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United Flight 1637 was returning off-duty Air Force Captain Mike Gongol, his family and 157 other souls from their Christmas vacation when disaster struck. The Boeing 737's pilot suffered a devastating heart attack at 30,000 feet on the way from Des Moines to Denver, forcing Gongol to rush to the cockpit and help guide the plane to an emergency landing. His heroic actions have gone unheralded until now, as Gongol recalls the dramatic moment he answered the chilling announcement on the December 30 flight, 'Does anyone know how to fly a plane?'

Prelude 09/10/2012 USA / Breitbart report by Wynton Hall: Obama Misses Over Half His Intelligence Briefings During a White House press briefing ... White House Press Secretary Jay Carney blasted the Government Accountability Institute's ["GAI"] findings as being "hilarious" and said: The President of the United States gets the presidential daily briefing every day. He always reads it, every day, because he's a voracious consumer of all of his briefing material... This president is very much steeped in the details of national security issues. 09/10/2012 USA / Washington Post Opinion [article] by Marc A. Thiessen: Why is Obama skipping more...

Eileen Depesa caught Tyler Flowers' rogue bat before it hit the infant behind her during a Memorial Day White Sox game.Eileen Depesa's impressive reflexes saved a baby from a baseball bat at the Chicago White Sox's game against the Cleveland Indians. When Chicago catcher Tyler Flowers lost his grip on his bat, it went flying into the stands above left field. Depesa, of Naperville, Ill., reached out with one hand and caught the bat before it hit the infant seated behind her. The man seated to her right merely ducked. "I was more concerned with protecting the baby seated behind...

"I need money". Greedy illegal alien Roy Ortiz is suing those who saved his life.- by Brian Hayes | Top Right NewsLast month we profiled an illegal alien felon who made nearly $200,000 by mass-filing frivolous lawsuits against L.A. restaurants. But that was just a creep trying to game the system, and the system (shamefully) letting him. This is truly disgusting. An illegal alien in Colorado is suing several first responders who took part in rescuing him last September, when he became trapped in his car during a flash flood. You heard that right. They saved Roy Ortiz' life --...

UPDATE [12:37]: Tuoi Tre, a leading daily in Vietnam, reports that the Vietnamese Navy has confirmed the plane crashed into the ocean. According to Navy Admiral Ngo Van Phat, Commander of the Region 5, military radar recorded that the plane crashed into the sea at a location 153 miles South of Phu Quoc island. When contacted, Malaysia Airlines declined to confirm or deny the reports, saying that the Malaysian authorities are working together with the Vietnamese government on the matter. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that China has dispatched two maritime rescue ships to help locate the missing plane.

Youtube vid of firefighters using the jaws of life to help out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNe1--idns0

[video] DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Three children -- ages 5, 7 and 10 -- were rescued from a minivan that was driven into the Atlantic Ocean off Daytona Beach. Onlookers pulled the children from the vehicle, which was being buffeted by waves as it drifted deeper into the surf Tuesday. A woman driving the van escaped unharmed. Beach Safety Capt. Tammy Marris said the woman was already driving on the beach, where cars are allowed, when the vehicle entered the water. The South Carolina family of four was taken to Halifax Hospital. Once the children are released, they will be...

A heroic Los Angeles-area taco stand employee saved a four-year-old boy from a deranged kidnapper. Jesus Delgado, a grill cook at T2 Tacos, in Westchester, jumped out from behind the counter Wednesday and rescued Grady O’Brien from a North Hollywood man who took him after punching his nanny in the face. Witnesses told KTLA the man was ranting about being in the CIA before sucker punching the nanny and making off with the child yelling he was the father – Grady’s six-year-old brother Brendan screamed for help until Delgado sprang into action. The children were walking home from school with the nanny...

A car fanatic gave his pet dog away after he was left distraught when she chewed a hole through the wheel arch of his prized £80,000 Aston Martin. Builder Royston Grimstead, 42, was devastated when he came home to find his border collie spaniel cross Luce had chewed through the fibreglass panel of his luxury car - causing £3,000 of damage. Mr Grimstead, from Chedzoy, Somerset, said he had already been considering re-homing the dog, which he said did not get along with his other dog, but the damage to the car was the final straw. A dog behaviour expert...

Passersby likely assumed it was just a homeless person, so they ignored the young girl lying on the snowy sidewalk. That’s what seasoned Street Help/Unit 7 volunteer Brandt Huber believes after saving the life of a missing 13-year-old girl. He found her Thursday morning lying barely conscious in plain sight on a busy street. “It’s shocking to know that some people are so caught up in what they’re doing that they can’t stop and help somebody in need,” said Huber.

