Seguridad aérea (Continuación)

Europa, , , , ,

In eastern Ukraine, Vladimir V. Putin has been playing with fire.

He has mobilized the worst elements to be found in the region.

He has taken thugs, thieves, rapists, ex-cons and vandals and turned them into a paramilitary force.

He has permitted ad hoc commanders of separatist groups to kill or chase off intellectuals, journalists and other moral authorities in the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk.

He has watched as a vodka-soaked rabble army destroys or takes over public buildings, hospitals, schools and municipal offices of the country it is pretending to liberate.

He has allowed a veritable gang war to take hold — without caring that he is losing control of the forces that he has unleashed, with rival bands pitted against one another and carving out fiefs amid the growing anarchy.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea, ,

Less than two weeks ago, the Netherlands was still delirious with the fever surrounding the World Cup. The Dutch unexpectedly achieved third place. Dutch nationalism, usually muted, was briefly turned into mandatory enthusiasm, as the Dutch team racked up victories over Spain, Australia, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and, finally, Brazil. On Twitter, a soccer commentator who ventured a few critical remarks about the Dutch team received comments to the effect that he should be thrown out of a plane.

Then, on Thursday, while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in eastern Ukraine. Of the 298 passengers and crew members who were killed, 193 were Dutch nationals, among them a famous AIDS researcher, Joep Lange, and a senator and legal scholar, Willem Witteveen.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, , , , ,

The tragic fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, believed shot down by a missile in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 on board, has cast a new light on the series of gambles Russian President Vladimir Putin embarked on in late February.

At that time, Putin sent military intelligence troops in unmarked uniforms to take control of the southern Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Three weeks later, Russia annexed the region.

As Russian-speaking Ukrainians farther north in Donetsk and Luhansk stormed administrative buildings, demanding independence from Kiev, Russian intelligence officers started slipping across the border to help organize the militias. In subsequent months, Moscow supplied the separatist guerrillas with artillery, tanks and anti-aircraft weapons.…  Seguir leyendo »

A part of the wreckage of flight MH17. 'New sanctions against Russia are just a matter of time.' Photograph: Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters

Europa, , ,

Until Thursday, the world was ready to let Ukraine fail: hollowed out by corruption, dismembered by Russia, given up on by western countries. The downing of flight MH17 has changed that.

Visitors can be forgiven for not realising quite how wrecked Ukraine is. Kiev has all the car showrooms, restaurants and elegant architecture of a European capital, but last year Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index rated Ukraine 144th in the world, level with the Central African Republic.

Ukraine’s orgy of kleptocracy reached its riotous peak under Viktor Yanukovych, leaving the country incapable of defending itself, or even of holding itself together.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

Almost as soon as the news broke about the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine on Thursday, in which all 298 passengers and crew members were killed, people began to ask: What was a commercial aircraft doing over a conflict zone in the first place? Was this disaster somehow the airline’s fault?

The answer is no — but to understand why, you have to look at the complex realities of modern commercial aviation.

Malaysia Airlines, already world famous because of the still-missing flight MH370, appears to have been following all normal safety rules. And the rules governing airline flights over danger zones, including Ukraine, reflect the balance between the risks inherent in any flight and the efficiency on which the world airline system depends.…  Seguir leyendo »

The burnt-out wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Photograph: Dzhavakhadze Zurab/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

Europa, , ,

Within hours, even minutes, of the Ukraine air disaster, there was only one culprit in the eyes of much of the world. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was already in the dock.

Russia, it was assumed, had supplied the murderous weapon system to anti-Kiev fighters, in a move not just belligerent but reckless (because the recipients were unlikely to have the necessary expertise). The Kremlin, it was also assumed, pulled the rebels’ strings, ordering them to advance or retreat as suited its purpose. So, whoever pressed the button to launch the missile, the buck stopped with Moscow.

