Every airplane that was ever built. This is a great site for anyone interested in aviation and air power. You will be able see every airplane that was built in every country in the world by every aircraft company. Virtual Aircraft Museum
Sunday, May 1, 2011
"Plane dangling in the air"
"Now, caught on camera...A pilot struggles to regain control of his aircraft. This footage shot by a plane spotter at an airport in the Moscow region shows a Tupolev-154 apparently going out of control shortly after take off. No passengers were onboard the Ministry of defense plane at the time. The film released on the Internet has bloggers praising the skills of the pilot as he manages to regain control and land safely. Aviation authorities are investigating the incident."
(RUSSIA) -- This may be one of the few times you witness a large jetliner being in this much trouble in the air without the footage being followed by a deadly crash.
RT television recently released this video footage of a jetliner in the Moscow area as a pilot struggles to regain control of the aircraft.
The video, shot by a plane spotter at an airport in the Moscow region, shows a Tupolev-154 government owned jet evidently going out of control shortly after take off.
No passengers were onboard the Ministry of defense plane at the time. The video, now widely seen on the Internet, has resulted in bloggers praising the skills of the pilot as he manages to regain control of the jet and land it safely.
It was not immediately know what caused the jet to go out of control. Aviation authorities are investigating.
One blogger who viewed the footage wrote:
“I worked in aviation manufacturing many years. This looks like the Flaps malfunctioned after take off. With a jet if you don’t retract the flaps at proper speed you will loose Lift. This pilot was properly trained and responded accordingly. “
Mass killing of islamofascist by Russian FSB
Russian security forces have carried out a string of successful anti-terror operations in the North Caucasus this week. Sixteen militants suspected of having links to Al-Qaeda were killed.
The latest operation was carried out at the border between south Russia’s Stavropol Region and the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, when ten militants, including at least two women, were killed. Some high-profile terrorists are reported to be among them as well.
uthorities say they will now run a series of DNA tests to identify those killed, but they have already listed Kazbek Tashuev among the dead. He is believed to have been involved in a number of terrorist attacks across the area.
Another notorious figure, Asker Dzhappuev, who is thought to be one of the leaders of local militants, was also killed during the operation. Dzhappuev is said to have been involved in the February murder of tourists from Moscow in the Elbrus district.
Similar operations were carried out the same week in Chechnya and Dagestan, with a number of terrorists reported killed. However, Russia’s most wanted terrorist Doku Umarov is still hiding in the North Caucasus.
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One of Gadhafi's sons killed in NATO airstrike, Libyan official says
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- One of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's sons -- Saif al-Arab Gadhafi -- was killed after a NATO airstrike, a spokesman for Libya's government said Sunday at a press conference.
Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in their son's house when it was targeted, spokesman Musa Ibrahim said. Both of them are in good health, according to the spokesman.
The victim is one of two Gadhafi sons whose names begin with Saif. The other is Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had previously touted reform but has emerged as one of his father's most visible defenders in recent months.
Ibrahim said several of Moammar Gadhafi's grandchildren also died in the attack.
The house in Tripoli was destroyed by the strike, with a massive crater where the house used to be. At least one unexploded bomb could be seen.
The building was in a residential area of Tripoli, according to Ibrahim, who insisted that Saif al-Arab Gadhafi was a student in Germany who was not deeply involved in Libya's military and government. The 29-year-old was the sixth of Gadhafi's eight biological children.
Ibrahim railed against NATO after the fatal strike, calling it an illegal act and a "war crime." He vowed revenge.
Speaking at a rally, Ibrahim told fellow Libyans, "Every one of you are Saif al-Arab."
Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's military operations, said in a statement he was "aware of unconfirmed media reports that some of Gadhafi's family members may have been killed.
"We regret all loss of life, especially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of this ongoing conflict," Bouchard said. "NATO is fulfilling its U.N. mandate to stop and prevent attacks against civilians with precision and care -- unlike Gadhafi's forces, which are causing so much suffering."
The NATO commander stated that all targets "are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Gadhafi regime's systemic attacks on the Libyan population ... We do not target individuals."
A senior official in President Barack Obama's administration said the U.S. government is "very aware" of the reports, but cannot confirm who, if anyone, died in a strike until they see the evidence.
Gunfire broke out around Tripoli after the news came out, while a large crowd of demonstrators gathered around Moammar Gadhafi's compound. Images on Libyan state TV showed what appeared to be dozens of people chanting and waving flags.
Protesters could be heard yelling, "We want to redeem the martyr," as well as, "Oh youth, this is time for jihad."
Members of Gadhafi's inner circle have been calling members of Obama's administration, saying "someone important" in the regime had been killed, a senior U.S. administration official told CNN. But they did not specify who had died, only to stress that it wasn't Moammar Gadhafi himself.
A spokesman for the Libyan opposition doubted the veracity of the report of the son's death, saying, "In all honesty, we never heard of Saif al-Arab until the start of the uprising."
"We don't believe this is true," said Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, deputy chairman of the Transitional National Council in Benghazi. "It is all fabrications by the regime in a desparate attempt to get sympathy ... This regime constantly lies and keeps lying."
Ibrahim, the spokesman for Gadhafi's government, accused NATO of launching the strike specifically in order to kill the Libyan leader.
Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz acknowledged that "our own laws" would affect any decision to try to assassinate Moammar Gadhafi directly.
