Two 747’s Almost Crash Over Scotland — And That’s Not The Scariest Part

On a course headed for what might have been the worst disaster in aviation history, two Boeing 747 aircraft came within 100 feet of each other in a near-miss event over Scotland.

It happened in June of this year but the report is just now being released by by the UK Airprox Board, which examines near misses in UK airspace. The planes were 30 miles north of Glasgow when an air traffic controller noticed they were moving closer together. Ordered to fly in different directions, cockpit crews apparently got the instructions reversed and wound up flying towards each other.

“It was apparent that both crews had taken each others’ instructions, and the board found it hard to determine why this had occurred,” noted the Airprox report, a reported in a SkyNews article.Odds are all four pilots in the two aircraft probably were not paying a lot of attention to ground control, already having received clearance to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Compounding the problem: both planes had been ordered by air traffic control to fly at 34,000 feet.

The really scary part: A crash was only prevented because two pilots on each aircraft saw each other. Taking evasive action avoided collision with one plane climbing and the other diving.

Women-Only India Travel Club Breaks With Tradition

Historically, the idea of independent travel was not an option for Indian women. They typically stayed at home, cared for by a husband or a father figure. But with more female opportunities in education and employment, the role of India’s women is changing. Say hello to Indian travel clubs.

Traditional travel groups for Indian women included widows, abandoned wives and the elderly. But even those women traveled with a male chaperone, mostly to religious sites. Today’s Indian travel for women includes trips around the world, from the the Taj Mahal to the Antarctic.

“In a typical Indian family holiday women end up in a role-playing mode of being a mother, wife, daughter and are often unable to experience a destination as an individual,” says Piya Bose, owner of Mumbai-based women’s travel group, GOTG (Girls on the Go) in an Aljazeera article.As the number of urban, educated Indian women grows, so have the number of travel clubs enabling them to see the world on their own.

With offices in both New Delhi in North India and Bangalore in South India, Women On Wanderlust (WOW) is another travel club, this one founded by travel writer Sumitra Senapathy who promotes the advantages of group travel. “They can come in solo but travel with the security that a group provides”, says Senapathy.

Dry Ice Bombs at LAX Bring Increased Security, Quick Arrest

Regardless of how it happens, who made it or where it came from, when something explodes in an airport, it’s serious business. After not one but two dry ice explosions occurred on consecutive days at California’s Los Angeles International Airport, police are increasing securlty.

They are simple enough to make; add dry ice to a 20 ounce plastic bottle and wait. There is plenty of dry ice in the area, food service vendors use it daily.

Finding out who did it, apparently, might not very difficult either; police arrested an airport employee Tuesday night. Dicarlo Bennett, a 28-year-old employee for the ground handling company Servisair, was charged with possessing and exploding a “destructive device near an aircraft,” according to a statement from police, reports CBS News.

The exploded bombs did not cause any injuries or damage.Bennett apparently took the dry ice from a plane and placed it in an employee restroom Sunday night where it exploded about 7pm, locking down terminal 2. Another device exploded in a restricted area outside the international terminal on Monday.

Death Toll Rises In Philippines Earthquake

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the central Philippine island of Bohol on Tuesday left over 100 people dead, with the death toll continuing to rise as rescuers struggled to reach patients in a collapsed hospital. Complicating rescue efforts, the area affected was home to many old structures which seemed to simply crumble.

Around the island, 23 bridges were left impassable. Five roads were closed and 17 old coral-stone churches were damaged. The quake was centered about 385 miles south-southeast of Manila at a depth of 12 miles.

“Right now we are in the streets because it is unsafe to be inside,” said Maryann Zamora, a communications specialist with the charity World Vision in a CNN report. “Tell everyone to pray for us.”While there is no widespread threat of a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned that earthquakes this large can sometimes cause tsunamis within 100 kilometers of the epicenter.

9 Year-Old Skips Through Airport Security, Flies To Vegas

It’s supposed to be impossible. Armed guards are in place to prevent it from happening. Three levels of airport security were breached, and airline and TSA officials have no idea how he did it. That’s the situation at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport (MSP) as a 9-year-old was able to get past all that then fly to Las Vegas on his own, without a ticket.

“At this point, this is a Delta and TSA issue,” said airport spokesperson Pat Hogan in a KARE11 tv report. “This is a rare incident.” Rare it may be, but the boy made it on to Delta flight 1651 and was not discovered until the plane landed in Las Vegas.

Both Delta and the TSA are investigating the incident and the 9-year-old stowaway, also believed to be a runaway. Getting past the TSA security screening as well as Delta’s gate agents and the flight crew on the aircraft was simply all in a day’s work for the boy. MSP airport officials report that he also took someone’s luggage off a carousel, ordered food at a restaurant before going through security and even asked his server to watch his luggage while he used the restroom. He never returned.Sound familiar? You might be thinking of the incident not long ago when a man posing as a pilot made it into the cockpit on a US Airways flight.