There are reasons to question both these assumptions.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, , ,

Today, we are all mourning the loss of 298 people who died in the tragic crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Ukraine and Russia have been trading blame on who is responsible for shooting down the aircraft. As more details come in, U.S. officials believe that pro-Russian rebels fired the missiles.

Whatever the political repercussions are, the international community owes it to the deceased and their families to conduct an immediate, thorough, competent and, most important, independent investigation of what exactly happened and who is responsible.

We cannot afford to have another aviation accident investigation that appears to stumble at its outset.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, , ,

In the last few days, two Ukrainian warplanes were brought down over Eastern Ukraine (one allegedly by a Russian jet) and on Thursday a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane crashed in the area, apparently with the loss of all 298 souls on board. If it turns out that the unfortunate civilian airliner was also shot down, Russia and its local allies could again be implicated. Understandably, the international community will wonder whether this portends an escalation in the Kremlin ambitions there.

Vice President Joe Biden is already sure he knows what happened, telling an audience in Detroit on Thursday that the plane has "been shot down, not an accident.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

There is still much that is mysterious about the fate of Malaysia Air Flight 370, but there is emerging consensus that the passenger jet bound for Beijing changed course, flying west over the Indian Ocean and flew for at least four hours. This tends to suggest that there was a human intervention, rather than a mechanical failure.

Typically such a human intervention would be a hijacking for political purposes, as was the case with the 9/11 flights or any number of other hijackings.

But no credible terrorist group has asserted responsibility for this operation and whoever diverted Malaysia Air Flight 370 issued no demands, which would be typical in the case of most hijackings.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

Sometimes, the crash site is never found.

In 1972 a Pan Alaska Airways flight with one pilot and three passengers took off from Anchorage bound for Juneau, planning to fly the route under visual flight rules despite bad weather conditions. After one last contact with air traffic controllers, the Cessna was on its way. The plane never reached Juneau. The flight had two congressmen on board -- Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Nicholas Begich of Alaska.

The search for the missing aircraft was intense, encompassing 325,000 square miles of land and sea, with 3,600 flight hours used to look for the wreckage.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

The lack of definitive information about the fate of Malaysia Flight 370 has baffled and riveted expert and average person alike. Even the promise of Chinese satellite images capturing the location of crash debris turned out to be false, as Malaysian authorities said a search of the area found nothing.

Amid the muddle of speculation, possibilities and blind alleys, are there logical explanations in this mysterious disappearance? The short answer is yes. But what, of what we know so far, makes sense exactly?

First, the focus on the airplane's transponders, the device that transmits a discreet signal to Air Traffic Control (ATC) radars, might be misguided.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

Muchas personas se preguntan por qué existen tan pocas pistas sobre el destino del vuelo 370 de Malaysia Airlines, empezando porque no existió una llamada de socorro.

Sin embargo, que no exista una llamada no es particularmente desconcertante. Una de las prioridades de un aviador es mantener el control del avión por encima de todo. Una emergencia puede consumir fácilmente el 100% de los esfuerzos de una tripulación. Para un piloto de aerolíneas, la ausencia de llamadas por radio al personal en tierra que no podrían hacer mucho para ayudar a la situación inmediata no es ninguna sorpresa.

Esta investigación puede enfrentar muchos paralelos al Air France 447, un Airbus A330 que se estrelló en un área más allá de la cobertura de radar al norte del océano de Brasil en junio de 2009.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Russia's dismal air-safety record made the news again this weekend, when a 23-year-old Boeing 737-500 crashed and exploded at the Kazan airport 450 miles east of Moscow, killing all 44 passengers and six crew.

The tragedy caused much anger and speculation, and highlighted the unaccountable risk of flying in Russia these days. Center-left politician Dmitri Gudkov wrote on his LiveJournal blog that about 75 million air tickets a year are sold in Russia, compared with close to 1 billion in the U.S. Despite the relatively small passenger volumes, Russia is second in the world in fatal plane crashes after the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Observer status in the global aviation organization is a no-brainer

The current Congress stands accused of not accomplishing much. Before its summer recess, however, it passed a significant, but little-noticed, piece of legislation. Public Law 113-17 directs Secretary of State John Kerry to develop a strategy to obtain observer status for Taiwan in the International Civil Aviation Organization and report formally to Congress on the administration’s progress.

