Saturday 29 March 2014

1912: Block of wood in propellor led to the death of 14 submariners


Of all the incidents at sea involving naval vessels, the sinking of a submarine while submerged must fill most of us with dread.

Sadly that is what happened to the submarine A3 when on battle trials in the Solent on February 2, 1912. All hands were lost.

The bodies of the 14 victims were recovered from the sunken boat and 13 were buried in Haslar Naval Cemetery. The 14th, Lieutenant Campbell, was taken home by train to Oban, Scotland, to be interred.

It appears from the coroner’s report that the incident may never have occurred but for a block of wood. It was found wedged in the boat’s propellor.

A3 was accompanied by her parent ship HMS Hazard on the trials. Hazard was to steam to the eastern end of the Isle of Wight and A3 was to then attack her firing dummy torpedoes.

A3 was seen for a while off the starboard side of Hazard and then disappeared. Shortly after, something struck Hazard and it was felt it was the submarine.

A hole eight feet long and a foot wide opened up on A3 and water poured into her hull filling her in seconds and in very little time the crew had perished.

On being recovered and returned to the Dockyard, an inspection was made and the block of wood was found.

Water was being blown from the ballast tanks and the motors were switched to go astern.

The opinion was formed that A3 was unaware of exactly how close Hazard was until seconds before being struck.

It is thought an attempt was made to surface as there was little room to dive under Hazard in time.

Had the block of wood not been there, A3 might have been able to go astern and clear Hazard. No blame was attached to either captain.

The funeral took place at Haslar Naval Cemetery, Gosport, with every sailor borne on a gun carriage.

The service was attended by men from every ship in port.

More than 300 wreaths covered the coffins and the procession was more than a mile-and-a-half long.

On May 17 the A3 was used as a target and sunk by gunfire from HMS St Vincent.

So shocking was the incident it was reported in newspapers worldwide, including the New York Times and Sydney Morning Herald.

Saturday 29 March 2014

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/nostalgia/block-of-wood-in-propellor-led-to-the-death-of-14-submariners-1-5967590

continue reading

MH370 kin can get deaths certified without bodies, lawyers say


The families of Malaysians thought to have been killed on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may be able to prove the death of their loved ones even though no bodies have been recovered, escaping potentially lengthy administrative nightmares.

While a body is usually needed in order for the authorities to issue a death certificate, exceptions exist and the Malaysian government could weigh in to help affected families.

Nizam Bashir, a partner at the law firm Nizam, Amer & Sharizad, said the courts could declare, as early as next week, that the Malaysians aboard the flight had died

He said that instead of a death certificate, a court could declare that a person is presumed dead and that declaration could be used to file for administration of the deceased’s estate.

In some circumstances, the courts can presume a person was killed even though the country’s laws say that a person can only be presumed dead if they have not been heard from for seven years.

“Seven years is only a presumption. You don’t necessarily have to wait for the seven years,” Nizam told The Malay Mail Online.

“Is there enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that so-and-so has died? Arguably, with the Prime Minister coming out to say that the plane went down in the Indian Ocean, that is enough evidence,” said Nizam who has experience in inheritance matters.

On Monday, 16 days after the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) plane disappeared from civilian radar in the early hours of March 8, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that analysis of available satellite data showed the Boeing 777-200ER jetliner had “ended somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.”

MAS also informed the families of the 239 people aboard the plane that it must “assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.”

An international search for the wreckage is now converged on a remote area in the southern Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia. No debris or bodies have been found.

There were 50 Malaysians, including crew members, on the Beijing-bound flight.

Felix Raj, aviation lawyer from Shaikh David Raj, said that if the bodies cannot be recovered, the death certificates can only be obtained through an inquest that will likely be held after April 7, when the plane’s black box stops producing signals.

“Legally speaking, they'll have to hold the inquest,” Raj told The Malay Mail Online.

He said, however, that Putrajaya could choose to skip the inquest and order the National Registration Department to issue death certificates.

