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72 Shot, 12 Killed in Chicago Over Weekend, Yet Media Obsesses on a Plane Crash Where 2 Die

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Photo Credit: Irish CentralSan Francisco International Airport was ground zero for national media attention as it focused on a jet crash which claimed the lives of two passengers.

Although the crash was spectacular and captivated our attention….The very fact only 2 people lost their lives in the fiery mishap should have been enough to realize many other weighty events were happening around the country.

Miracles happened that morning that prevented a far larger loss of life and averted tragedy of mass proportions….

Yet 2,000 miles away, far more Americans were losing their lives in horrendous violence plaguing one of our largest cities.

The miracles in San Francisco that prevented far more death, were absent on the mean streets of Chicago…and there are no breathless, glamorized national talking heads reporting on it.

Out of the headlines and buried on the back pages is the fact that over the 4th of July holiday, 72 American citizens were shot and 12 of them were killed in one violent city in America: Chicago, which is starting to be renamed “Chiraq” due to the violence. See video.

President Obama said if only one child’s life was saved due to his proposed gun control mandates, then his efforts would be worth it. But his hometown of Chicago is the poster child for strict gun control and has the same or worse statistics for violence as a war torn 3rdworld country.

Chicago: The most difficult city in the US for a law abiding citizen to legally own a firearm. Yet criminals rule the streets having gunfights while innocent bystanders get shot in the crossfire.

Chicago: Under one party rule for decades and the epicenter of gun violence. Gun crime so horrendous it skews the nation’s violence statistics.

Yes the crash of the jet in San Francisco was a tragedy, but in the whole scheme of things, it was an extremely rare occurrence and the loss of life miniscule in comparison to the daily violent meat grinder of violence that the citizens of Chicago must suffer with.

It is time for the media to turn its priorities to what is at the core of this violence in one of our biggest cities. Because taking away guns from law abiding American citizens is not the solution.

Chicago was awash in illegal money and violence after the government declared a war on alcohol during the Prohibition era …..Perhaps it is time to examine who profits from the governments “war on drugs” and who/what is behind that violence.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

San Francisco 777 Crash: Why Did Evacuating Passengers Grab Bags Before Children?

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Photo Credit: GettyWhen seconds can mean the difference between life and death in escaping an aircraft accident, it was startling to see so many photographs from the crash of Asiana Flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport of people carrying out bags, including roll aboards that must have come out of the overhead luggage bins. At least one man interviewed in the New York Times indicated that he grabbed his bags and then his child. In that order. All I can say is that it was very fortunate that the fire was slow to spread.

While aircraft manufacturers like Boeing BA +0.16% have done much in the last couple of decades to improve survivability in aircraft accidents by including materials that are fire-retardant, the fact remains that accidents such as this one often result in ruptured fuel lines or fuel tanks. Once aviation fuel spills, the chances are great that it will come in contact with a hot surface like an engine and ignite. Or the fuel could ignite for other reasons, including sparks caused by the fuselage skidding along the tarmac.

Read more from this story HERE.

UPDATE: Asiana Boeing 777 Crash Caught on Film, One Victim May Have Been Run Over (+video)

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Photo Credit: Carlos Avila GonzalezOfficial: SF plane crash victim may have been run over

By Jaxon Van Derbeken. An autopsy was being conducted Sunday to determine whether one of the two teenaged passengers killed on the Asiana Airlines flight had been run over by a San Francisco fire rig at the crash scene.

The 16-year-old girl was found near the evacuation slide near the left wing of Asiana Flight 214 which crashed Saturday during a landing at San Francisco International Airport. The girl was not identified.

San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said Sunday her injuries are consistent with her having been run over.

“As it possibly could have happened, based on the injuries sustained, it could have been one of our vehicles that added to the injuries, or another vehicle,” Hayes-White said. “That could have been something that happened in the chaos. It will be part of our investigation.”

Hayes-White said that a runway video recording of the first seconds of the crash could help unravel what occurred. “Part of it was pretty good vantage point,” she said. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APCrash Survivor: Flight attendants ‘fell out’ of the back of the plane

By Madeleine Morgenstern. A survivor of the Asiana Airlines plane crash at San Francisco International Airport said flight attendants “fell out” of the back of the plane after the tail section broke off.

“Right when it appeared to coast for the landing,…(he) sped up, like the pilot knew he was short,” Elliott Stone told CNN, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency. “And then the back end just hit, and flies up in the air, and everybody’s head goes up to the ceiling. And then it just kind of drifts for a little bit, for a good 300 yards and then tips over. Fire starts.”

Two passengers identified as teen girls from China were found outside the wreckage and confirmed dead, and 182 people were transported to area hospitals, 49 with critical injuries. The flight had been carrying 307 people.

Stone said he was able to evacuate safely because he was seated in the middle of the Boeing 777, but the flight attendants seated in the back “got hammered, because we landed short.”

“And then they all fell out – and it was just the most terrible thing I’ve seen,” he said. Read more from this story HERE.

Early Indicators Suggest Pilot Error Factor in Fatal Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 Crash (+videos)

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Seconds before Boeing 777 crash, passengers knew they were too low

By Holly Yan and Greg Botelho. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was seconds away from landing when the passengers sensed something horribly amiss.

