whoyg431

A commercial airline overshoots its destination by 150 miles? Have you ever heard of such a thing? Well, yes actually.

Investigators are probing the mystery of how Northwest Airlines Flight 188 overshot Minneapolis by so far on Wednesday night. But the incident joins other recent cases that have drawn attention to issues of flight-crew professionalism and alertness on US airlines.

The prominent examples include:

•Last year, two pilots for "go!", a subsidiary of Mesa Airlines, fell asleep during a mid-morning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. Traffic controllers finally got through to the pilots, and the pearl jewelry plane landed safely.

•Continental Connection Flight 3407, a flight operated by Colgan Air, crashed near Buffalo in February, killing 49 passengers and one person on the ground. Crew fatigue, distracting banter in the cockpit, and lack of training or experience may have played roles in the crash, along with wintry weather.

•Pinnacle Airlines Flight 4712 skidded off a runway in Traverse City, Mich., in April 2007. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the crew shouldn't have tried to land. The captain was making his fifth landing on a short airstrip that day, according to the Associated Press, and had been working for 14 hours in mostly bad weather.

And, according to AP, the NTSB has linked crew fatigue to at least 10 US airliner accidents (and 260 fatalities) since 1990.

For years, the Federal Aviation Administration has considered updating old rules on fatigue prevention, but efforts stalled amid differing views from constituencies such as pilots unions.

Since the Colgan Air crash, the FAA has tried to put the matter on a fast track, along with other safety issues such as a heightened focus on professionalism in the cockpit. But the agency's rulemaking efforts are still in process.

In the Colgan crash, and one in Lexington, Ky., crews violated "sterile cockpit" rules, requiring that officers not chit-chat during takeoffs or landings, according to biwa pearl recent congressional testimony by FAA administrator Randolph Babbitt.

Current rules on fatigue require that pilots not fly more than 8 hours in a day, or work more than 16 hours including time on the ground. But they don't take into account the varied experiences of pilots.

An eight hour shift on short routes might include eight takeoffs and landings, for example, a much more stressful day than piloting a cross-country flight. Similarly, some crews work late at night or have long commutes by air before going on duty.

New FAA rules, under review in draft form, are expected to address such issues. Fatigue issues have also surfaced as a safety concern in other transportation fields, including trucking and railroads.

The Northwest Airlines incident this week, which ended with a safe (but late) landing in Minneapolis, could bring other issues to the fore, depending on where the investigation leads.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed an air safety bill backed by Rep. Jerry Costello (D) of Illinois. It includes provisions to establish pilot mentoring programs, boost training requirements for pilots, and create a pilot records database so airlines have access to a pilot's comprehensive track record.

Despite the signs that more progress is akoya pearl needed, the air travel industry has remained generally very safe. The fatality rate has been declining in each of the past three decades, according to the Air Transport Association.

This week's Northwest Airlines pilots isn't the first to overshoot its landing in the past couple of years – a fact that raises a wider question for air safety: Are regulators also falling down on the job?

The Minneapolis incident comes as members of Congress have been pressing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to set rules on pilot fatigue and professionalism in the pearl jewelry cockpit.

FAA administrator Randolph Babbitt recently told lawmakers that his agency is working as fast as it can. "We just set a three-minute mile" in putting together draft regulations, he told a House subcommittee on aviation last month.

But questions about cockpit safety are recurring ones for the nation's airlines, not something fresh on the FAA radar screen.

The Minneapolis case is notable because a major carrier, not a small regional airline, is involved. And the incident has garnered national attention for its eye-popping details. Flight 188 from San Diego overshot its destination by 150 miles on Wednesday night, as flight controllers tried in vain to contact the crew for more than an hour.

The plane was flying over Eau Claire, Wis., and the Air National Guard had put fighter jets on alert to possibly intercept the plane, by the time it finally turned around for a safe landing of its 144 passengers at Minneapolis, according to news reports.

"The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness," according to a statement released by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident. The plane's black box was brought to biwa pearl Washington Friday, but the cockpit recorder is an older model that contains only the last 30 minutes of conversation, according to reports.

Some aviation experts express doubt about the plausibility of the initial explanation from the flight crew. At the very least, it would be unprofessional to engage in an argument when a plane is nearing its destination. The pilots, who have been temporarily suspended, will be interviewed next week.

Whether the explanation lies in akoya pearl bickering, sleepy pilots, or something else, the incident has raised new concerns about professional conduct in the skies.