Life Insurance Association of Malaysia, for instance, has taken the unusual step by allowing the next-of-kin of those of the doomed flight to file insurance claims without death certificates.

In the case of food seller Lim Chin Aik, a death certificate was only issued after an inquest. He died in a freak storm in Penang last June and his body was never found.

Jane Tai Le Qian, a lawyer from BON Advocates said that an inquest would not be practicable in the MH370 case as the plane crashed into the sea well away from Malaysia.

“It would also be difficult to gather evidence for the inquiry,” the estate and inheritance lawyer told The Malay Mail Online.

The lawyer stressed, however, that more evidence was required to prove the deaths of those aboard Flight MH370.

“There should be more primary evidence, particularly from the investigators and rescue or search teams that there is virtually no hope of survivors being found,” Tai said, citing plane debris as an example of primary evidence.

When contacted today, the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) said that they were unable to comment at this time on whether special exemptions would be allowed for the plane crash victims.

“Generally, banks will need to sight the letter of administration or the grant of probate of the deceased before they can take the appropriate action,” ABM executive director Chuah Mei Lin told The Malay Mail Online.

Banks operate differently from life insurance companies, she said, adding the association will help net of kin in the best possible way without giving any details.

Saturday 29 March 2014

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/mh370-kin-can-get-deaths-certified-without-bodies-lawyers-say

continue reading

Indian Air Force cargo plane crashes, killing all 5 crew


An Indian Air Force cargo plane crashed on Friday, killing its crew of five, in the latest of a string of accidents to spotlight poor safety standards across the country's armed services.

Last month, India's navy chief resigned, taking moral responsibility for a series of accidents, on the same day that two officers were killed by smoke in a submarine.

In Friday's crash, a U.S.-made C-130J Hercules aircraft came down in a desolate area of the central state of Madhya Pradesh while on a routine training mission.

All five crew members on board were killed, Air Force spokesman Capt Gerard Galway said. The defence ministry said it had ordered an investigation into the cause of the accident.

Kanakpura, where the C-130J Super Hercules Special Operations transport aircraft crashed, is a swamp left of a partially dried up river infested with crocodiles that nestle here.

Monents after the plane crashed near the remains of the waterbody, crocodiles walked up to the body parts strewn across the area and started feeding on them. "We have been informed of the crocodiles eating up the bodies of at least two crew members on board the Hercules, but it hasn't been confirmed yet," an official with the defence ministry said.

The villagers had rushed to the spot on hearing the defeaning sound of crash in their vicinty when they spotted the debris of the huge plane.

The aircraft, made by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), was one of six bought for the air force at a cost of $962 million in 2011.

It crashed to the west of Gwalior after taking off at 10 a.m. (0430 GMT) from Agra, home of the famed Taj Mahal monument.

It was the first crash of a Hercules aircraft of the Indian Air Force, which has been plagued for years by the crashes of its Russian-made MiG-21 fighters.

More than half the MiG fleet of 872 aircraft has been lost to crashes that killed 171 pilots, Defence Minister A.K. Antony told parliament in 2012.

Saturday 29 March 2014

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/28/indian-air-force-cargo-plane-madhya-prad-idINDEEA2R03K20140328

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-dead-iaf-officers-bodies-become-crocodile-feed-1973133

continue reading

Another body found in U.S. mudslide as fears grow for missing


Authorities combing a massive mud pile left by a Washington state landslide that buried dozens of homes said on Friday they were bracing for the worst for 90 people still listed as missing, in one of the strongest official acknowledgments that many of those lives may be lost.

Officials said one more body had been found in a field of debris left behind when a rain-soaked hillside collapsed without warning last Saturday, unleashing a towering wall of mud onto the outskirts of rural Oso, about 55 miles (89 km) northeast of Seattle.

The new discovery brings the presumed death count to 27 based on the number of bodies officials have reported finding, even as the official toll of victims who have been found, recovered and formally identified remained steady at 17.

"We always want to hold out hope but I think we have to at some point expect the worst," Snohomish County Executive Director Gary Haakenson told a news conference after being asked if a large portion of the 90 people listed as missing were now feared dead.

