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Russia: Wing Falls off New Antonov, Crash Kills 6
What: Voronezh Aircraft Joint Stock Company (VASO) Antonov 148-100E on the border between the Voronezh and Belgorod regions.
Where: Garbuzovo, Belgorod Region (Russia)
When: Mar 05, 2011
Who: 6 fatalities
Why: The new Antonov-148, being developed in the Ukraine in cooperation with 14 countries, and was sold by the Voronezh Aircraft Factory to the Myanmar Air Force and is designed to carry 79 to 99 passengers. Hundreds of technical problems have been recorded, but the plane is still in its testing phase. On a test flight to Myanmar, witnesses saw a wing and the tail fall off the plane while it was still in the air over a school and kindergarten. The crew managed to avoid the school, and the plane crashed and burned in a field.Two pilots from Myanmar died at the crash. Those killed included Yuri Zubritsky, First Class Test Pilot, Captain; First Class Test Flight Navigator Vladimir Yasko; Test Engineer Alexander Korolyov; Lead Flight Test Engineer Anatoly Samoshkin and two Republic of the Union of Myanmar pilots Htein-Lin-Aung and Zaw-Htun-Aung. The flight recorders have been recovered.
Five engines and 13 firefighters responded.
The plane’s contractor was JSC Voronezh Aircraft Manufacturing Company. (VASO). The plane had flown 31 flights.
Military Jets Escort Hawaii-Bound American Airlines Plane
A Hawaii-bound American Airlines plane was escorted by two fighter jets on May 19th.American Airlines flight 31 was heading from Los Angeles, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, when a passenger tried to break into the cockpit. The crew reported the disturbance, which prompted the Pacific Command to dispatch a pair of fighter jets for escort.
The passenger, identified as Turkish national Anil Uskanil, 25, was restrained and subdued before the plane landed in Honolulu.
“The aircraft is currently on the ground, and the individual who disrupted the flight has been detained,” the Department of Homeland Security said.
Billionaire Lost in French Helicopter Crash
Chinese billionaire Lam Kok purchased a French vineyard, and boarded a helicopter with three others, including his son, the former owner who was flying the helicopter, and a translator, to take an aerial tour of the 65-hectare (160-acre) vineyards and surrounding grounds. Lam Kok’s and James Gregoire’s wives had declined to fly. Twenty minutes after the flight took off, the helicopter went missing.
The helicopter, flown by James Gregoire, former owner of the vineyard, was missing but a witness came forward and told a mounted policeman that the helicopter had been seen falling into the Dordogne river, and people had been seen struggling in the water.
Emergency helicopters, divers and a hundred foot officers converged on the scene, and were deployed to search. After dark, a helicopter with a searchlight joined the searchers.
Lam Kok, new owner of the vineyard Château de la Riviere was head of the Hong Kong-based Brilliant group which plans to develop a tea and wine tasting center and hotel in Bordeaux.
One of the bodies was recovered around midnight. Rumors are that the body is of Lam Kok’s twelve year old son. The search was halted overnight, but resumed on the morning of the twenty-first. The search has been hampered by strong currents in the river.
Ironically, John Leprince, a former owner of the vineyard, died in a plane crash in 2002, not far from the crash site in the Dordogne. Combined with this crash, this means the last three owners of the vineyard were lost in aviation accidents.