The incident is not an isolated case. In 2008, sleeping pilots overshot their destination on a flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii, but then landed safely. In fatal crash of a Colgan Air flight near Buffalo, N.Y., earlier this year, both fatigue and unprofessional banter in the cockpit may have played a role.

At the hearing last month on Capitol Hill, some lawmakers voiced frustration that new regulations are not yet in place.

"We need things to be done now," said Rep. Laura Richardson (D) of California. "We have people like myself and many people here in this room who are traveling every single day."

In the case of fatigue, virtually all parties agree that new rules are needed to bring 50-year-old regulations up to date. On the wider issue of professional behavior, much can be achieved through better monitoring of flight crews, mentoring programs, and enforcing existing codes of conduct. But this too may require a strong effort by the FAA, safety experts say, not just voluntary actions by the airlines.

Federal agents have launched a massive assault on the US-based distribution network of a major Mexican drug cartel in an effort to disrupt the flow of drugs into the US and the counter-flow of military-grade firearms to Mexico.

The cartel's network was heaviest in California and Texas, but it stretched across the nation to Boston, Seattle, even St. Paul, Minn.

The coast-to-coast take-down was aimed at La Familia Michoacana, Mexico's youngest cartel and one of its most violent.

"The sheer level of depravity of violence that this cartel has exhibited far exceeds what we unfortunately have become accustomed to from other cartels," said Attorney General Eric Holder in announcing the operation in Washington.

The operation, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, featured raids in 19 states and 49 US cities. It is said to be the pearl jewelry largest coordinated effort against a Mexican drug cartel in law-enforcement history.

Agents made 303 arrests and seized $3.4 million in cash, nearly 730 pounds of methamphetamine, 62 kilograms of cocaine, 967 pounds of marijuana, 144 weapons, and two clandestine drug labs.

"This operation has dealt a significant blow to La Familia's supply chain of illegal drugs, weapons, and cash flowing between Mexico and the United States," Attorney General Holder said. "The cartels should know that we here in the United States are not going to allow them to operate unfettered in our country."

The aggressive action is aimed at helping Mexican officials dismantle a growing and increasingly violent group of six criminal cartels.

La Familia Michoacana was organized in the 1980s as a marijuana production and distribution organization, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The group reportedly served as a vigilante force to protect the biwa pearl local population from street crime and police corruption.

By 2006, La Familia emerged as one of the top five drug cartels in Mexico.

The group is lead by an executive council, and members share common and strong religious beliefs. Members are forbidden from using illegal narcotics themselves. According to the DEA, La Familia portrays itself as a kind of Mexican Robin Hood, taking from the rich (North Americans) and giving to the poor.

"They believe they are doing God's work, and pass out Bibles and money to the poor," the DEA report says. Local schools and officials also benefit, the report says.

But if law enforcement gets too close, La Familia reacts with extreme violence. When Mexican authorities arrested several key members of La Familia in June and July, the organization retaliated by kidnapping, torturing, and murdering 12 Mexican police officers.

In response, Mexico sent 5,500 soldiers to Michoacan.

"We are fighting an organization whose brutal violence is driven by so-called divine justice," said Michele Leonhart, acting DEA administrator. "La Familia's narco-banner declared that they don't kill for money and they don't kill innocent people. However, their delivery of that message was accompanied by five severed heads rolled onto a dance floor in Uruapan, Mexico," Ms. Leonhart said.

Officials said La Familia had become a major supplier of methamphetamine in the US. The group reportedly refuses to sell the drug in Mexico and instead ships it to the US for sale. The cartel uses a portion of its drug proceeds to purchase high-powered military-style weapons in the US, which are then smuggled back into Mexico for akoya pearl use to protect its drug and other criminal operations, officials said.

Attorney General Holder said the US was working closely with Mexican authorities to arrest and prosecute the drug cartel leaders. "They are doing, I think, the best they can," Holder said of his Mexican counterparts.

He said the US would pursue the same strategy it used against organized crime. "What we learned in our fight against the Mafia is that you cut off the heads of these snakes," Holder said. "We want to bring those people north, if we can."

The arrests announced Thursday were part of a 44-month operation called Project Coronado. So far the effort has resulted in the arrests of 1,186 individuals and the seizure of $33 million in drug cash, nearly 2,000 kilograms of cocaine, 2,730 pounds of methamphetamine, 29 pounds of heroin, 16,390 pounds of marijuana, and 389 weapons.

