn’t just a lesson to learn from but an entire judgement of his character, why he can’t just breathe. He needs to be the leader and the man everyone can count on, he needs to be everything Charles wants him to be. 

This is not a healthy way of thinking. 

Scott has a special interest in planes. It started when he was young and then had a pause after the plane crash that killed his parents. However he picked it up again and now can tell you the difference between a commercial flight and a jet. He also knows how to pilot seven different types of aircraft and even got official license for each.

He is Bi.

It took him frighteningly long to figure this out. 

Scott has issues with social skills(projecting). He can speak sarcasm just fine and makes many jokes in that medium. However he has a hard time figuring out people are being sarcastic, especially if the joke is around him. 

He would wear a dress. Not in public, but if Jean offered he would try one of her dresses on in the safety of a bed room. He would like it. 

Game nights were originally hidden from Scott who(due to the professors absurdly high expectations) does not handle losing well. He loves to point out the rules and technicality’s, and will not play Uno with any variations. He’s not a sore loser par say, it just gets depressing for everyone watching. 

When he was young he kept only one pair of ruby glasses and one visor. As he has aged(and been influenced by Emma) he know has a collection of ruby glasses in all types and styles. 

Star Wars is his comfort show/movie/universe

Pretty equal on cats and dogs but leans towards dogs. 

His chances of being a toddler dad had been pretty ruined but he thinks it would be nice to raise a kid alongside a dog. Maybe a golden retriever. 

He does not mind cats though. 

He often feels weird in his place as a parent. Nathan is his kid but some much time has been lost that Scott can’t help but yearn for the mile stones that were missed and lost to time. He misses everything he was promised as a father. The same is true for Rachel although it is a little weirder. Yes she is his, but from a future that will never happen. He often feels guilty because in the end he has two great kids, but he wishes he could raise a kid in a normal sense. 

He just wants to be a father. 

When he was their step father, Scott showed the Cuckoos Star Wars. He keeps checking in on them, even after he and Emma are no longer together. 

Scott’s type is a person who will be mean to him, and could probably kill him, but have a soft spot.

Even if that soft spot is very hidden. 

He can make a really good grilled cheese. There was a week in his teens were there was low x-men activities and not a lot to do in the mansion so he dedicated his days to perfecting the grilled cheese. He makes it anytime he thinks someone needs some comfort. 

He’s eyes are brown under the visor. 

Never played DnD but very interested in it. Researched it a whole lot and has watched a lot of play throughs. Has even mentioned it to the rest of the squad and most were down to try. However it was forgotten due to the next world ending event. Scott still thinks about it and the character he made. 

He is doing his best but often over exerts himself which leads to sick days. On these days he is forced to cuddle up in a blanket and watches either the Star Wars orignal movies or one of the shows. Most times someone will be designated to sit with him so he doesn’t try and get up and do work. 

On these days Logan often takes the job. 

That all for now!

[mariacallous]

The US Coast Guard’s Titan submersible hearing kicked off with a startling revelation.

“I told him I’m not getting in it,” former OceanGate engineering director Tony Nissen said to a panel of Coast Guard investigators, referring to a 2018 conversation in which CEO Stockton Rush allegedly asked Nissen to act as a pilot in an upcoming expedition to the Titanic.

“It’s the operations crew, I don’t trust them,” Nissen told the investigators. “I didn’t trust Stockton either. You can take a look at where we started when I was hired. Nothing I got was the truth.”

Nissen’s testimony, which focused on the design, building, and testing of OceanGate’s first carbon fiber submersible, was a dramatic start to nearly two weeks of public testimony in the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation’s hearings into the fatal June 2023 implosion of the Titan. Its five occupants, including Rush, all likely died instantly.

Before Nissen took the stand, the Coast Guard presented a detailed timeline of OceanGate as a company, the development of the Titan submersible, and its trips to the wreck of the Titanic, resting nearly 3,800 meters down in the north Atlantic. These slides revealed new information, including over 100 instances of equipment failures and incidents on the Titan’s trips in 2021 and 2022. An animated timeline of the final few hours of the Titan also included the final text messages sent by people on the sub. One sent at about 2,400 meters depth read “all good here.” The last message, sent as the sub slowed its descent at nearly 3,400 meters, read “dropped two wts.”