A Russian research ship and a Chinese icebreaker that were stranded in Antarctica have broken free from heavy ice and no longer need to be rescued by the United States, Australian officials said Wednesday. More than 50 scientists, researchers and tourists had to be airlifted from the Russian-owned vessel Akademik Shokalskiy after it became trapped on Dec. 24, 100 nautical miles east of French Antarctic station Dumont d'Urville and about 1,500 nautical miles (2,250 miles) south of Tasmania, Australia. The protracted international rescue effort was itself delayed by the conditions, with blinding snow, strong winds and thick sea ice preventing...

[Carbon Off-Set:] A total of 800 kauri trees will be planted which during the first 50 years of their life will offset more than the total carbon used to fuel the AAE. Kauri of course lives much longer than this and is even known to reach ages of more than 2,000 years. The amount of carbon assimilated by the trees was calculated using the kauri growth calculator based on many field studies and research.

After a protracted legal battle, Children’s Hospital Oakland reached an agreement with Jahi Mcmath’s family to allow a medical team to enter the hospital to perform the procedures necessary to move her to a medical facility that will continue her care and treatment. Her mother and family say she is alive following a tonsillectomy gone awry that has left her in an incapacitated state since early December. The family in the case says the hospital has been starving Jahi for three weeks. The San Francisco Chronicle has more details: The agreement, described in the courtroom of Alameda County Superior Court...

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) - Three Appalachian Trail hikers who were stranded in the snow without shelter have been flown to a hospital by helicopter.

CANBERRA, Australia — An Australian icebreaker carrying 52 passengers who were retrieved from an icebound ship in the Antarctic was told to halt its journey home on Friday after a Chinese vessel involved in the dramatic rescue became concerned that it, too, may get stuck in the heavy sea ice. **SNIP** But on Friday afternoon, the crew of a Chinese icebreaker that had provided the helicopter said they were worried about their own ship's ability to move through the ice. The Aurora — which was carrying the passengers to the Australian island state of Tasmania — was told to stay...

After 10 days stranded far from home, all 52 passengers from a ship stuck in Antarctic ice have now been transferred by helicopter to an Australian icebreaker. "It's 100% we're off! A huge thanks to all," tweeted Chris Turney, an Australian professor among the group of scientists, journalists and tourists marooned on the ship. A helicopter from a nearby Chinese icebreaker ferried passengers Thursday to the Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis. The rescue is the latest chapter in a saga that began Christmas Eve after the Russian-flagged MV Akademik Shokalskiy got stuck in unusually thick ice. Officials abandoned a succession...

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority this morning said weather conditions in the Antarctic had improved and those marooned on the MV Akademik Shokalskiy would soon reach the end of their ordeal. "Wind in the area is now down to 10 knots and visibility has improved. Weather conditions are expected to remain favourable over the next 36 hours," a spokeswoman for AMSA said. "The helicopter on board the Chinese flagged vessel Xue Long will be used to rescue the passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy."

Cold Climate: In an event chock-full of bitterly cold irony, perhaps even Al Gore has noticed that multiple icebreakers couldn't free a boat stuck in Antarctic ice that global warming was supposed to have melted. Few of the media reports on the plight of the Russian-flagged research vessel MV Akademik Schokalskiy have noted the irony of a ship full of climate scientists getting stuck in an Antarctic ice sheet so thick that early attempts at breaking through the ice to free them were failures. "We're stuck in our own experiment," the Australasian Antarctic Expedition said in a statement. "We came...

An air rescue for the passengers aboard a research ship that has been trapped in Antarctic ice for a week will wait for a break in the weather to start airlifting people from the vessel, Australian maritime authorities say. The 74 scientists, tourists and crew aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian-crewed research vessel touring the Antarctic, have been trapped in ice since Christmas Eve. A helicopter on board a Chinese icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, will be used to collect the passengers once there is a break in the weather, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a Monday night conference...

From the Animal Lifeline Facebook Page: Please Help Save Sadie? Meet Sadie, our newest shelter resident. She was dumped out in the country and spent the last several months running the fields and getting food from the families in the area. It appears that Sadie had been caught in a trap. Scared and stranded in the cold, Iowa winter weather with no food or water and in an enormous amount of pain, she found the strength to save herself and used her mouth and teeth to remove the trap from her paw. With bones and tissue exposed, her tongue full...