"The crews are finding bodies in the field. It's a very slow process. It was miserable to begin with. As you all know, it's rained heavily the last few days. It's made the quicksand even worse," he said.

While fire officials directing search operations at the disaster site have reported slow but steady progress in recovering remains of victims, the official tally of the dead has changed little in recent days even as officials have repeatedly said the death toll could rise substantially.

County authorities say coroners have so far identified the remains of just 17 people, including an infant whose body was retrieved on Thursday.

Remains of 10 more people were reported to have been located in the square-mile (2.6 square-km) heap of mud-caked debris over the past several days, but as of Friday night had been excluded from the formal tally of lives lost.

Officials have revised the list only as each set of remains is identified by coroners, leaving the public mostly in the dark about the retrieval of more bodies. The task has been made harder because not all the victims are recovered intact.

"I don't think it's a secret that they are dealing with partial remains," said an official involved in the rescue operation, who asked not to be named.



CHURCHES AND FIRE STATIONS

News of additional remains being located and recovered has been trickling out to family members of the missing and dead through word-of-mouth and other channels, however, thanks to community members working side-by-side with rescue teams in the search for more victims.

Area churches and fire stations have been go-to venues for members of the community seeking updates, said Gail Moffett of Oso, who lives 2 miles from the disaster site and works at a hardware store in nearby Arlington.

"I go home and talk to the source, because it's family," she said of the community network, including locally based rescue workers, she has tapped into for information.

"They are all out there on the mudslide every day, going back and going back and going back, day after day after day, to make a difference and to help our people. And they just keep doing it and they come in at night and their butts dragging, covered in mud, and their faces are not the faces I knew last week," she said.

Authorities have also allowed some victims' relatives onto the disaster site as the remains are recovered, and a moment of silence is observed, as occurred when the body of the infant was extricated on Thursday.

In one case, a volunteer member of the search team, Dayn Brunner, pulled the body of his own sister, 36-year-old Summer Raffo, from the mud pile on Wednesday. She was driving through the area when the slide buried her in her car.

Brunner, 42, took a day off to grieve and rest, and then returned to the debris field on Friday to resume the search.

An estimated 180 people lived in the path of the landslide, and the list of missing, once at 176 or more, has remained steady at about 90 since Wednesday.



HOPES FADE

Authorities have said some of those killed might never be found, and on Thursday braced the public for news - still yet to come - that the number of dead would increase substantially in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Officials have so far publicly identified five dead, while withholding the names of others listed as dead or missing. But about 40 people have been identified on a local blog site as potential victims, including several members of one family.

All of those discovered alive in the mud were rescued by helicopter within the first few hours after the landslide, and rescuers have found no further signs of life, officials said.

Volunteer Bob Michajla, 66, said the search was entering a more difficult phase.

"They found the easy bodies in the first few days. The rest of them are probably buried. That's what I was told," said Michajla, his face and fingers caked in mud.

Local fire district chief Travis Hots said rain and wind sweeping the area on Friday was working against the round-the-clock search efforts. A flash flood alert was posted for the county, extending through the next three days.

With hopes for finding any additional survivors continuing to fade while uncertainty over the fate of dozens more lingers on, the mood among the community has grown grimmer.

Bernie Tamez, 39, said he was comfortable that officials were dealing with the community forthrightly, despite the dearth of tangible information.

"They're keeping us informed," said Tamez, a machinist who took the week off to volunteer in Darrington, where he lives.

Meanwhile, residents like 45-year-old Larry Dwyer who escaped the slide marveled at their luck.

"We were driving on that exact stretch two weeks ago. We were right there," Dwyer said as he watched his three sons wave signs ushering motorists toward a food drive at an Arlington market on a rainy Thursday evening. "That's why we're out here right now. It's a karma thing. When it's not you, you give."

Saturday 29 March 2014

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/29/usa-mudslide-washingtonstate-idINDEEA2S00820140329

continue reading