The Coast Guard also confirmed reports that the experimental carbon fiber sub had been stored in an outdoor parking lot in temperatures as low as 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (–17 Celsius) in the run-up to last year’s Titanic missions. Some engineers worried that water freezing in or near the carbon fiber could expand and cause defects in the material.

Nissen said that almost from when he joined OceanGate in 2016, Rush kept changing the company’s direction. A move to certify the vessel with an independent third party fell by the wayside, as did plans to test more scale models of the Titan’s carbon fiber hull when one failed early under pressure. Rush then downgraded titanium components to save money and time. “It was death by a thousand cuts,” Nissen recalls.

He faced tough questioning about OceanGate’s choice of carbon fiber for a hull and its reliance on a newly developed acoustic monitoring system to provide an early warning of failure. One investigator raised WIRED’s reporting that an outside expert Nissen hired to assess the acoustic system later had misgivings about Rush’s understanding of its limitations.

“Given the time and constraints we had,” Nissen said, “we did all the testing and brought in every expert we could find. We built it like an aircraft.”

Nissen walked the Coast Guard board through deep-water testing in the Bahamas in 2018, during which he says the sub was struck by lightning. Measurements on the Titan’s hull later showed that it was flexing beyond its calculated safety factor. When a pilot subsequently found a crack in the hull, Nissen said, he wouldn’t sign off on another dive. “I killed it,” he testified. “The hull is done.” Nissen was subsequently fired.

Nissen sought to draw a line in the sand between the vessel he worked on and the one that took the fateful voyage to the Titanic. The latter had a replacement hull and a redesigned acoustic monitoring system. “My design was collecting data such that we would prevent a catastrophic failure and ultimately the loss of human life,” he said. “We did that with serial 1. What they did in serial number 2, I don’t know. “

The next witness, Bonnie Carl, worked at OceanGate for less than a year between 2017 and 2018. Carl was hired as a director of human resources and finances and was also training to be a pilot for OceanGate’s submersibles. Carl said that one of the company’s board members, former Coast Guard rear admiral John Lockwood, was brought in for oversight and “to show that we’re talking to the Coast Guard.”

She also echoed Nissen’s testimony that Rush was in complete control of the company: “There might be discussion, but in the end … all decisions were made by Stockon,” she said.

The final witness of the day was an OceanGate contractor and veteran submersible operator, Tym Catterson. Catterson is one of only two witnesses the Coast Guard has called who was among the 42 people aboard the Polar Prince, OceanGate’s support ship, that June. He was operating the floating platform used to transport, launch, and recover the Titan submersible.

The preparations for the Titan’s dive that day went smoothly, said Catterson: “The sun came out, there were no red flags, and it was one of the first times we ever launched on schedule.”

He did have positive things to say about OceanGate’s safety culture, noting that Titan’s predive checklist was longer and more thorough than those used by other submersibles. But Catterson also admitted to contributing to an “uncomfortable” incident on a previous Titan dive, where an incorrectly closed valve caused the sub to tilt, tumbling its passengers together for an hour.

Catterson was able to give only a very spotty account of events following Titan’s loss of communication. He repeatedly referred the board to OceanGate’s operations director Scott Griffith as someone who could provide a more complete account of the dive. Griffiths is not on the Coast Guard’s list of witnesses, nor are any employees of OceanGate’s operations team.

Catterson was there for the recovery of some of the Titan’s wreckage, however. He testified that the inside edge of one titanium ring was sheared off all the way around. One former OceanGate engineer believes this supports the theory that the implosion was allegedly caused by damage to the carbon fiber there, perhaps from freezing water or lifting the sub without using the correct equipment, rather than a failure of the hull from pressure alone.

The hearing continues this week and next.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 30, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 30, 2025

Last night, just before 9:00 Eastern time, an American Airlines jet originating in Wichita, Kansas, carrying 64 people and a U.S. Army helicopter carrying three military personnel collided in the airspace over Washington, D.C. Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River. Authorities say there were no survivors.

I’m going to leave that right there, with my best wishes for the victims and their friends and family, and hope that we can give them some breathing room.

It is perfectly legitimate to stop reading right here and pick the world up again tomorrow.

But for people who want to hear more about the larger picture of today’s United States, I’ll turn to what the administration’s reaction to this tragedy says about the ideology of the new Trump administration.