"I don't believe that any credible group or individual sees the solution to the Libyan problem without the removal of Moammar Gadhafi, one way or the other," he said. "But our job and our goal is to get a political solution, but through the means that we are allowed to by our own laws."
This is not the first time that Moammar Gadhafi reportedly has been at the site of an airstrike that killed one of his children.
In April 1986, U.S. forces launched an airstrike that targeted Moammar Gadhafi's residential compound. As a result, the Libyan leader's adopted daughter, Hanna Gadhafi, was killed.
Saif al-Arab Gadhafi, then just 3 years old, was hospitalized after suffering injuries in that strike, Libyan officials then said. Video shows what Libyan officials claimed were him and his brother Khamis, though both boys were heavily bandaged and their faces were not clearly visible.
At the time, President Ronald Reagan told the American people the bombings were an act of self-defense following the bombing of a West Berlin club that killed two American servicemen and injured several others.
And on Monday, Ibrahim issued a defiant statement saying Moammar Gadhafi was alive despite what the Libyan government called a NATO attempt to kill him by bombing his compound.
"The message that was sent by NATO in the early hours of this morning was sent to the wrong address," Ibrahim said.
Bruce Riedel, a former adviser to three U.S. presidents and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, said the reported killing could complicate any chances that Moammar Gadhafi might leave Libya peaceably after a negotiated solution.
"A political solution was always a long shot," Riedel told CNN by e-mail. "But in Libya's very tribal politics, the death of a son makes any political settlement all that much harder."
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Bloody Syrian crackdown embarrasses Turkish allies
Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) -- Turkish officials engaged in last-minute shuttle diplomacy with their restive neighbor Syria and repeated calls for restraint ahead of what is expected to be another violent day of protests across the Arab nation on Friday.
Turkey's National Security Council met on Thursday in Ankara to specifically address the increasingly bloody crisis, which some analysts fear could spill over to the Turkish side of the border.
The council issued a statement calling for Syrian security forces to act with restraint and for the government to implement swift reforms to satisfy demonstrators.
"It is important that necessary steps are taken rapidly and in a determined way in order to establish social peace and stability in brotherly, friendly Syria, to put an end to the violence and to maintain security of life, basic rights and freedoms," the council announced.
Also, the head of Turkey's national intelligence agency, the MIT, traveled to Damascus on Thursday for high-level talks.
The wave of unrest that has swept across the Arab world this year surprised the Turkish government as it was dramatically expanding ties with its Arab neighbors.
Syria has perhaps been the greatest beneficiary of what the Turkish government calls its "Zero Problems" foreign policy initiative with Turkey's neighbors.
In the late 1990s, Syria and Turkey were on the brink of war because of Syrian support for Kurdish rebels battling the Turkish state.
But in recent years, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have become close political allies.
The two leaders have vacationed together with their wives along the Turkish coast. And last year, Erdogan lifted visa restrictions on Syrian visitors and announced Syrians should treat Turkey as their "second home."
When pro-democracy protests erupted in Egypt, Erdogan was swift to call for embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to listen to the voices of his people and step down.
But Erdogan has been much more restrained about criticizing al-Assad, even as Syrian tanks encircled the rebellious southern town of Daraa and more than 400 demonstrators were killed across the country in the growing government crackdown.
"Turkey has to reckon that in some cases of the Arab Spring, it just may be on the wrong side of history," wrote Turkey expert Henri Barkey, in an article released this week by the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.
"As much as Turkey thought it was on the side of change, it has become a status quo power ... with its own vested interests, commercial concerns, and close ties with regimes."
As the death toll mounts in Syria, a growing number of voices in Turkish newspapers normally sympathetic to the Erdogan government have been calling for Turkey to re-evaluate its cozy relationship with the Assad regime.
"'Zero problems' with neighbors who know how to kill," wrote Yavuz Baydar in the pro-government Today's Zaman newspaper this week.
"Ankara should not resort to double standards when it comes to autocratic regimes in the Middle East killing their own people," wrote columnist Lale Kemal in the same newspaper.
Turkey has also come under fire in Libya from rebels who have accused Ankara of supporting the Moammar Gadhafi regime in Tripoli.
Last year, Erdogan received a human rights prize from Gadhafi, and earlier this month, the Libyan opposition movement refused to allow a Turkish ship to dock in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Demonstrators also staged a protest outside the Turkish Consulate in Benghazi.
The escalating Syrian conflict may not only embarrass the Turkish government; some analysts warn it could destabilize Turkey.
Experts point to Saddam Hussein's crackdown on rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq in 1991, which resulted in a flood of refugees spilling over the Turkish border.
Over the past two years, much smaller numbers of refugees fled to Turkey to escape the crushing of pro-democracy protests in Iran -- another authoritarian neighbor that enjoys booming economic ties with Turkey.
So far, Turkish officials say they have not seen an increase in the number of Syrians fleeing government persecution. But officials are clearly worried about this possibility.
"You have to think of all kinds of scenarios," said Selim Yenel, undersecretary of Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a phone interview with CNN.
"People have asked if we are our reassessing our visa policy [with Syria]. And we're not," Yenel said.
Instead, Yenel said Turkey's intelligence chief traveled to Damascus on Thursday leading a delegation that is offering to advise the Assad regime on how to implement reforms aimed at satisfying the growing protest movement.
"They were going to talk about public administration, how to reform it economically and politically," Yenel said. "All this has to be done as quickly as possible so people can feel the changes."
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