The plane was approaching San Francisco International Airport under a beautifully clear sky, but it was flying low. Dangerously low.

Benjamin Levy looked out the window from seat 30K and could see the water of the San Francisco Bay about 10 feet below.

“I don’t see any runway, I just see water,” Levy recalled.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Fatal crash-landing not mechanical error – airline

By ONE News/ Reuters. Asiana Airlines does not believe the fatal crash of one of its Boeing 777 planes in San Francisco was caused by mechanical failure, although it refused to be drawn on whether the fault lay with pilot error.

Two people were killed and more than 70 injured when the Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport.

“For now, we acknowledge that there were no problems caused by the 777-200 plane or (its) engines,” Yoon Young-doo, the president and CEO of the airline, told a media conference on Sunday at the company headquarters.

Asiana said the two people who died in the crash were female Chinese teenagers who had been seated at the back of the aircraft. Read more from this story HERE.

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Boeing 777 Records First Fatalities in Its 18 Year History

By Gillian Mohney. The Boeing 777, considered one of safest aircrafts in the sky, recorded the first fatalities since it was launched 18 years ago when the Asiana Airlines crashed at San Francisco Airport today.

“The triple-7 is one of the safest airplanes in use, it’s been a marvelous bird,” ABC News’ aviation analyst John Nance told ABC News Radio. “These airplanes are over the water, over the ocean all the time and Asiana has been running them many years very successfully.”

On Saturday an Asiana Airlines flight crash landed at San Francisco International Airport, catching fire, tearing off its tail and injuring at least 40.

The Boeing 777 — called the “Triple 7” within the industry — began flying in 1995. According to Boeing, the first Boeing 777 plane is still in service and has accumulated 5 million flights and accumulated more than 18 million flight hours. The plane that crashed today was seven years old. Read more from this story HERE.

Indian Airline Recruits ‘Slim’ Women to Save Fuel

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

An Indian airline has hit on possibly the worthiest excuse yet for hiring slim women as cabin crew — it saves fuel and therefore money.

While some airlines admit to hiring women for their sex appeal, budget carrier GoAir has told The Times of India it will be hiring predominantly female flight attendants in future because they are 15-20 kilos lighter on average than men.

The airline estimates each extra kilo on board costs Rs3 ($0.05) per flying hour, and the new policy will save it up to $500,000 annually.

A spokesman for the airline denied to CNN that it had implemented a gender-biased recruitment policy. But he confirmed that the airline’s male-female cabin crew ratio of 40:60 was among the most male-heavy in the industry in India.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Gives Saudi Airlines ‘Unrestricted’ Access to American Skies

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Photo Credit: CNS News

The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed an Open Skies agreement that will “permit unrestricted air service by the airlines of both countries between and beyond the other’s territory.”

The agreement means Saudi airlines may fly from any point in the kingdom to any point in the United States, and that U.S. airlines may fly from any point here to any airport in Saudi Arabia.

The deal was signed May 28 in Jeddah by U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James B. Smith and Dr. Faisal bin Hamad Al-Sugair, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Director of the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

In addition to permitting each nations’ airlines to provide unrestricted air service to any point in the other country, the agreement also eliminates restrictions on how often the carriers can fly, the kind of aircraft they can use and the prices they charge.

Read more from this story HERE.

DHS Questioned Over Decision To Let Saudi Passengers Skip Normal Passport Controls

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Photo Credit: Yorick_R

A Department of Homeland Security program intended to give “trusted traveler” status to low-risk airline passengers soon will be extended to Saudi travelers, opening the program to criticism for accommodating the country that produced 15 of the 19 hijackers behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Sources voiced concern about the decision to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which issued a report Wednesday on the under-the-radar announcement — which was first made by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano after meeting in January with her Saudi counterpart. According to the IPT, this would be the first time the Saudi government has been given such a direct role in fast-tracking people for entry into the United States.

“I think you have radical Wahhabism in certain elements in Saudi Arabia, and I think to be more lenient there than in other places would be a mistake,” Rep. Frank Wolf told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. “There were 15 [hijackers] from that country, and there is a lot taking place in that region.”

Only an exclusive handful of countries enjoy inclusion in the Global Entry program — Canada, Mexico, South Korea and the Netherlands. According to the IPT, some officials are questioning why Saudi Arabia gets to reap the benefits of the program, when key U.S. allies like Germany and France are not enrolled; Israel has reached a deal with the U.S., but that partnership has not yet been implemented.

Any Saudi travelers cleared through the program will be able to bypass the normal customs line after providing passports and fingerprints. The status lasts for five years.

Read more from this story HERE.

TSA Misses Hatchet, Grenade, Knives & Body Bags on Passenger Bound for US

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Yongda Huang Harris arrived at LAX wearing a bulletproof vest and flame-resistant pants, having checked in a suitcase full of weapons.

The 28-year-old was on a stopover on a trip from Japan en route to Boston, and had an array of suspicious items in his luggage.

They included a smoke grenade, knives, body bags, a hatchet, a collapsible baton, a biohazard suit, a gas mask, billy clubs, handcuffs, leg irons and a device to repel dogs.

The alarm was raised when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers noticed he was wearing a bulletproof vest under his trench coat, along with flame-retardant pants and knee pads.

But no such red flags had been waved when Harris boarded in Japan.

Read more from this story HERE.