As Claire Moses of the New York Times noted, last night’s event is the most serious air disaster involving a commercial jet since 2009. Last night, more than an hour after news of the crash broke, President Donald Trump posted on his social media network: “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

Trump’s impulse to blame other people for the tragedy even before anything was known about its causes reflects his rejection of the concept of the American government in favor of the idea that the world is simply a collection of individuals. Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. government has performed an extensive and remarkably successful role in public safety. But Trump talks about the U.S. government—what he calls the “Deep State”—as if it is the enemy and must be destroyed, while elevating those operating outside of it as society’s true leaders.

This rejection of the U.S. government began as soon as he took office as he purged officials and civil servants with the accusation that they had been poisoned by “Marxism,” or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Transportation safety officials were among those purged, and the loss of the person at the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during former president Joe Biden’s term, Mike Whitaker, after he clashed with Elon Musk captures Trump’s antigovernment worldview. After Whitaker called for Musk’s SpaceX company to be fined $633,009 over safety and environmental violations, Musk endorsed an employee’s complaint that Whitaker required SpaceX “to consult on minor paperwork updates relating to previously approved non-safety issues that have already been determined to have zero environmental impact.” Musk wrote: “He needs to resign.”

Musk appears to believe that humans must colonize Mars in order to become a multiplanetary species as insurance against the end of life on Earth. As Jeffrey Kluger reported for Time magazine today, Musk has complained that the FAA’s environmental and safety requirements were “unreasonable and exasperating” and that they “undercut American industry’s ability to innovate.” Musk publicly complained: “The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!”

Whitaker resigned the day Trump took office. That same day, the administration froze the hiring of all federal employees, including air traffic controllers, although the U.S. Department of Transportation warned in June 2023 that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to daily operations of the airline industry were short staffed. The next day, January 21, Trump fired Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief David Pekoske, and administration officials removed all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which Congress created after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Trump administration vacated the positions with an eye to “eliminating the misuse of resources.”

Other vacant positions at the FAA, according to CNN’s Alexandra Skores, are “the deputy administrator, an associate administrator of airports, an associate administrator for security and hazardous materials safety, chief counsel, assistant administrator of communications, assistant administrator of government and industry affairs, and assistant administrator for policy, international affairs, and environment.”

Late this morning, Trump spoke to reporters about the crash, saying “We do not know what led to this crash but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we'll probably state those opinions now.” That opinion was that the people responsible for the accident were not of “superior intelligence.” He claimed that his Democratic predecessors had lowered standards for air traffic controllers (although the language he quoted from the FAA website was from his own time in office). “[W]hen I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level that nobody has ever seen, because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse."

He continued: “The FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg—a real winner,” apparently forgetting that the former transportation secretary was part of the Biden administration and left office on January 20. “Do you know how badly everything’s run since he's run the Department of Transportation? He's a disaster...he's just got a good line of bullsh*t."

Trump blamed diversity hiring for the collision. When a reporter asked Trump, “I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash,” Trump answered: “Because I have common sense, ok? And unfortunately, a lot of people don't.” Trump’s new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, whom Trump elevated to that position from his role as a weekend host at the Fox News Channel, also spoke, confirming that "We will have the best and brightest in every position possible…. The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department."

Shortly after the press conference, Sydney Ember and Emily Steel of the New York Times reported that staffing at Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., was “not normal” at the time of the crash, with one air traffic controller doing the work usually assigned to two.

In response to Trump’s comments, Buttigieg posted: “Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”

Tonight, Trump held a televised signing of a new executive order blaming former presidents Barack Obama, who left office in 2017, and Joe Biden for the crash. It says that “problematic and likely illegal decisions” during their administrations “minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).” They implemented “dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics,” it said, and recruited “individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.” The executive order says that his return to “merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion” will “ensure that all Americans fly with peace of mind.”

MeidasTouch posted: “Trump's handling of this situation should be treated as one of the biggest scandals in presidential history.”

But there is a larger story than that of Trump’s attempt to blame Democrats for a disaster that happened on his watch. His administration seems to be trying to replace the government Americans have created through their representatives over centuries to promote the interests of all Americans with a group of white men who can operate as they see best, without restraint.