The House and Senate were already on record in urging the administration to take a leading role in securing observer status for Taiwan. This new law puts teeth into the earlier “sense of the Congress.”…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

Un colega profesor del IESE me comentó que hace unos años los responsables de sanidad de una gran ciudad le habían pedido asesoramiento sobre cuántas ambulancias debían tener disponibles y en qué puntos de la ciudad para atender todas las emergencias que se presentaran. Este profesor les preguntó: ¿cuánta gente queréis que se os muera? La respuesta fue obvia: nadie. Entonces es muy sencillo, les dijo. Poned una ambulancia detrás de cada ciudadano. Algo similar me contó también hace tiempo el profesor de un colegio. Atendía a una madre que estaba indignada porque su hijo había saltado la valla del colegio a la hora del recreo.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

Last week our country averted a disaster. Good work by American and foreign intelligence officials pinpointed explosives hidden in packages shipped in Yemen and bound on airplanes for the United States. But we cannot rely on getting such timely, accurate intelligence — it often is simply unavailable — and the episode highlighted a number of problems with our system for screening inbound air cargo.

The Department of Homeland Security has established very good “risk rating” systems to prevent dangerous goods from entering the country. The problem is that these systems are used only for cargo on ships, not for that arriving by air.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate

Tras el cierre de los aeropuertos europeos por la erupción del volcán islandés y la nube de cenizas que inundó los cielos, las aerolíneas criticaron la gestión y las decisiones tomadas por Eurocontrol. En parte suena a queja premeditada para justificar su petición de ayudas públicas, pero también pone de manifiesto que las aerolíneas quizá no hubiesen tomado la misma decisión. Es decir, querían haber volado antes. Nos preguntamos, ¿quién tenía razón? Es más, ya que este tipo de situaciones se están repitiendo con cierta frecuencia -desde el 2001 hemos tenido el 11-S, SARs, la gripe aviar y ahora el volcán-, cabe preguntarse qué debemos hacer para tomar las decisiones adecuadas en el futuro.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate

La nube de ceniza que ha paralizado el tráfico aéreo de Europa ha puesto en evidencia tres cuestiones: que Europa no ha resuelto la gestión de la seguridad de su espacio aéreo, que evaluación de riesgos y prevención de peligros son conceptos distintos y que el principio de precaución sirve, al menos en este caso, solo para eludir la responsabilidad política en la gestión de riesgos.

En primer lugar, la gestión de la seguridad aérea en Europa corresponde a Eurocontrol, un organismo que agrupa a 38 estados europeos, pero que precisa del aval de los ministros de Transporte para aplicar sus decisiones.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

I've been a frequent flier for more than 30 years. I've racked up several million "miles," and I've been through security checks hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. I've been patted down, scanned and searched - my fair-skinned and blue-eyed contribution to statistics showing nobody is being "profiled."

Today it's clear the Islamists are training and sending forth new waves of would-be airline bombers. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab said as much after he tried to blow up Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. Mr. Abdulmutallab's holy mission from Yemen gave us another in our current series of wake-up calls. Lately, his kind have killed military recruiters in Little Rock, Ark.,…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

Here is a cruel but unavoidable reality that no politician wants to acknowledge: We can never make air travel 100 percent secure. The goal is to achieve a level of security consistent with protecting our values, our economy and our interests.

But the attempt to bomb Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day provoked what has become a predictable response from our political leaders following a terrorist attack, even an attempted one: Do something, or, more accurately, be seen doing something.

Immediately after the attempted attack, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced a raft of new measures for international flights - including plane-side searches of all passengers and carry-on luggage headed for the United States and prohibiting passengers from holding blankets and pillows during the last hour of U.S.-bound…  Seguir leyendo »