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Eamonn Fingleton gives a stunning account of how the elite press – the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the New York Times and Washington Post - pilloried US autworkers while systematically concealing the hidden subsidies which have allowed Japan and Korea to destroy Detroit. All this with the connivance of the US government. Also in our latest newsletter: Michelle Obama comes to Merced. Bill Hatch, the Balzac of the Central Valley, gives an uproarious account of Michelle’s state visit to UC’s new campus. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
How the U.S. Press Helped Destroy the Auto IndustryOrder CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Today's Stories June 3, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts June 2, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Weissman Conn Hallinan Gideon Spiro Roger Burbach Dylan Quigley Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Belén Fernández Martha Rosenberg Willie L. Pelote, Sr. Website of the Day June 1, 2009 Pam Martens Yitzhak Laor Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Saul Landau Eugenia Tsao Afshin Rattansi Debra Sweet Abdul Malik Mujahid Bill Quigley John Wright Website of the Day May 29-31, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Vijay Prashad Gary Leupp Ray McGovern Rannie Amiri Bill Hatch Chellis Glendinning, Stephanie Mills and Kirkpatrick Sale Phyllis Pollack David Yearsley Jean-Christophe Servant Dave Lindorff James McEnteer Missy Beattie James C. Faris David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Adam Federman David Ker Thomson Mark Seth Lender Stephen Martin Joseph Nevins Sophia Mihic Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 28, 2009 Joan Roelofs Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Mouin Rabbani Joe Bageant James McEnteer Dedrick Muhammad Richard Morse David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day May 27, 2009 Joanne Mariner Paul Craig Roberts Walden Bello Dave Lindorff Brian M. Downing Carlos Villarreal Nadia Hijab Adam Federman Laray Polk Isabella Kenfield David Michael Green Website of the Day May 26, 2009 Manuel Garcia, Jr. Mike Whitney Sharon Smith Marjorie Cohn Dean Baker Deepankar Basu Fred Gardner Jordan Flaherty Josh Ruebner Brian Cloughley Website of the Day May 25, 2009 Diane Christian John Ross Kenneth Hartman Uri Avnery Fred Gardner Cindy Sheehan Sen. Russell Feingold Sibel Edmonds Franklin Lamb Dave Lindorff Daniel Wolff Website of the Day May 22-24, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Michael Teitelman Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Sonia Cardenas / Clive Hamilton Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Carlo Cristofori Dean Baker Rannie Amiri Andy Worthington David Macaray Nadia Hijab Franklin Lamb Ted Newcomen David Ker Thomson David Rosen Mark Weisbrot Robert Fantina Heather Gray Farzana Versey Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Jay Diamond Dr. Susan Block Ben Sonnenberg David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 21, 2009 Jeffrey St. Clair / Paul Craig Roberts Chris Floyd Gerald Paoli Zach Mason Uri Avnery Andy Worthington Niranjan Ramakrishnan Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Website of the Day May 20, 2009 Michael Hudson Gary Leupp Michael D. Yates Jonathan Cook Peter Lee Binoy Kampmark Peter Zinn William Loren Katz Gary Lapon Trudy Bond Website of the Day May 19, 2009 Kristoffer Rehder Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Vijay Prashad Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam Mustafa Barghouthi Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark John Walsh David Macaray Website of the Day May 18, 2009 Dave Lindorff Abdul Malik Mujahid Jonathan Cook Ben Rosenfeld Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Stephen Soldz Eugenia Tsao Walter Brasch Roberto Rodriguez Charlotte Laws Website of the Day May 15-17, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair David Rosen Mike Whitney Bruce Page Jeremy Scahill Fred Gardner Tom Barry Mats Svensson Ramzy Baroud Mark Engler Mark Weisbrot Farzana Versey Ron Jacobs Hannah Wolfe Cal Winslow David Macaray Christopher Brauchli Mark Seth Lender Robert Fantina David Ker Thomson Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Chase Madar Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 14, 2009 Michael Hudson Andy Worthington Paul Craig Roberts Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Lance Selfa David Green Dave Lindorff Frida Berrigan Sue Udry Website of the Day May 13, 2009 Brian M. Downing Gareth Porter Robert Sandels Ricardo Alarcón Eric Walberg Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi William S. Lind Kevin Zeese Franklin Lamb Website of the Day May 12, 2009 Gary Leupp Richard Neville Wajahat Ali Dean Baker Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Paul Craig Roberts Lisa M. Hamilton Bob Fitrakis / David Macaray Website of the Day May 11, 2009 Andrea Peacock Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader John Kelly Saul Landau Dave Lindorff David Michael Green Anthony Papa Paul Krassner Website of the Day
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June 3, 2009 The Physics of a DisappearanceWhat Happened to Air France Flight 447?By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 725 km (450 miles) northeast of Brazil at about 2:30 a.m. local time, Monday, June 1. The accident occurred three hours into the 11 hour flight; 228 people were aboard the twin-engine Airbus A330-200 jet. While flying at 521 mph (839 kph) at 35,000 feet (10,671 m) at 2:15 a.m., the plane encountered heavy turbulence. An automated communications system in the airplane began an exchange of data with Air France maintenance computers on the ground that totaled four minutes and indicated that multiple electrical and pressurization failures had occurred. The last contact was at 2:33 a.m. There was no distress call from the pilots. Brazilian air force planes searching the area found a five kilometer strip of floating debris including cables and fuel slicks. Brazilian and French ships should arrive early Wednesday to begin the accident investigation and the recovery of bodies. (See early news bulletins, 1 and 2, and later bulletin 3) Determining what actually happened will require recovering and examining the remnants of the airplane, in particular the major fragments of the airframe, the engines, and most importantly the flight recorders (flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder). Without the