Ashley Parker of The Atlantic reported last night that the Office of Management and Budget sent out the memo that froze all federal grants and loans—and thus prompted a constitutional crisis—without getting approval from the White House. Trump has nominated right-wing religious extremist Russell Vought, who was a key author of Project 2025, to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, although he has not yet been confirmed.

Emily Davies, Jeff Stein, and Faiz Siddiqui of the Washington Post reported yesterday that the proposal emailed to many of the 2.3 million people who work for the federal government offering them an inducement to resign was also a surprise to the White House. The memo came from the Office of Personnel Management, now run by Elon Musk’s team, and the email had the same title as one Musk sent to Twitter employees when he took over the company.

Rather than cowing employees, though, the unauthorized and unclear offer prompted federal employees to flood Reddit with vows to “make these goons as frustrated as possible.” One wrote, “It took me 10 years of applying and 20 years experience in my field to get here. I will not be pushed out by two billionaire trust funds babies. I'M NOT LEAVING!"

Annie Linskey and Rebecca Ballhaus of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Meta has settled a lawsuit Trump brought against the company after it suspended him because of his participation in the January 6, 2021, attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Meta will pay $25 million. The reporters explained that Trump demanded the settlement from Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg after the 2024 election, saying the case had to be dealt with before Zuckerberg could be “brought into the tent.” As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said: “It looks like a bribe and a signal to every company that corruption is the name of the game.”

It seems that Musk and the technology billionaires want to smash the government to enable their futuristic visions, and Christian Nationalists like Russell Vought want to smash it to replace it with religious rule. Trump wants to smash it for money and power. But in the first two weeks of the new administration, their enthusiasm for breaking things has produced what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo—even before today’s frantic attempt to blame Democrats for the air tragedy—called “a fairly epic face plant.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[misfitwashere]

January 30, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 31

Last night, just before 9:00 Eastern time, an American Airlines jet originating in Wichita, Kansas, carrying 64 people and a U.S. Army helicopter carrying three military personnel collided in the airspace over Washington, D.C. Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River. Authorities say there were no survivors.

I’m going to leave that right there, with my best wishes for the victims and their friends and family, and hope that we can give them some breathing room.

It is perfectly legitimate to stop reading right here and pick the world up again tomorrow.

But for people who want to hear more about the larger picture of today’s United States, I’ll turn to what the administration’s reaction to this tragedy says about the ideology of the new Trump administration.

As Claire Moses of the New York Times noted, last night’s event is the most serious air disaster involving a commercial jet since 2009. Last night, more than an hour after news of the crash broke, President Donald Trump posted on his social media network: “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

Trump’s impulse to blame other people for the tragedy even before anything was known about its causes reflects his rejection of the concept of the American government in favor of the idea that the world is simply a collection of individuals. Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. government has performed an extensive and remarkably successful role in public safety. But Trump talks about the U.S. government—what he calls the “Deep State”—as if it is the enemy and must be destroyed, while elevating those operating outside of it as society’s true leaders.

This rejection of the U.S. government began as soon as he took office as he purged officials and civil servants with the accusation that they had been poisoned by “Marxism,” or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Transportation safety officials were among those purged, and the loss of the person at the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during former president Joe Biden’s term, Mike Whitaker, after he clashed with Elon Musk captures Trump’s antigovernment worldview. After Whitaker called for Musk’s SpaceX company to be fined $633,009 over safety and environmental violations, Musk endorsed an employee’s complaint that Whitaker required SpaceX “to consult on minor paperwork updates relating to previously approved non-safety issues that have already been determined to have zero environmental impact.” Musk wrote: “He needs to resign.”

Musk appears to believe that humans must colonize Mars in order to become a multiplanetary species as insurance against the end of life on Earth. As Jeffrey Kluger reported for Time magazine today, Musk has complained that the FAA’s environmental and safety requirements were “unreasonable and exasperating” and that they “undercut American industry’s ability to innovate.” Musk publicly complained: “The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!”

Whitaker resigned the day Trump took office. That same day, the administration froze the hiring of all federal employees, including air traffic controllers, although the U.S. Department of Transportation warned in June 2023 that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to daily operations of the airline industry were short staffed. The next day, January 21, Trump fired Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief David Pekoske, and administration officials removed all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which Congress created after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Trump administration vacated the positions with an eye to “eliminating the misuse of resources.”

