Avoid ‘confined spaces’ such as planes, Biden says

Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday morning he has advised his family to avoid "confined places" such as aircraft, subways and classrooms because of the swine flu risk. Biden made the remarks on NBC’s “Today Show,” after he was asked what he would tell a family member about traveling to Mexico, where the first cases of the virus — technically known as 2009 H1N1 — were detected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, is advising people to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico, where the Mexican government suspects 159 deaths have resulted from the infection, most of them in or around Mexico City

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Official who OK’d N.Y. flyby accused of ‘felony stupidity’

After a YouTube video showed panicked New Yorkers scrambling as a Boeing 747 flew frighteningly close to the lower Manhattan skyline, a former Homeland Security adviser questioned whether the man who approved the flyby should remain in his White House office. Fran Townsend, who advised President George W. Bush for more than three years, labeled the decision as “crass insensitivity” in the wake of 9/11.

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White House apologizes for low-flying plane

A White House official apologized Monday after a low-flying Boeing 747 spotted above the Manhattan skyline frightened workers and residents into evacuating buildings. The aircraft was a White House plane taking part in a classified, government-sanctioned photo shoot, the Federal Aviation Administration said. “Last week, I approved a mission over New York.

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Passenger landed plane with ‘focused fear’

A man who landed a plane with the assistance of air traffic controllers after the pilot fell unconscious and died said Monday he was "still in a daze of adrenaline." “I’m grateful, thankful to be alive,” Doug White of Archibald, Louisiana, told CNN affiliate WINK. “I’m glad my family is safe, but let’s don’t lose sight of the fact that a man died, and I don’t want people to forget that.” White, his wife and two daughters were flying from Marco Island, Florida, to Jackson, Mississippi, on Sunday after attending a funeral for White’s brother

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‘Catastrophic failure’ caused North Sea copter crash

The transport helicopter that crashed into the North Sea this month suffered a "catastrophic failure" of its main rotor gearbox that caused the blades to separate from the aircraft and slice off the tail, accident investigators said. The rotor blades detached from the helicopter and then struck the tail, causing the tail boom and pylon — which holds the tail rotor — to become severed from the fuselage, the Air Accidents Investigations Branch (AAIB) said

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Ecudaor: Three die from Quito plane crash

A small military plane on a training flight in heavy fog crashed Thursday into a populated area of Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. On Monday, two Russian Ilyushin IL-38 maritime patrol aircraft, known as “Mays,” overflew the U.S. aircraft carrier Stennis while it was in international waters in the Sea of Japan

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Faulty reading helped cause Dutch plane crash

A "faulty" flight instrument contributed to the crash of a Turkish plane last month in the Netherlands, an accident that killed nine people and injured more than 60 others, Dutch safety authorities said on Wednesday. On February 25, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from Istanbul to Amsterdam dropped from the sky on approach to the landing strip at Schiphol Airport, shattering into three pieces in a muddy field. Pieter van Vollenhoven, head of the Dutch Safety Board, said the instrument was one of the plane’s two altimeters, which measure altitude

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