Good morning on Sunday, December 29, 2024, the penultimate day of Coynezaa, which ends tomorrow with a milestone birthday for PCC(E). Today we will have a brief Hili post, but there will be readers’ wildlife, a regular post (this one on the osculation of faith), and an announcement. All is well, and tomorrow or Tuesday we’ll be back in business.
It’s also National Pepper Pot Day, celebrating a soup said to be created on this day in 1777 when George Washington sent his cook out to forage for something that could warm and nourish his freezing soldiers overwintering at Valley Forge. This soup was the result, though Wikipedia has a different origin tale.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the December 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
There is only one item of news for us today: there has been another plane crash, this time in South Korea, and the death toll is high. On the news this morning they attributed it to a bird strike. Two people survived, both members of the crew:
A passenger plane crashed while landing at an airport in southwestern South Korea on Sunday, killing most of the 181 people on board in the worst aviation disaster involving a South Korean airline in almost three decades, officials said.
The Boeing 737-800 plane, operated by South Korea’s Jeju Air, had taken off from Bangkok and was landing at Muan International Airport when it crashed at around 9 a.m. local time. Footage of the accident shows a white-and-orange plane speeding down a runway on its belly until it overshoots the runway, hitting a barrier and exploding into an orange fireball.
Officials were investigating what caused the tragedy, including why the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned, whether birds had struck the jet, or if bad weather had been a factor.
The airport in Muan had warned the plane’s pilots about a potential bird strike as they were landing, said Ju Jong-wan, a director of aviation policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The plane issued a mayday alert shortly afterward, then crash-landed, he added, saying later that the plane’s black boxes — which should help determine the cause of the crash — have been recovered.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216 had 175 passengers and six crew members on board. Hundreds of people — grandparents, parents and children — packed the Muan airport waiting anxiously for news about their loved ones.
As of Sunday evening, the government said, 177 people had been confirmed dead, including 22 Korean nationals identified by their fingerprints. The names of the dead were posted on lists in the airport as relatives crowded around.
More than 1,500 people were deployed to help search the wreckage; at least two crew members were rescued from the aircraft’s tail section.
Lee Jeong-hyeon, an official in charge of search and rescue operations at the scene, said the plane had broken into so many pieces that only its tail was identifiable.
“We could not recognize the rest of the fuselage,” he said.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are almost in hibernation:
A: Lately you are in bed day and night.Hili: We are waiting for spring.
Ja: Ostatnio w dzień i w nocy jesteście na łóżku.Hili: Czekamy na wiosnę.
This is a really strange crash and it is very early in investigation, but a B737 pilot has a 16min video up that is pretty good. Since the tail section is intact, both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder should be recovered and have readable data which should explain a lot. Meanwhile, I think that this video mentions much of what is obvious at this point, though I cannot remember whether he mentions that these airliners are required to be flyable on one engine. They are. Url for video is
That’s an informative video. Are you in agreement with the pilot about the reinforced concrete wall being unnecessary and a problem waiting to happen? Sad crash.
Thats what I think, but I am always open to listen to the airport designers’ side of the story.
I’ve watched Denys Davidov YouTube videos on the war in Ukraine. Like you say have to wait for more information including airport design. I read Sully Sullenbergers’ book when he landed in the Hudson river. He wrote when he was looking thru the manual on emergency procedures at the time the company had removed the tabs that help you find the information you want quickly to save money,if I remember right. And probably any pilot (or any passenger) would not want extra obstacles to worry about in an emergency.
Also, what most impressed me about Sullenbergers’ book was when he wrote that it was only during an emergency that others could appreciate his good work, even though he had been displaying that level of competence on a daily basis. And then he cast that appreciation to people in all sorts of jobs that quietly do their work well day after day.
And I have to think that that includes the harbor and helicopter pilots and their crews whose skills and focus brought all those that Sully safely landed in the cold and fast-flowing river to the final safety of dry land and emergency medical care. An incredibly well-coordinated effort at the end of the day.
Everyone says the same about that wall.
Very good commentary and opinion.
D.A.
NYC
That portrait of Hili and Szaron looks like an early 20th century painting.
While not Nooz, the discussion/conflict happening on the Right between MAGA and Dark MAGA on H-1B visas is fascinating and potentially useful.
Are MAGA just racist when objecting to Musk’s (Dark MAGA’s) aims to bring in the best and brightest?
Is it in the best interests of American’s to compete not just amongst themselves for top jobs but with everyone on Earth?
As a scientist, I’m accustomed to competition as the norm. But are there disadvantages to this?
Certainly, we must fix/reform/dismantle DEI at the federal level so that universities are less incentivized against those whose families migrated to the US many years prior. Unless we do that, yes, top US jobs go primarily to the smartest immigrants. We must fix the meritocracy so that we can bring in the best and get the best and brightest of those born here into jobs that matter.
Anyway, rambles, but I thought this drama was at least as noteworthy and more mineable than the plane crash.
The immigration policy of a country should not be based on the insatiable hunger of employers for cheap labor.
+1
Yes, the cheap-labor problem came to head due to this debate. I agree with you. Earlier this year, I was on the job hunt and contacted a lot on LinkedIn by recruiters. 95% of them appeared to have been from India, hired by American corporations (biotech companies mainly) for their cheap labor. Not sure if they remained in India or were here on H-1B visas. But I had the impression that they were like factory workers. That’s wrong. Whatever is up with H-1B visas, cheap labor needs to be removed from it.
Highly talented legal immigrants who survive competitive hiring processes don’t come cheap. Large numbers of immigrants, legal or il-, who have only modest skills are a different issue. I’m not sure what a country is supposed to do, though, when the work it wants done isn’t attractive to the native-born and legal permanent immigrants because they have access to alternatives to work (or are too fat to do manual labour.) Say what you will about illegals or temporary foreign workers, they have (or should have) a hard time going on welfare because of having no paperwork showing they can lawfully be here, at all or permanently. And they are healthy and (mostly) non-criminal.
I don’t know what the solution is. When western women decided to stop having babies we condemned ourselves to either doing without workers, or to cultural-racial suicide. Maybe it’s not a problem at all because there is no solution. It’s just a fact of life, like that we are all going to die individually.
Happy New Zealand Birthday, PCC(E)!
A little off topic: John Hawks has just reported that the entire editorial
staff of the Journal of Human Evolution (Elsevier) has resigned over various issues, including use of AI. This may mean the demise of this periodical.
This is worth reading at johnhawks.net.
wow
Here’s the link:
https://johnhawks.net/weblog/a-sad-end-for-the-journal-of-human-evolution/
Ok, this is neither here nor there. But I just learned that my pseudonymous account on Bl*sky is blocked by 298 accounts and on 49 lists when I haven’t posted a thing and all of maybe three people on Earth could figure out who I am regardless.
Ceiling Cat is blocked by 181 accounts and on 37 lists. He isn’t following anyone, unlike me. I have the honor of being blocked by so many because I followed Jesse Singal, of course.
I used https://clearsky.app/ to look this up.