Other vacant positions at the FAA, according to CNN’s Alexandra Skores, are “the deputy administrator, an associate administrator of airports, an associate administrator for security and hazardous materials safety, chief counsel, assistant administrator of communications, assistant administrator of government and industry affairs, and assistant administrator for policy, international affairs, and environment.”

Late this morning, Trump spoke to reporters about the crash, saying “We do not know what led to this crash but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we'll probably state those opinions now.” That opinion was that the people responsible for the accident were not of “superior intelligence.” He claimed that his Democratic predecessors had lowered standards for air traffic controllers (although the language he quoted from the FAA website was from his own time in office). “[W]hen I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level that nobody has ever seen, because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse."

He continued: “The FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg—a real winner,” apparently forgetting that the former transportation secretary was part of the Biden administration and left office on January 20. “Do you know how badly everything’s run since he's run the Department of Transportation? He's a disaster...he's just got a good line of bullsh*t."

Trump blamed diversity hiring for the collision. When a reporter asked Trump, “I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash,” Trump answered: “Because I have common sense, ok? And unfortunately, a lot of people don't.” Trump’s new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, whom Trump elevated to that position from his role as a weekend host at the Fox News Channel, also spoke, confirming that "We will have the best and brightest in every position possible…. The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department."

Shortly after the press conference, Sydney Ember and Emily Steel of the New York Times reported that staffing at Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., was “not normal” at the time of the crash, with one air traffic controller doing the work usually assigned to two.

In response to Trump’s comments, Buttigieg posted: “Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”

Tonight, Trump held a televised signing of a new executive order blaming former presidents Barack Obama, who left office in 2017, and Joe Biden for the crash. It says that “problematic and likely illegal decisions” during their administrations “minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).” They implemented “dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics,” it said, and recruited “individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.” The executive order says that his return to “merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion” will “ensure that all Americans fly with peace of mind.”

MeidasTouch posted: “Trump's handling of this situation should be treated as one of the biggest scandals in presidential history.”

But there is a larger story than that of Trump’s attempt to blame Democrats for a disaster that happened on his watch. His administration seems to be trying to replace the government Americans have created through their representatives over centuries to promote the interests of all Americans with a group of white men who can operate as they see best, without restraint.

Ashley Parker of The Atlantic reported last night that the Office of Management and Budget sent out the memo that froze all federal grants and loans—and thus prompted a constitutional crisis—without getting approval from the White House. Trump has nominated right-wing religious extremist Russell Vought, who was a key author of Project 2025, to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, although he has not yet been confirmed.

Emily Davies, Jeff Stein, and Faiz Siddiqui of the Washington Post reported yesterday that the proposal emailed to many of the 2.3 million people who work for the federal government offering them an inducement to resign was also a surprise to the White House. The memo came from the Office of Personnel Management, now run by Elon Musk’s team, and the email had the same title as one Musk sent to Twitter employees when he took over the company.

Rather than cowing employees, though, the unauthorized and unclear offer prompted federal employees to flood Reddit with vows to “make these goons as frustrated as possible.” One wrote, “It took me 10 years of applying and 20 years experience in my field to get here. I will not be pushed out by two billionaire trust funds babies. I'M NOT LEAVING!"

Annie Linskey and Rebecca Ballhaus of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Meta has settled a lawsuit Trump brought against the company after it suspended him because of his participation in the January 6, 2021, attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Meta will pay $25 million. The reporters explained that Trump demanded the settlement from Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg after the 2024 election, saying the case had to be dealt with before Zuckerberg could be “brought into the tent.” As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said: “It looks like a bribe and a signal to every company that corruption is the name of the game.”

It seems that Musk and the technology billionaires want to smash the government to enable their futuristic visions, and Christian Nationalists like Russell Vought want to smash it to replace it with religious rule. Trump wants to smash it for money and power. But in the first two weeks of the new administration, their enthusiasm for breaking things has produced what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo—even before today’s frantic attempt to blame Democrats for the air tragedy—called “a fairly epic face plant.”

—

[nocternalrandomness]

Arizona Department of Public Safety Bell 429 seen departing Tucson International Airport

[bekolxeram]

I heard that there've been alleged drone sightings near airports and military sites in the US. While authorities have proclaimed that there's currently no apparent threat to public safety, none of that stopped misinformation from spread online like wildfire. Some say it's China/Russia, some say it's alien, some even take matters into their own hand.

