Free Republic

BEIJING -- Stolen passports carried by two Iranian men to board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were used last year by two people applying for visas to work as entertainers in China, according to the head of an entertainment company. Xie Zhuoling, the head of a firm that recruits foreign performers for nightclubs and hotels, said that employment contracts had been signed in June for Christian Kozel, an Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi, an Italian, to work as dancers in Ningxia, northern China. :snip: When investigators announced last week they were looking into two passengers of the missing plane with stolen...

As a cyber security professional, I spend much of my time thinking about how to defeat systems in order prevent others from doing the same. And several years ago, my team performed vulnerability assessments on air traffic control systems for the FAA. But I am no aviator. So to speculate on what may have become of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, I engaged in conversation with a commercial pilot who flies for a major American airline. Between the two of us, we arrived at some theories on the mystery surrounding the missing plane.

Investigators have said someone on board the plane first disabled one of its communications systems — the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS — about 40 minutes after takeoff. Around 14 minutes later, the transponder that identifies the plane to commercial radar systems was also shut down. The fact that both systems went dark separately offered strong evidence that the plane's disappearance was deliberate. On Sunday, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at a news conference that that the final, reassuring words from the cockpit — "All right, good night" — were spoken to air traffic controllers...

Immediately following the bloody Islamic terrorist train bombings of 2004 in Madrid, Spain, rock troubadour Willie Nile wrote and recorded a stirring, anguished, martial-sounding song titled Cell Phones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead. His inspiration for the song came when he saw a newspaper headline with the same wording, the article being about the grim and grisly aftermath of the Madrid bombings. In an interview, Nile described reading the article: ‘…I’m reading the paper, and one of the headlines was “Cell Phones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead.” And I went, “That’s not what I think it...

Whenever a plane goes down, experienced air craft investigators look at the general circumstances and mentally draw up a list of the most likely causes — not to leap to conclusions, but to prioritize lines of enquiry and organize competing hypotheses. As information comes in, it should be possible to eliminate those hypotheses one by one until at last a full understanding of the circumstances remains. The goal is to make sure that the problem will never again bring down an airliner. This philosophy works: Year by year, fewer commercial airliners are lost to accidents. The downside is that, as...

New Evidence Suggests That Plane Disappearance Was A Deliberate Act Paul SzoldraMarch 13, 2014      Two U.S. officials believe the shutdown of two separate communications systems from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 happened at different times, indicating the disappearance was less likely the result of a catastrophic failure and more the result of a "deliberate act," according to a new report from ABC News. Sources speaking with ABC believe the data reporting system was shut down at 1:07 a.m., while the transponder — sending out location and altitude data — was shut down at 1:21...

At 5:00pm Pacific Time, Ethiopian Flight 702, a Boeing 767-300 was flying over Sudan when it started squawking 7500. The transponder code, is supposed to indicate a “hijacking.” (snip) The flight, operating from Addis Abba to Rome has been confirmed by Rome Airport not to have arrived yet. As of now, it is over France, but has recently taken a steep northeast heading. Based on flight tracking, it appears the plane is headed to Geneva. Emergency crews are standing by.

Geneva — No Swiss fighter jets were scrambled Monday when an Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot hijacked his own plane and forced it to land in Geneva, because it happened outside business hours, the Swiss airforce said. When the co-pilot on flight ET-702 from Addis Ababa to Rome locked himself in the cockpit while the pilot went to the bathroom and announced a hijacking, Italian and French fighter jets were scrambled to escort the plane through their respective airspaces. But although the co-pilot-turned-hijacker quickly announced he wanted to land the plane in Switzerland, where he later said he aimed to seek asylum,...

ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish official says a passenger claiming there was a bomb on board tried to divert an Istanbul-bound plane to Sochi, Russia, where the Olympics are kicking off.

...“In that moment you become a whole new person,” the now 31-year-old says from the airlines’ offices in Enfield, just outside of Halifax. “You shut down and your survival instinct kicks in, and my thought was — how do we get all these people off the plane — and how do we survive this? “The whole time you are in the situation, in the moment, you are acting, but you are also thinking: ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’.... On Thursday morning Nicole Foran will be presented with the Star of Courage — a medal recognizing acts of “conspicuous courage...

