This Story will Make you More Afraid of Flying

If you are afraid of flying in an aeroplane, you might not like the recent 2nd near collision incident as reported by the Associated Press.

At the John F. Kennedy Airport, two airborne planes, one landing and the other taking off, came within a half-mile of colliding in the second such incident at the airport in a week, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

According to the report, a Delta Flight 123 (a Boeing 757) was arriving at the airport Friday when the pilot decided to abort his landing and execute a "go-around" — a routine procedure often used during heavy congestion. That caused the Delta flight to intersect with the flight path of Comair Flight 1520 (a Bombardier CRJ9), a regional jet that was taking off on another runway. Both planes came within 600 feet of each other vertically and a half-mile horizontally, the FAA said.

The first incident in the week occurs on saturday involved a Cayman Airways flight which was landing at JFK when the pilot decided to abort the landing a fly around the airport again as a LAN Chile jet was taking off. Their flight paths crossed, bringing the planes within about 200 feet of each other vertically and a half-mile horizontally.

According to the report, The FAA moved quickly to change takeoff and landing procedures at JFK on perpendicular runways — the kind of runways involved in both incidents.

If I were you, don't worry because such an incidents only occur at Airports with two perpendicular runways and usually occurs at very congested airport.

I admired the quick action taken by the FAA to ensure such an incident will not occur in the future. They only notice two near collision incidents and have taken a stern action by enforcing new procedures to change the way takeoffs and landings on perpendicular runways are sequenced.

Read HERE for more.

Another Crane Disaster

Another crane accident occured just 10 days after a similar incident in New York in which seven people died. The crane collapsed at a high-rise construction site in Miami, Florida killing two people and injuring at least four others. The crane fell on top of an unoccupied home used as an office at the site of the 50-storey tower on Biscayne Bay. The crane gave away while workers tried to extend the crane.

Gusset Plates

The Minneapolis freeway bridge that collapsed Aug. 1, 2008 shows a section of the steel-truss framework known as the U10 node from the bridge's west side in. The caused of the bridge failure is due to the inadequate thickness of the steel plates at this section, known as gussets. The Gussets fail to carry the extra loading on the bridge.

The failed Gusset plates which sent commuters into the Mississippi river.

Luckily There is No Tornadoes Around

Every year we heard of news about the devastation as a result of tornadoes. Tornadoes usually occur during Spring and also Summer in the United States. Sometime tornadoes occur during late winter as in the case of tornadoes ripping though several states southern of the United States, killing about 55. When you encounter tornadoes, you will depend mostly on luck that the tornado's path is far away from wherever you are.

Futuristic Cities

Flooding due to rising sea water level as aresult of global warming, disaster due to earthquake, forest fires, severe congestion, overcrowding cities, etc. Almost all of large cities in the near future will face one of these problems. One way to solve this problem is to built a new satellite cities which will have all of the characteristics that will be resistant to any of the current problems plaguing the cities. For example, in Turkey, they are visualising of building a satellite building that will be a refuge in case of severe earthquake stiking Istanbul. The proposed city will be built using earthquake resistant building and wide street as a mean of sending resques and aids to the city in case an event of earthquake is happenign. For more detail review of the proposed satellite city refer to Purdue University. "Proposed New City Of Istanbul Could Be Refuge In Case Of Severe Earthquake." ScienceDaily 26 January 2008. 2 February 2008

Flood Risk

Engineers are anticipating for a major flood in California's Central Valley. They observed existing scenario, they predict, they plan and hoping for the disaster not to happen in the future.

California flood risks are 'disaster waiting to happen,' say engineers from PhysOrg.com

While flooding in California's Central Valley is "the next big disaster waiting to happen," water-related infrastructure issues confront almost every community across the country, according to engineers at the University of Maryland's Clark School of Engineering in separate reports to California officials and in the journal Science.

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