Those trails of smoke, my friend, are called chem contrails. They're basically lines of clouds created by particles emitted by the exhaust of aircraft engines. The particles act as cloud seeds (nuclei) for water droplets to condense around. You see 2 trails here in the video, but if you're looking at 4 engine aircraft, like the A380 on my blog header, you'll see 4 trails. Thus, the mysterious "drone" our friends here are looking at (and pointing a high power laser at), is most likely a commercial jet airliner at cruising altitude.

And then, you have mainstream media outlet reporting this:

We know it's not aliens, because since when do aliens fly with the exact navigation lights configuration as per FAA regulations?

And since when do drones have not only a tail rotor, but an Airbus trademark Fenestron style tail rotor?

The "drone" in question, is actually a Guimbal Cabri G2 light helicopter. You can compare the positions of the red light on top of the tail and the green light on the right side of the fuselage in these 2 photos.

Apparently it's gotten so bad that the FBI had to release a statement urging citizens not to point lasers at or even attempt to shoot down "suspected drones".

I'm just saying, it'd be interesting terrible if some dumb people decide to mess with Tommy's helicopter while he's working...

You know, in case you're still trying to crash that helicopter.

[hkthatgffan]

// hey you mentioned you were on the same flight path/plane as the dc crash a while back right?

Ok. Well i was thinking about that again because on elon's twitter, there's his tweet on the 9th of January about needing a plane crash to get dei changes to roll out.

I'm glad you went on the plane when you did, because this seems like an intentional thing caused by trump and his cabinet to hit that plane of unsuspecting pilot and passengers with how fast he went to blame minorities and the poor people on the airline.

You have a big role in this fandom, I'm glad you are ok, and i'm so happy that you are here with us, because if you went any later- :'D then idk man.

((This is ment to be a private ask, you don't need to post this. But if you need a link to elon's tweet, and why i think they intentionally crashed into these people to create dei panic please let me know. It made my blood boil when it resurfaced.))

Hey. Well, given you submitted this anonymously, I can't really reply in private to it but I do appreciate the thoughts for my safety. It is scary to think about how close to the path of death I kinda walked.

I mean, I think overall I was okay for various reasons alongside me going in December to DC, landing and leaving there in the day time with better visibility and more. DC always had been a dream destination for me cause of my love of aviation to wanna see the Smithsonian so I'm glad I got to do that. I got to see aircraft I dreamed about as a kid from the Blackbird, Concorde, Dash 80, the Wright Flyer and of course, Discovery. What a beautiful machine she is! Of course, dream fulfilled...I got no plans to visit the US now until that orange idiot is out of office.

Even so, it rattled me quite a lot given PSA is the same airline I flew to DC on and the CRJ that crashed, while a smaller model to the one I flew on, is still the same type of plane. So, it's creepy to realize I flew on an airline that only a month later would be involved in such a horrific tragedy. There's so many regional airlines that fly to Reagan and so, for the crash to happen with an airline I flew myself so recently, at an airport I visited and loved tbh given it's an amazing airport, really shocked me more than any other plane crash lately has.

It really has made me a lot more aware of how short life is than I already have been feeling as of late with all going on in the world. At the end of the day, we all are just a pile of living cells that share the same fate. It doesn't matter who you are, we all will die. But sadly for some that day came a lot sooner than later.

Don't know much about the theories on the crash and such so I can't really comment on that. But I did hear a bit regarding it. On one hand, IDK if anyone out there would be insane enough to sign off on a thing like that to happen...but then...this also the US government and I'm not blind to the shit they've done. There's a reason so many countries hate the US...and not just us Canadians rn for the tariff crap. Miracle tbh to find a country that DOESN'T have some anger towards America. I keep a Canadian flag on my bags for a reason even though I don't look American (thankfully).

It's not out of the playbook for the US to do something as horrific as that. But I guess unless enough concrete evidence and public outcry materializes, it'll be just a conspiracy theory that's been floated around and will continue to. Either way though, innocent people died who should not have and the cause needs to be known and changes done so that it never happens again. There's an old saying that every safety regulation is written in the blood of those who died to make it.