ROSSFORD, Ohio - A training exercise this Rossford Wednesday morning left students literally hanging on to the edge of their seats. In the scenario: A school bus is en route to an event when suddenly it's hijacked! A camera inside the bus captured the whole thing while an audience of school teachers, administrators and transportation directors watched it all unfold on a live feed.

Please forgive the vanity post, BUT I just had a terrible thought....I just heard that the hijacked airliner has landed in of all places, Aftganistan.... Is that not the home turf of Osama Bin Laden?? Remember the movie a few years back where terrorists hijacked a 747 with the intentions of crashing it into New York city or some other big city??? If Bin Laden wanted to creatate a major catastrophe, that would surely do it. I suppose the military could shoot it out of the sky, but how do they insure where it is going to land, or that...

Excellent Video: Think of the Katangese as Israel, and Patrice Lumumba and the Central Congolese government as the PLO/PA/HAMAS. The UN, of course, plays the same role as ever...to bring about a world government dominated by socialists and communists. Description: UN troops wage an unprovoked war against anti-communist Katanga in 1960 and 1962. The last bastion of the free market in the Congo was decimated by UN forces in 1963 to bring it under Congolese communist control. If you don't want to watch the entire thing (an early 1960's documentary), fast forward to the end where Katanga's ill-fated and heroic...

Who’s up for hijacking a Democrat Twitter town hall? Submit student loan questions to #AskDems Posted at 11:18 am on May 10, 2012 by Twitchy Staff | View Comments Maxine Waters ✔ @MaxineWaters Today I’m participating in the @HouseDemocrats twitter town hall on student loan interest rates at 8:30 am PST. Ask Q’s with #AskDems They never learn. House Democrats have invited people to participate in a Twitter town hall this morning using the hashtag #AskDems. It’s starting to seem like they want conservatives to hijack their hashtags. And as usual, it looks like conservatives won’t disappoint: #AskDems Do I...

Claims that at least six Somali pirates were killed and three others were captured by the crew of the Greek owned MT Liquid Velvet chemical tanker which was hijacked last week, are up for debate due to infighting among pirates, according to several pirates who spoke to Somalia Report. “Six of our colleagues were killed by the hostages who escaped while the ship was coming to the coastal city of Harardhere in Mudug region. We will retaliate against our enemy,” said Abdi, a pirate. Abdi explained that the fighting broke out when the pirates were trying to search the pockets...

North may kidnap to get defectors back: Source April 28, 2011 The North Korean military has been given orders to hijack South Korean fishing boats near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a South Korean government official told the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday. “I believe that the North Koreans wish to take our citizens hostage and return them in exchange for the four North Koreans, among the 31 who drifted across the maritime border this past February, who defected,” said the government source. “The South Korean government and the military shared this tip last week. We have our guard up as...

Henderson, N.C. — A Greyhound bus headed to Raleigh was hijacked on Thursday night, Vance County Sheriff Peter White said. The bus, which contained an unknown number of people, was stopped by authorities at a gas station at Norlina and Warrenton roads near Henderson, White said.

After more than three decades in United States prisons — a term punctuated by a brief escape and recapture — a 62-year-old Croatian independence fighter was returned to his native country on Thursday, having served his time for a 1976 hijacking and a bombing that killed a police officer. The fighter, Zvonko Busic, led a group that planted a bomb at Grand Central Terminal that later exploded, killing a city police officer, Brian J. Murray. Mr. Busic left the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind., boarded a plane in Chicago and touched down in Zagreb about 2:20 p.m. on...

"Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no intelligent life on this planet." I couldn’t help but think of that apocryphal quote from "Star Trek" as I gazed at the full-body scanners in the security lines at Newark Airport on Thursday. The scanner booths, which bear a resemblance to that mythical "transporter" in the TV series, weren’t in use that day. But when I called Transportation Security Administration spokesperson Ann Davis on Friday, she informed me that the plan is for all passengers to be required to go through what amounts to a nude photo shoot before boarding an airplane.

Labor’s heavy hitters have even been deployed, including AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who has himself stumped for Reid, telling supporters, “If we’re going to keep our champion …We’ve got to fight for him.” Unions have also brought their incredibly large checkbook to bear: The SEIU alone has allocated $725,000 to help ensure Reid’s return to the United States Senate. Unions are spending like their very existence depends on liberals holding on to power in the U.S. government — which it does. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), in fact, “has spent more than any other outside...