week 4 --TransAsia air crash

TransAsia airplane crashes in Taipei: 12 killed, 29 unaccounted for

CNA & AP

February 4, 2015, 1:08 pm TWN

A TransAsia commercial aircraft carrying 53 passengers and five crew members crashed into the Keelung River in northern Taipei 10 minutes after taking off from the downtown Songshan Airport at 10:52 a.m. en route to the Kinmen Islands.

Twenty-nine people have been rescued from the French-made twin-engine turboprop ATR 72, but 12 of them showed no signs of life when they arrived at the hospital or died as they were being treated.

The other passengers either remain trapped in the plane's fuselage half-submerged in the shallow water or may have floated away, according to cable TV news reports.

Among the passengers on board were two children and 31 Chinese tourists from Xiamen.

As the pilot appeared to try to control the plane as it was descending toward the ground, the aircraft's wings grazed the Huandong Blvd. overpass close to the Nangang Software Park, slicing off the front end of a taxi in its path.

The taxi driver and a female passenger were injured but were in stable condition after being rushed to the hospital.

The ill-fated plane was a newer version of the TransAsia Airways ATR-72 aircraft that crashed after an aborted landing in outlying Penghu County in July 2014, leaving 49 people dead. Stormy weather and low visibility were suspected as factors in that crash.

The CAA said the plane was less than a year old and completed its latest safety checks on Jan. 26. The agency did not offer any information on what may have caused the crash.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2015/02/04/428185/TransAsia-airplane.htm

Structure of the Lead :

Who -- A TransAsia commercial aircraft carrying 53 passengers and five crew members

What --crashed into the Keelung River in northern Taipei 

When --10 minutes after taking off from the downtown Songshan Airport at 10:52 a.m. 

Where --Keelung River

Why --not given

How --not given

Keywords :

1. turboprop 渦輪螺旋槳發動機 
2. fuselage 機身 
3. half-submerged 一半在水中的；淹沒的 
4. aborted 中途失敗的 
5. outlying 遠離中心的；邊遠的

Week 3 -- Taoyuan Fire

Fire in Taoyuan kills six firefighters

2015/01/20 09:19:22

(By Chiu Chun-chin, Tang Pei-chun and Jay Chen) Enditem/lyf

Taipei, Jan. 20 (CNA) Six firefighters perished early Tuesday when the structure of a burning bowling center in Taoyuan collapsed on them, Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said.

The incident occurred when nearly 100 firefighters went to put out the fire in the coastal Xinwu District in the northern city, Cheng said in a Facebook post.

The six firefighters, all in their 20s, were found trapped on the second of the three-story building, officials said. Two people were rescued from the fire and sent to a hospital with injuries.

Cheng promised the best possible compensation for the bereaved families and an investigation into the cause of the fire and the question of whether the bowling center has any illegally built structure.

In Taipei, the Cabinet issued a statement expressing deep condolences over the death of the firefighters.

The Cabinet also said it will instruct the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Fire Agency, to review firefighting measures, including personal equipment and training to help prevent similar incidents.

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201501200004.aspx

Structure of Lead :

WHO: six firefighters

WHEN: early Tuesday 

WHERE: in Taoyuan

WHAT: six firefighters perished

WHY: fire

HOW:when the structure of a burning bowling center in Taoyuan collapsed on them

Keywords:

1. perish (v) 死亡
2. compensation (n) 補償；賠償
3. bereaved (a) 喪失的；死了的
4. condolences (n) 弔唁；慰問

Week 2 -- Sydney Cafe Hostage

Hostage in Sydney cafe was killed by police bullets during raid: courts
BY JASON SILVERSTEIN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 9:35 PM

When police stormed a Sydney cafe in December, killing a gunman to end a 16-hour hostage standoff, they also accidentally killed a hostage, an inquest revealed Wednesday.

Katrina Dawson, 34, one of the two hostages killed in the Lindt Chocolat Cafe, was struck by six fragments from one or more police bullets, one of which hit a major blood vessel.

That detail emerged in the first day of a coroner’s court inquest about what happened that day in December and what led up to it. Several surviving hostages will be called as witnesses, the BCC reports.

A former member of Australia’s counter-terrorism unit has suggested the police used the wrong rifles during the standoff, with bigger bullets that were more likely to ricochet, ABC reports.

The first inquest day also revealed that gunman Man Haron Monis forced Tori Johnson, the other hostage who was killed, to kneel down before being shot in the back of the head. The media previously reported Johnson, the cafe's manager, tried to knock the gun out of Monis’ hand before being shot.

Monis took 18 people hostage in the Lindt Chocolate Cafe on a Monday morning. He reportedly had a history of mental illness and supported radical Islamic extremism. During the standoff, he hung a black flag in the cafe that said in Arabic: “There is no God but Allah; Muhammed is the Messenger of Allah,” a phrase that also appears on the ISIS flag.

Police raided the cafe after several hostages ran out of it. Besides the three fatalities, four other hostages and a police officer were injured.

