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A JetBlue Airbus A320 struck its tail on the runaway as it accelerated to avoid a collision with a Beechcraft King Air 350.. The JetBlue plane was taking off from the same runway at Yampa Valley Regional Airport that the King Air plane was about to land on.. Aircraft near-misses are on the rise in the US, amid a severe air traffic controller staffing shortage ... Investigators said a JetBlue plane's tail struck the runway at a Colorado airport when a captain took-off quickly to avoid a head-on crash, as airport near-misses surge due to air traffic controller shortages. ......

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli (D) discussed the state’s projected $36 billion budget shortfall over three years and stated that taxpayers leaving the state is part of the issue along with the fact that the economy is slowing down. DiNapoli stated, “I think there are a couple of factors happening: There’s no doubt the economy certainly is slowing and we are feeling the effects in the current year collections of the slowdown, as far as financial services, Wall Street’s a very important part of the economy in...

The desperate search for a missing submersible that vanished during a mission to explore the wreck of the Titanic continued on Tuesday as more information about those onboard came to light. The submersible, which is part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour that offers passengers a once-in-a-lifetime experience to explore the Titanic wreckage, went missing on Sunday after losing contact with the research vessel Polar Prince. British billionaire and owner of Action Aviation Hamish Harding was among the five people onboard the vessel, along with prominent Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood, and his son, Suleman. The other two people onboard have yet...

The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board announced on Thursday that it was endorsing Republican Lanhee Chen in California’s controller race, saying “California needs a fiscal watchdog.” The newspaper’s editorial board said they were endorsing Chen because they believe that the controller, who looks at how taxpayer money is being spent by government divisions and can audit government agencies, “should be as independent from the party in power as possible.”

ALTADENA, CA -- An air traffic controller error sent a jet from LAX into the flight path of another plane and flying low over the mountains above the San Gabriel Valley... an EVA Air Boeing 777 that left LAX around 1:20 a.m. heading to Taipei was given an incorrect instruction by a controller based in San Diego to turn left instead of right. That sent the airliner toward the mountains above Altadena, as well as toward the flight path of an Air Canada plane that had just taken off. Audio traffic indicates the same controller realizing the problem and telling...

More than half of the latest batch of air-traffic controller job offers nationwide went to people with no aviation experience as part of a program designed to expand hiring among the general public, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. About 22,500 people without an aviation background initially applied. Of those, 837 were offered jobs. The remainder of the roughly 1,600 new controller slots went to more traditional applicants, including military veterans with aviation experience and accredited aviation school graduates. The hiring breakdown marks a major shift in FAA recruitment strategy, which is now geared toward trying to keep ahead of...

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is suggesting the FAA rethink its new ATC hiring protocol after the first attempt netted only a fraction of the controller trainee candidates it expected. As we reported in February, the agency revised its recruitment policies in the hopes of attracting a more diverse pool of prospective controllers. More than 28,000 people applied but of those, only 2,200 passed a somewhat mysterious "biographical questionnaire" to advance to the next selection level. NATCA says the FAA was hoping for 30 percent to pass the questionnaire phase. Among those who failed the questionnaire were graduates of...

President Obama’s aides went to extraordinary lengths to uncover the identity of a senior official who was using Twitter to make snarky comments about White House staffers. Suspicion gradually centered on Jofi Joseph, the point man on nuclear nonproliferation at the National Security Council. So at a meeting in which everyone was in on the scam an inaccurate but innocuous news tidbit was revealed. When Joseph used his anonymous Twitter handle #natlsecwonk to broadcast the tidbit he was caught and promptly fired. He was not fired for revealing any secrets, but for making disparaging comments about thin-skinned administration players ranging...

Article regarding alarming major Ruggedcom (Siemens) controller BACKDOOR vulnerability. These controllers are used widely in the electric grid, military, and transportation systems!

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has tentatively ruled that the state controller has no authority to judge whether the state budget is balanced or block lawmakers' pay as he did last June. In a bitter feud during last year's budget battle, Controller John Chiang determined that the budget passed by legislative Democrats was not balanced. Using new powers he believed he had under voter-approved Proposition 25, Chiang then blocked lawmakers' pay and expense money for 12 days until they cut a budget deal with Gov. Jerry Brown. In a tentative ruling today, Judge David I. Brown said that the controller...