On the aviation aspect of things though, regardless of how or what, it has been a dark week for the industry but it is also important to remember, regardless of crashes, flying is still the safest form of travel. You are statistically more likely to die driving to the airport than on an airplane itself.

Aviation is a marvel of human achievement and our greatest invention IMO. It's an industry worth fighting for to ensure it remains safe and not corrupted by evil and hateful sentiment by those who would rather plunge it into chaos to win a few political points among racists, than give the public peace of mind the next time they board a flight.

Rest in peace those innocent souls.

[whencyclopedia]

Life in an Air Raid Shelter in the London Blitz

Crowded and uncomfortable air raid shelters became a feature of the urban landscape across Britain during the Second World War (1939-45) as the bombers of Nazi Germany systematically hit cities from 1940. The London Blitz was a particularly sustained period of bombing which civilians escaped from by diving into private or public shelters when the sirens whined their warning signal.

People sought refuge in the London Underground stations, in purpose-built community shelters, in their cellars, under the stairs, or in refuges in their gardens such as the Anderson shelter. The danger was real, prior to the autumn of 1942, more British civilians were killed in the war than British military personnel.

The Bombing of Britain

Civilians had a lot to put up with even before the bombing started. The blackout was imposed where no non-essential lights were to show at night and so help enemy bombers. There was a real fear that gas bombs would be used, and so everyone was encouraged to carry gas masks. The Phoney War, the period of relative military inactivity in Britain between September 1939 and the spring of 1940, brought a sense of false security, but the German Luftwaffe (air force) would arrive soon enough.

Hundreds of thousands of children were evacuated from cities, including the capital where one million children were shipped out. Youngsters were sent to the safety of the countryside, but the separation from parents and a familiar environment proved traumatic for many. As the historian J. Hale points out: "By January 1940 about half of all children and nine out of ten mothers had returned to their old homes" (27). Despite this, when the bombing started, the official policy of evacuation was continued.

Bombers of the Luftwaffe and the Italian Air Force dropped both explosive and incendiary bombs, the first type to smash through buildings and the second to set the ruins alight. Britain had an integrated air defensive system, the Dowding System, which monitored incoming aircraft and sent out fighters to intercept like the Supermarine Spitfire, but many bombers got through to deliver their deadly loads. In the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe aimed to destroy the Royal Air Force (RAF), both in the air and on the ground, while a secondary aim was to terrorize the civilian population. As the Luftwaffe began to lose the battle, so it concentrated more on civilian targets. Most raids were carried out at night since darkness was the best protection for the German bombers against fighters and anti-aircraft guns. The bombers were guided by radar to their targets, but bombing remained highly inaccurate so that even when strategic sites like factories were the target, there was usually great damage to civilian areas.

London was first bombed on 24 August 1940. The bombers were to attack an oil terminal but mistakenly hit the city, thus beginning a tit-for-tat bombing of civilian areas that escalated to unimaginable horrors like the total bombing of Coventry and Hamburg (Operation Gomorrah). The systematic bombing of London began on 7 September 1940 and continued until the middle of May 1941. The British press called this campaign "the Blitz". The East End of the city, where the docks were located, was a particular target. Other cities across Britain were also repeatedly hit. For civilians, not knowing where the bombers would hit next, air raid shelters became essential everywhere.

Continue reading...

[girlactionfigure]

⚠️THAI WARNING, KILLED BY ROCKETS - Real time from Israel  

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

⚠️The Nat. Sec. HQ calls on the Israeli public staying in Thailand to increase vigilance :

1. Avoid going to events with many participants that are identified with Israel, with an emphasis on those that are announced in advance or places of entertainment and gatherings that are identified with Israel.

2. Inform the local security forces if you are exposed to hostile activity targeted against Israelis/Jews.

3. Don’t publicly wear Israeli/Jewish symbols.

4. Avoid updating location details and travel plans on social networks.

These guidelines are valid for the entire country of Thailand.

▪️DEF. MIN. SAYS.. “There will be no ceasefire in Lebanon. We will continue striking Hezbollah until they are disarmed beyond the Litani River and the safety of northern residents (of Israel) is ensured.”

▪️MORE CREDIT CARD - CYBER ATTACK PROBLEMS.. Difficulties in credit payments with some providers due to a cyber attack on international Bezeq servers this afternoon.