benefit of a pilot's radio report, investigators would only have the flight histories of the selected components and parameters that are monitored by the flight recorders. One worry is that the flight recorders are submerged at between 9,000 ft (2744 m) and 14,000 ft (4268 m) and may be difficult to find; their casings are designed to withstand the pressure of 6000 m (19,680 ft) depth for up to 30 days. Speculation about what may have happened centers on lightning causing a massive electrical surge which caused the failure of (fused, short-circuited, overloaded) the fly-by-wire flight controls; and severe buffeting in a thunderstorm, which disrupted the flight-path. Pilots of fly-by-wire airplanes do not normally use muscles or hydraulics to move the many flaps and the rudder; electric motors controlled by computers do this to an extent set by the pilots' manipulation of their control levers, pedals and wheels. The lightning-blackout scenario is unlikely because lightning strikes happen regularly in commercial and military aviation, and airplanes are designed to withstand them (by keeping the electrical charges outside the plane's interior, because of the all-metal hull and wing surfaces). Also, pilots are trained (in simulators) to compensate for loss of the fly-by-wire system by using the mechanical control system of the trim tabs to push the bigger flaps and the rudder into place. Trim tabs the smallest of the many types of movable flaps, which act like the tails of weathervanes, pushing the larger flaps or rudders they are embedded in into new angles; in normal operation the trim tabs are an assist and a fine adjustment. The lack of a distress call from the pilots suggests two possibilities: their radios were inoperative or had lost power (which would be odd since the automated data transmission system was functioning), or a very sudden breakup of the airframe in flight. Airframes of modern commercial airliners like the Airbus A330-200 are designed to withstand the buffeting of air turbulence and the stresses of the severe turns and dives that may occur in emergencies. If the airframe broke up prior to impact with the water, what was its cause? Obvious guesses are: missile, bomb and fuel tank explosion. There is no evidence of a missile attack, so we eliminate that guess. Sabotage by bomb is also discounted, because that guess requires too many elaborate assumptions. Actually, any speculation is entirely unjustified at this point, since recovering evidence and systematic analysis have yet to begin. However, events like this inspire fear and cause minds to race, speculating on causes and meanings. So, we are led to the question of a fuel tank explosion, could it have happened in AF 447 as either a natural event (electrostatic discharge into fuel-air vapors above liquid fuel in an agitated tank) or an unintended electro-mechanical failure (spark from wire exposed by damaged insulation, into fuel-air vapors) as in the TWA Flight 800 disaster of 1996. The fuel tanks of airliners are fitted into the wings and the section of the hull below the passenger deck and along the length of the wing roots. The central fuel tank between the wings is usually the single largest volume fuel container. As a plane climbs to higher elevation, the atmospheric pressure drops and so the air originally contained in a fuel tank at the airport seeks to expand; if the tank were sealed this would cause the internal pressure to increasing exceed the external pressure and put great stress on the tank walls. Similarly, as fuel is pumped out of a tank to the engines, the space evacuated must be filled with ambient air to avoid creating a vacuum that would resist subsequent pumping. So, fuel tanks are designed with vents that allow air to flow in, and fuel-air vapors to flow out as needed to equalize pressures at any altitude. The vents are in the form of pipes that run from the central fuel tank through the wing tanks and out to the wing tips where an orifice, at each wing tip, allows for the exchange of air. Because hydrocarbon liquids and vapors are very insulating electrically, and metals are excellent conductors, there is always a build-up of electrostatic charge between fuel flows and metal containers. This is why sparks can be generated when fuels are pumped into rapid flows or sprays near metal surfaces. There have been many accidents caused by electrostatic discharges into fuel-air mixtures, which were initiated by improperly grounded or excessively turbulent pumping procedures. The petroleum industry has long known about this phenomenon, and developed many standards for the design and operation of fuel pumping and storage equipment. Also, many fuels have chemical additives that enhance their electrical conductivity, to significantly reduce their ability to hold electrostatic charges (reducing the electrostatic build-up relative to the metal piping and containers during pumping and/or sloshing). The fuel vent pipes of airliners are one type of fuel pumping system. These must be designed to minimize the electrostatic build-up between the flowing fuel-air mixture and the pipe walls. Larger diameter vent pipes will keep flow velocities low (electrostatic build-up and the possibility of sparking increase with flow velocity). Plenum chambers and baffles along the flow path can help prevent bursts of rapid flow in reaction to some mechanical jolt to the wing structure or some sudden drop in external air pressure (which would impulsively draw out fuel-air vapors). Using additives to significantly increase the fuel's conductivity is also extremely helpful. Because the airplane manufacturing, airline transport and fuel industries routinely do a good job of managing the fuel and fueling risks, it is rare that we hear about fuel fires and explosions on the tarmac or in flight. However, fuel vapor explosion accidents still do happen; a Boeing 737-400 parked at the gate in 2001 had its center tank explode, killing one person (See 4). Despite the many airliners that experience lightning strikes without harm, it may be that the destruction of AF 447 was the rare instance of lightning igniting the fuel-air vent flow, which subsequently caused a major fuel tank explosion. Whatever the cause of the loss of AF 447, the loss of 228 lives demands that it be found, and the lesson applied to improve air transport safety. Manuel Garcia, Jr., a former physicist at Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory, can be reached at mango@idiom.com Notes: [1] AFP news bulletin, [2] CNN news bulletin, |
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