Five years ago, a Comair flight taxied onto the wrong runway at the airport in Lexington, Ky., and crashed on takeoff, killing 49 of the 50 people aboard. It turned out that the lone air controller on duty who should have caught the mistake was operating on two hours of sleep. Two years before that, a tired controller nearly let two commercial jets collide on an LAX runway. Now, in the wake of a raft of air traffic controllers caught sleeping on the job, the Federal Aviation Administration issued new rules to combat fatigue. But this problem has dogged the...

A Houston city councilman running for city controller owes more than $100,000 in federal income taxes dating back seven years, public records show. Ronald C. Green, a lawyer who has served in the city’s At-Large Position 4 since 2004, owed $120,043.11 to the federal government earlier this year, according to federal tax liens filed with the Harris County clerk’s office this past summer. The delinquent taxes go back as far as 2002.

Sacramento -- State Controller John Chiang, who oversees California's cash flow, warned state agencies Tuesday that unless Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature agree on a budget, the state will have to begin issuing IOUs to some state employees and contractors as early as Feb. 1. "Without immediate cash solutions or the ability to borrow billions from the strained financial markets, the state controller's office has no choice but to pursue the deferral of potentially billions of dollars in payments and/or the issuance of ... IOUs," Chiang wrote in a letter to state agencies. Tuesday, Chiang was still in the...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, Sept. 5, 2008 – For one Iron Eagle soldier here, there was never a question of if she would serve. The only question was when. Army Spc. Radha Bhramdat watches as two Black Hawk helicopters land at the Camp Taji Airfield, north of Baghdad, Aug. 28, 2008. Bhramdat is an air traffic controller with the 4th Infantry Division’s Company F, 2nd Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Brent Hunt  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “Since I was 15, my mom started giving me the idea of serving...

State Controller John Chiang delivered more grim evidence of the state's budget meltdown Thursday. Chiang's office released cash figures showing that California overspent by $3.9 billion in the fiscal year just ended. General fund expenditures for the 2007-08 fiscal year that ended June 30 totaled $107.3 billion, while total receipts were $103.4 billion. Receipts would have been even lower had the governor and Legislature not borrowed $3.3 billion earlier this year. "Without counting bond proceeds, the gap between last year's revenues and expenditures was more than $7 billion," Chiang said in a statement. "Without a spending plan in place, the...

California may have to come up with an extra $47.9 billion over the next 30 years to cover health and dental benefits for its retirees and current state employees, Controller John Chiang said Monday. But Chiang said the state could cut that bill to about $31.3 billion if it dropped its pay-as-you-go approach, invested about $1 billion a year to help cover future retiree health costs and used the earnings to ease the impact on the state budget. "Our actuarial report shows that, annually, if we continue on the pay-as-you-go basis, we will accrue a liability of $3.59 billion a...

Personal income tax receipts coming into the state in January fell $1.3 billion below Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's revenue estimates in the spending plan he released last month, the state controller said Tuesday. The lower-than-expected revenue raises questions about whether Schwarzenegger will reach his stated goal of eliminating the state's net operating deficit in the budget year beginning in July. The governor's proposed 2007-2008 budget assumes tax revenue in the current budget year would grow by $1.1 billion, or 1 percent. In the coming fiscal year, Schwarzenegger also assumed a $6.8 billion boost, or 7 percent increase. "Tax payments are down...

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Controller Candidates To Debate Live On CBS5.com * Watch LIVE At 2 p.m. (today)* (CBS 5 / The Chronicle) SAN FRANCISCO The San Francisco Chronicle Editorial board will host a 60-minute debate between state Controller candidates John Chiang (Democrat) and Tony Strickland (Republican) today at 2 p.m. at the CBS 5 studios in San Francisco. The debate will be presented via Live streaming video here on CBS5.com and is the second of several Chronicle Editorial board candidate debates that will be offered via live and tape streams here on CBS5.com.

Dallas Air Traffic Controller Dallas ATC: "Tower to Saudi Air 911 -- You are cleared to land eastbound on runway 9R." Saudi Air: "Thank you Dallas ATC. Acknowledge cleared to land on infidel's runway 9R - Allah be Praised !!" Dallas ATC: "Tower to Iran Air 822 -- You are cleared to land westbound on runway 9R." Iran Air: "Thank you Dallas ATC. We are cleared to land on infidel's runway 9R. - Allah is Great !!" Pause: Static............. Saudi Air: "DALLAS ATC! DALLAS ATC!!!" Dallas ATC: "Go ahead Saudi Air 911?" Saudi Air: "YOU HAVE CLEARED BOTH OUR AIRCRAFT...