Deadly typhoon Phanfone hits Japan (Video)

 Powerfull Typhoon Phanfone has killed at least one person, a US airman on Okinawa who was washed away by high waves. Thousands of households have lost power and Japan’s two largest airlines have suspended many flights.

More footage below:

Malaysia Airlines: can it survive? (Video)

 The carrier announces financial losses and job cuts as it strives to recover from two passenger jet disasters.

Airlines assess risks above war zones (Video)

Source: http://aljazeera.com/

 The tragedy of Malaysia Airlines MH17, which was shot down over a rebel-held part of Ukraine, has focused world attention on war zones and the skies above them. Airline-industry managers are due to meet in Montreal to discuss the risks of flying over war zones. Al Jazeera’s Daniel Lak reports from the Canadian city.

Multiple passenger jet crashes in one week (IMAGE)

“Praying for the victims and families of Air Algerie #AH5017 and all of those who passed in this bizarre week of plane crashes.” – Omar Suleiman

Australia: woman loses relatives in both Malaysia airlines disasters

By: Kristen Gelineau

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

In an almost incomprehensible twist of fate, an Australian woman who lost her brother in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 learned on Friday that her stepdaughter was on the plane shot down over Ukraine.

Kaylene Mann’s brother Rod Burrows and sister-in-law Mary Burrows were on board Flight 370 when it vanished in March. On Friday, Mann found out that her stepdaughter, Maree Rizk, was killed along with 297 others on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which U.S. intelligence authorities believe was shot down by a surface-to-air missile.

“It’s just brought everyone, everything back,” said Greg Burrows, Mann’s brother. “It’s just … ripped our guts again.”

Burrows said his family was struggling to understand how they could be struck by such horrible luck on two separate occasions with the same airline.

“She just lost a brother and now a stepdaughter, so…” he said of his sister, his voice trailing off.

Rizk and her husband Albert, of Melbourne, were returning home from a four-week holiday in Europe, said Phil Lithgow, president of the Sunbury Football Club, with which the family was heavily involved. Albert, a real estate agent, was a member of the club’s committee, Maree was a volunteer in the canteen and their son, James, plays on the club’s team.

“They were very lovely people,” Lithgow said. “You wouldn’t hear a bad word about them — very generous with their time in the community, very community-minded, and just really very entertaining people to be with.”

The club members planned to wear black armbands and observe a minute of silence to honor the Rizks at their game on Saturday, Lithgow said.

Despite the twin tragedies, Burrows said he holds nothing against Malaysia Airlines.

“Nobody could predict they were going to get shot down,” he said. “That was out of their hands.”

‘It is suspicious the plane has deviated from the route it usually takes’ (Video)

 As the world mourns the tragic loss of 298 people in Malaysian Airlines plane crash over Ukraine, questions have arisen over unusual circumstances of the tragedy. RT talks to Wireless Communications professor Mischa Dohler.

Missile destroys Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine, 298 killed

Source: The Guardian

By: Shaun Walker in Kiev, Harriet Salem in Grabovo and Alec Luhn in Moscow

• Pro-Russia rebels suspected of downing airliner
• Ukrainian president condemns ‘terrorist act’
• World leaders react with shock and revulsion

The president of Ukraine has accused pro-Russia rebels in the east of the country of shooting down a Malaysia Airlines jet with a ground-to-air missile, killing all 298 people on board as the airliner exploded and rained down in fiery pieces over a rural Ukrainian village.

The huge loss of life threatens to have wide-ranging and unpredictable consequences, coming just after the US imposed further sanctions on Russia for continuing to provide weapons to the rebels. Defence and security experts said the Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile system, known to be in the hands of pro-Russia fighters in Ukraine, was most likely used.

“This was not an ‘incident’, this was not a ‘catastrophe’, this was a terrorist act,” said Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko.

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, said the plane had been “blown out of the sky”, while the Ukrainian authorities released an audio recording said to be rebel commanders apparently realising their forces were responsible.

The jet, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came down near the village of Grabovo, part of the area controlled by pro-Russia separatists, on Thursday.

It had been flying 1,000ft above restricted airspace, according to the European air traffic control body. Eurocontrol said Ukrainian authorities had banned aircraft from flying at 32,000ft or below and the doomed aircraft had been cruising at 33,000ft – however this apparently still left it within range of the sophisticated surface-to-air weaponry that pro-Russia forces have been using recently in the Ukraine conflict. All civilian flights have now been barred from the area of eastern Ukraine.

A partial breakdown of passenger nationalities was released early on Friday, showing that 154 Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians and 27 Australians were on board, along with nine passengers believed to be from the UK, four each from Germany and Belgium, three from the Philippines, one Canadian and 41 unverified. A group of international HIV/Aids experts flying to Melbourne were among those killed. Included in those numbers were the flight crew of 15, all Malaysian.

Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, said: “If it transpires that the flight was shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice.” His country was sending a disaster response and assistance team to Ukraine.

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said the world should be “filled with revulsion” at the plane’s destruction and said “Russian proxies, using Russian-supplied equipment” may have been responsible. Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said that if MH17 had been shot down it amounted to an “unspeakable crime” and a full international investigation must be allowed to take place. She said pro-Russia rebels, said to have retrieved the plane’s black box flight recording equipment, must hand it over to authorities.

The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said: “We do believe that there were British nationals on board the flight. We are working through passenger data, cross-checking it and referencing it to establish exactly the numbers and identities of those British nationals.”

The field next to the tiny hamlet was a scene of charred earth and twisted metal as shocked local people milled around the scene. Body parts belonging to the 298 people on board were strewn around. The body of what appeared to be a young woman was flung about 500m from the centre of the crash.

US government officials confirmed to media outlets that a surface-to-air missile brought down the plane. US intelligence was reportedly still working to determine the exact location from which the missile was fired, and whether it was on the Russian or the Ukrainian side of the border.

Rebels in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics have shot down several Ukrainian planes and helicopters in recent weeks. But they insisted they had no part in the downing of MH17, claiming instead that Ukrainian fire was responsible.