Deadly Everest Airplane Crash

by Josh Lew on

A Yeti Airlines Twin-Otter plane carrying sixteen passengers and three crew members crashed at a remote airstrip in Nepal yesterday morning, local time. The plane’s wheel became entangled in a security fence as it was landing at the trekking base of Lukla, about 30 miles from Mount Everest. 18 people, including a group of 12 German trekkers, were killed. Only the pilot survived, though he remains in critical condition at an area hospital. Passengers waiting for other planes were first on the scene, but they were ill-equipped to fight the fire that had broken out on impact. By the time it was finally extinguished, everyone in the passenger cabin was beyond help.

The crash was initially blamed on poor visibility. It was quite foggy at the time of the crash, though two similar planes had already landed at the airstrip that morning. The government has promised a full investigation. The team looking into the disaster will be headed by the country’s attorney general. The airport is located at 2500 meters above sea level and many people say it is ill-equipped to handle the heavy traffic it sees during trekking and climbing season.

Source

American Stabbed and Killed in Beijing

by Josh Lew on

With the memory of a spectacular opening ceremony still in everyone’s mind, some news from the opposite end of the emotional spectrum came out of Beijing today. Two American tourists, a man and woman, and a local guide were attacked by a man carrying a knife.

The attack took place at the famous Drum Tower that sits above the hutong near Houhai Lake. The tour guide and the woman were injured, but their male companion was killed. The two Americans were relatives of a US volleyball coach.

The attacker, identified by Xinhua News Agency as Tang Yongming from the city of Hangzhou, jumped to his death off the second floor of the tower after the attack.

Such an event is almost unheard of in China. It is even more surprising because of heavy security throughout Beijing. Chinese authorities have expressed concern about terrorism and unauthorized protests in the lead-up to the Games, but crimes against tourists are usually limited to pickpocketing and price gouging.

This appears to have been a random attack. According to reports, the victims were not wearing anything that identified them as Americans.

The attack took place at noon Beijing time. The tower remains sealed off from the public as police investigate.

New York Times coverage of the attack

Robbed tourists in Barcelona to get justice via webcam

by Abha Malpani on

I generally find Spain very laid back and relatively lagging in the world of technology — it’s what I often enjoy about being here.

It’s somehow possible to stay away from the high-tech hysteria everywhere else, be it use of technology in your personal life (I don’t know anyone here who cares about the iPhone), or in the professional sector (when I went to pick up my resident card in Madrid, my appointment had been noted on 3 different hand-written(!) lists.

So when I read that a group of tourists who were robbed in Barcelona about a year ago are finally going to get justice by testifying via webcam(!) from their respective country, I almost fell off my chair!

According to the Guardian, 24 British, Belgian, German, Danish, Portuguese, American and Australian alleged victims of a Romanian gang who posed as police to rob tourists in Barcelona last year, will see the culprits punished, assuming the case is revolved. Time differences between the countries are being coordinated, webcam identification of the criminals, and stories of the victims, are being heard. Apparently, all this “tech-justice” process was devised to quicken clearing the backlog of nearly 270,000 such pending cases in the country.

Tourists often get robbed when traveling and can never do much about it because they are leaving the country shortly, this webcam justice initiative by Barcelona has taken things to a new level — I would never have expected such a thing to come out of Spain. Bravo!

Homeless at Heathrow wear floral shirts to blend in with tourists

by Iva Skoch on

As if London’s Heathrow airport needs another PR nightmare, after the fiasco with Terminal 5. The growing homeless population that has lived inside the terminal certainly doesn’t help Heathrow’s reputation as a pleasant, smooth airport.

Time magazine reports that at 3 a.m.at Heathrow Airport, the scene of people sprawled across plastic benches in various poses of contortion looks vaguely familiar and vaguely odd.

“Each night, scores of London’s homeless men and women take advantage of modern travel delays by posing as stranded passengers in order to sleep in a warm and safe place. They play a cat-and-mouse game with police, often donning floral shirts, fanny packs and other travel accessories to blend in,” Time writes.

You could easily take this to perfection by adding a wheeled Samsonite carry-on, and, of course a paper cup from Starbucks. Seriously, what is it about floral shirts and fanny packs? Why are tourists so ridiculous?

Americans: The World’s 2nd Best Tourists?

by Justin Glow on

In a recent poll of 1,500 European hotel managers, Americans were given the number two spot for the world’s best tourists, second only to the Japanese. “Americans were seen as the most likely to try to speak a foreign language and the most interested in sampling local food,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Further, U.S. tourists were ranked third for both “most polite” and “best behaved” tourists (behind the British and Japanese, and Japanese and German, respectively), and ranked first in tipping and overall spending.

Yanks did, however, fall short in a couple of categories. “Americans were seen, by an overwhelming margin, as the shabbiest dressers, the most likely to complain and the second noisiest. Who’s louder? Only the Italians.”

And sorry, France, but you were ranked as the worst tourists in the world — followed by India and China.