As the inquest continues, prosecutors plan to delve into Monis’ mental health history and determine how he got the guns used in the attack.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/sydney-cafe-hostage-killed-police-bullets-courts-article-1.2095666

Structure of the Lead :

Who : police

When : December

What : killing a gunman and a hostage

Why : to end a 16-hour hostage standoff

Where : a Sydney cafe

How : not mentioned

Keywords:

1. storm v. 猛攻
2. standoff n. 僵持
3. inquest n. 驗屍、審訊
4. fragment 碎片
5. counter-terrorism unit 反恐部隊
6. ricochet跳飛、跳彈
7. extremism極端主義
8.  prosecutor檢察官
9. delve into探究

week1-AirAsia 8501 Crash

More objects found in AirAsia wreck hunt, but no sign of black box

BY WILDA ASMARINI AND EVELINE DANUBRATA
JAKARTA, Indonesia Tue Jan 6, 2015 4:28pm EST

Search teams scouring the ocean for the wreckage of an AirAsia jet found two new metal objects on Tuesday, but nine days after the plane crashed officials say there is still no sign of the crucial black box flight recorders.

Bad weather continued to hamper the search, and while conditions eased slightly on Tuesday, high waves and strong currents prevented divers from going deep into the waters to look for the plane's wreckage on the bottom of the Java Sea.

Indonesian officials believe they may have located the tail and parts of the fuselage of the Airbus A320-200 30 meters below the surface, but have been unable to properly investigate the debris so far.

Flight QZ8501 plunged into the water off Borneo Island on Dec. 28, about 40 minutes into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.

Jakarta has launched a crackdown on its fast-growing aviation sector since the crash, reassigning some officials and tightening rules on pre-flight procedures in a country with a patchy reputation for air safety.

"Divers were ready on the ship but the challenges were currents and waves," the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, told a news conference in Jakarta on Tuesday evening.

He said a U.S. navy ship located two more metal objects using sonar signals, though it is not known yet if they are part of the missing plane. Those would add to the five large objects, believed to have been part of the plane, detected so far.

Two more bodies were also recovered from the sea, bringing the total found so far to 39.

Search and rescue agency official Supriyadi, who is coordinating the operation from the southern Borneo town of Pangkalan Bun, said there had been no "pings" detected from the black box's emergency locator beacon, possibly because it was buried in the seabed or the muddy water was impeding its signal.

"They haven't found anything, maybe because the water is turbid and there is zero visibility," he said. "There's a possibility it is buried in mud."

The captain of an Indonesian navy patrol vessel said on Monday his ship had found what was believed to be the tail, a key find since that section of the aircraft houses the cockpit voice and flight data recorders. But Soelistyo said that could not yet be confirmed.

Less than a third of the bodies of the mostly Indonesian passengers and crew have been recovered so far. Many more could still be trapped in the fuselage of the aircraft.

AVIATION CRACKDOWN

The crash was the first fatal accident suffered by the AirAsia budget group, whose Indonesian affiliate has come under criticism from the authorities in Jakarta since the disaster.

The transport ministry has suspended Indonesia AirAsia's Surabaya-Singapore license, saying the carrier only had permission to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Flight QZ8501 took off on a Sunday, though the ministry said this had no bearing on the accident.

"Flying without license was not the cause of the accident," transport minister Ignasius Jonan told reporters.

Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based AirAsia, has made little comment, but said it would fully cooperate with investigations.

Indonesia's financial regulator said it did not believe the issue of whether the airline had the correct flight permits would affect insurers paying out on claims.

While the cause of the crash is not known, the national weather bureau has said the seasonal tropical storms common in the area were likely to be a factor. Last week, the authorities questioned whether the pilot had followed proper weather procedures.

On Monday, the transport ministry said officials at the airport operator in Surabaya and air traffic control agency who had allowed the flight to take off had been moved to other duties while the accident investigation is completed.

It also said it had issued a directive making it mandatory for pilots to be briefed face-to-face by an airline flight operations officer on weather conditions and other operational issues before every flight.

Indonesia is one of the world's fastest growing aviation markets and its carriers, such as Lion Air and Garuda Indonesia, are among the top customers for plane makers Airbus and Boeing.

But its safety record is chequered. The European Commission banned all Indonesia-based airlines from flying to the European Union in 2007 following a series of accidents. Exemptions to that ban have since been granted to some carriers, including Garuda and AirAsia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-indonesia-airplane-idUSKBN0K900D20150106

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-search team 

WHEN-Tuesday 

WHAT-found two new metal objects and still no sign of the crucial black box flight recorders

WHY-air crash 

WHERE-the ocean 

HOW-scour the ocean

KEYWORD：

1. scour 擦淨；洗擦
2. hamper阻礙
3. fuselage機身
4. crackdown壓迫
5. aviation航空
6. reassign再分配
7. patchy縫補的；拼湊的
8. sonar聲納
9. beacon烽火
10. impede妨礙
11. turbid混濁的
12. cockpit駕駛員座艙
13. affiliate使緊密聯繫
14. ministry部
15. insurer保險公司
16. mandatory命令的
17. chequered 有方格的
18. Exemption免除