▪️REGARDING THE NETANYAHU TRIAL.. The prosecutor's office OPPOSES Netanyahu's request to postpone his testimony due to lack of time to prepare BECAUSE OF WAR.

🔪TERROR - ATTEMPTED STABBING - near Dayr Sharaf.. terrorist shot, no injuries to IDF troops.

🔪TERROR - WELL POISONING.. Arab rioters from the village of Deir Davan today poisoned another water well in the pastures of Givat Or Meir, which is used for watering the hill's flock of sheep in Samaria, many goats poisoned.  No arrests.

💩IRAN SAYS.. spox of the Iranian govt Fatma Mahajrani: "Donald Trump must avoid any wrong choices that could violate the rights of the Iranian people."

♦️LEBANON - after warnings, IDF airstrikes on Beirut mid day.

♦️IDF - “we have destroyed 20 years of Hezbollah weapons production sites and warehouses in the heart of the Da'ahiya district, including a complex under five residential buildings containing about 50 families and located about 85 meters from a school.”

♦️LEBANON - A wave of Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon and reports of many terrorist being killed, per enemy reports.

♦️IRAN SHOT DOWN.. their own: Last week there was a news item about an Iranian fighter plane of the Phantom type that "crashed".  It did not crash, it was shot down by Iranian air defense in an area about 20 km from one of Iran's strategic facilities in Kermanasha. Oopsie.

❌ROCKET HIT - NAHARIYA market - from HEZBOLLAH - 2 killed.

⭕ROCKET HIT - KABARI - from HEZBOLLAH - 2 injured, shrapnel.

⭕ONGOING ROCKET and SUICIDE DRONE alerts across the north from HEZBOLLAH, with particular volumes across Nahariya, Acre, the Krayot, and Haifa, as well as Safed and the Golan and Upper Galilee towns.

⭕LONG RANGE ROCKETS at the Tel Aviv and wide surrounding areas from HEZBOLLAH, intercepted.

⭕HOUTHIS CLAIM.. “carried out two high-quality military operations, attacked two American destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones, and attacked the American aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln with drones.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

George Joseph and Joanna Walters at The Guardian:

After Wednesday’s fatal crash which took down a commercial jet and a military helicopter on a training flight at Washington DC’s Reagan National airport, public officials and aviation experts are resurfacing concerns about how uniquely congested the airspace is around the country’s capital. As of Thursday night, authorities have said all 64 people on the American Airlines flight were presumed dead as well as three more on the army helicopter, making the incident the deadliest US air tragedy since 2001. On Thursday, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate armed services committee, Daniel Driscoll, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the army, questioned why military helicopters need to conduct training exercises near such a busy commercial airport. Driscoll told lawmakers that the incident seemed “preventable” and vowed to review army practices. “There are appropriate times to take risk and inappropriate times to take risk,” he noted. “I think we need to look at where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be at an airport like Reagan.” The US military has provided little information on its helicopter training activities near the capital and did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Martin Chalk, a former British Airways captain who retired in 2020, posited that military pilots might need to train in this particular area to prepare for transporting senior political and military figures to and from the area, which is close to the Pentagon as well as the White House, Capitol Hill and other buildings at the heart of the federal government. [...] No one answered his question, he told the Guardian on Thursday. “We lost more than 60 people, and two aircraft, and we shut down a major airport, and it was completely avoidable,” he said. “There’s so many places they could have been doing training. Why did they have to do it at the end of the runways of DCA?” Johnson continued, referring to the airport code of Reagan National airport. Federal lawmakers from Virginia and Maryland have also issued warnings about the excessive number of aircraft flying near each other over the country’s capital. [...] Lawmakers and citizens have previously raised concerns about the crowded skies over the greater Washington DC area, however. Last year, Bill Johnson, a commercially-certified pilot and a retired US army explosives expert, saw more than 20 UH-60 army helicopters fly over his house in one hour as he was working outside in his vegetable garden in Annandale, a residential community in Virginia’s Washington DC suburbs.

Prior to the deadly crash in the Potomac on Wednesday night, there have been warnings about airspace congestion in the DC skies.

See Also:

HuffPost: DC Airport Had Been Plagued By Safety Concerns Ahead Of Deadly Crash