World/Nation Briefs July 8, 2013
Rescue vehicle may have hit crash victim
SAN FRANCISCO - Pilots of Asiana Flight 214 were flying too slowly as they approached San Francisco airport, triggering a cockpit warning that the jetliner could stall, and they tried to abort the landing but crashed barely a second later, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday.
While federal investigators began piecing together what led to the crash, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault disclosed that he was looking into the possibility that one of the two teenage passengers who died Saturday actually survived the crash but was run over by a rescue vehicle rushing to aid victims as the plane burst into flames. Remarkably, 305 of 307 passengers survived the crash and more than a third didn't even require hospitalization. Only a small number were critically injured.
Accident investigators are trying to determine whether pilot error, mechanical problems or something else was to blame for the crash.
40 still missing in deadly Canada train derailment
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec - About 40 people were still missing a day after a runaway train derailed in Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a busy downtown district and killed five people. Police said a higher death toll was inevitable, and authorities feared the number might soar once they're able to reach the hardest-hit areas. Worries remained over the status of two oil-filled train cars.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper compared the area to a war zone and said about 30 buildings were incinerated. Quebec provincial police Sgt. Benot Richard said only a small part of the devastated area had been searched Sunday, more than a day since the accident, because firefighters were making sure all fires were out.
The train's 72 oil-filled tanker cars somehow came loose early Saturday morning, sped downhill nearly seven miles into the town, derailed and began exploding one by one. At least five exploded.
Procession of 19 fallen firefighters arrives home
PRESCOTT, Ariz. - Nineteen firefighters killed in a wildfire a week ago went home for the last time on Sunday, their bodies traveling in individual white hearses in a somber caravan for 125 miles through Arizona cities and towns.
The nearly five-hour-long procession began near the state Capitol in Phoenix, went through the town where the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed and ended in the mountain community of Prescott, where they lived and will be laid to rest this week.
Thousands of people from across the state and beyond stood patiently in triple-digit temperatures in Phoenix, lined highways and overpasses along the route, and flooded the roads of downtown Prescott to pay their respect to the 19, whose deaths are the greatest loss of life for firefighters since 9/11.
They included fellow firefighters, the men's family members, complete strangers and residents of Yarnell, the small town they died trying to save.
Wife of Secretary of State Kerry hospitalized
BOSTON - Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and heir to a ketchup company fortune, was hospitalized in critical condition Sunday while on Massachusetts' Nantucket Island.
Heinz Kerry was flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Sunday night after doctors at Nantucket Cottage Hospital stabilized her, a spokesman for Kerry said. The secretary of state was with his 74-year-old wife as an ambulance first transported her to the island hospital, and also during her transfer to the Boston facility.
A spokesman for the Nantucket hospital said Heinz Kerry arrived in critical condition, although doctors were able to stabilize her. But neither the family nor hospital officials had released any more details about her medical emergency or her condition Sunday night.
NTSB: Ten killed in Alaska plane crash
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - An air taxi crashed Sunday at a small Alaska airport, killing all 10 people on board and leaving the aircraft fully engulfed in flames before firefighters could get to it, authorities said.
The de Havilland DHC3 Otter air taxi crashed just after 11 a.m. at the airport in Soldotna, a community about 75 miles southwest of Anchorage and located on the Kenai Peninsula.
"We do have 10 fatalities, unfortunately, nine passengers, one pilot," National Transportation Safety Board investigator Clint Johnson told The Associated Press.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the Otter was operated by Rediske Air, based out of another Kenai Peninsula community, Nikiski.
Will Satathite, who was working Sunday at Rediske Air's Nikiski office, confirmed to the Peninsula Clarion newspaper that the aircraft was flown by Nikiski pilot and company owner Willy Rediske with nine passengers onboard.
A man who didn't identify himself at the Rediske office declined comment later Sunday to the AP, saying the crash was under investigation.
Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Meagan Peters said the aircraft erupted in flames and the fire initially kept firefighters from reaching the wreckage. The victims have not been identified.
- Associated Press