The effort is a joint operation of the DEA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service, US Customs, US Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

Washington - Is Iran doing its customary diplomatic haggling – or preparing to slam the door on the international community?

By balking at a Friday deadline for a decision on a plan to move much of its enriched-uranium stockpile out of the country, Iran may be playing for better terms in a deal it will ultimately accept.

But by standing up the three world powers – the United States, Russia, and France – that had already accepted the deal negotiated with Iranian officials earlier this week, Iran may be unwittingly laying the groundwork for tougher international sanctions aimed at its nuclear program.

Although Iran did send some promising indications Friday, it also said it needs until the middle of next week to respond to the deal. In the plan, about three-quarters of Iran's low-enriched uranium would be shipped to Russia, and then France, for pearl jewelry further enrichment into a form Iran could use in a Tehran research reactor.

The Obama administration supports the deal because it would substantially cut Iran's enriched-uranium stockpile – opening perhaps a year-long window of opportunity for negotiating with Iran to prevent it from building a nuclear bomb.

Tehran's play for additional time is no surprise, especially when Iran's leaders are dealing with so many opposing forces at home, some experts in US-Iranian relations say.

"It's like what you have at a rug bazaar. That's the haggling, the offering, and counteroffering that's going on right now," says Fariborz Ghadar, an Iran expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Especially with all the other things [the Iranian leaders] have going on [politically], the last thing they want are additional problems internationally."

The US said Friday that it could wait until next week for a formal response from Tehran, although it views the issue "with a sense of urgency."

"We hope that they will next week provide a positive response," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

If Tehran rejects the accord – one that it originally proposed to world powers at talks in Geneva on Oct. 1 – that could provide the push that reluctant powers, like Russia and China, would need to biwa pearl consider approving additional economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

President Obama has said he wants to see substantive progress by the end of the year toward curtailing Iran's nuclear program, or his administration would pressure partners on the United Nations Security Council to approve tougher sanctions. The revelation in September of a new nuclear site in Iran near the holy city of Qom initially appeared to shorten that timetable, but Iran's acceptance of international inspections at the site quieted some concerns.

Those inspections, to be undertaken by the International Atomic Energy Agency, are to begin this weekend.

Iranian leaders have to navigate the stiff crosswinds of dueling power bases and the fallout from the postelection civil unrest as they decide how to respond to the enriched-uranium deal, Mr. Ghadar says. But, he says, initial word out of Tehran that the government wants to buy enriched uranium for its research reactor does not mean the leadership is rejecting the deal.

The research reactor, which produces isotopes for medical uses, is running out of fuel, Ghadar notes. The Iranians, he says, may be looking for a way around the delay of perhaps 18 months that would result from Iran's own low-enriched uranium being exported abroad for further enrichment before returning to the reactor.

Russia will be key to determining how and if akoya pearl any enriched-uranium deal can work, Ghadar says. And right now, he says, the Russians are playing the issue skillfully to enhance their own influence.

"The Russians are playing both sides against the middle," he says. "The Russians want sanctions on Iran: They like the impact they have on helping to keep oil and gas prices up. But at the same time," he adds, "they don't want their impact [on Iran] to be so much that the Iranians cave in to the US."

Boston - One day after his son was arrested by the FBI on terrorism-related charges, Tarek Mehanna's father was unequivocal that there is no shred of truth to the government's claims.

"Absolutely not, there is no truth to pearl jewelry these charges," says Ahmed Mehanna, a professor of medicinal chemistry at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, in an interview with the Monitor.

"As a father I have a duty to defend him by all ways, but really, this is a high-tech lynching, as they say," he said. "They are fishing. They answered it themselves [in the criminal complaint], that he never got near to executing any of this stuff."

He adds, however, that he has not had the heart to read the entire federal case documents, and he is unaware of the details of what the government claims it found on his biwa pearl son's computer hard drive.

"I have no clue when and where and how they mean by that," Dr. Mehanna says. "He's using his computer just like everyone else.

A naturalized citizen who says he immigrated to the United States from Egypt in 1978, Dr. Mehanna says his son "is an American, born here." His son is charged with conspiring to "provide material support and resources" for terrorists.

Tarek, who celebrated his 27th birthday Oct. 17, graduated in May with a degree in pharmacy from the akoya pearl college where his father teaches. Despite the publicity about the case, Dr. Mehanna feels sure his son will be vindicated.

"We have faith in the judicial system and believe the system is fair and square," Dr. Mehanna says. "That's our hope."

If you can read this post, it means that the registration process was successful and that you can start blogging