A Tibet Airlines jet caught fire moments before it was scheduled to lift off on Thursday at an airport in China’s Chongqing city, causing injury to more than 40 passengers as they evacuated the aircraft, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The aviation accident took place at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport on the morning of May 12 and caused no deaths among the plane’s 113 passengers and nine crew members. The 40-plus people wounded while evacuating the airplane were treated for minor injuries, such as bruises and sprains, at a local hospital on Thursday according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
A plane veered off the runway during take-off and caught fire at an airport in SW China’s Chongqing on Thursday morning. 113 passengers and 9 crew members have been evacuated safely and some people slightly injured have been sent to hospital, said the Tibet Airlines. pic.twitter.com/FUZX3MSnfA
CAAC detailed the incident in a statement, revealing the “[jet’s] pilots had interrupted the takeoff in line with procedures after experiencing an abnormality … leading to an engine scrape and fire after the plane veered off the runway.”
“Emergency plans were activated and investigators rushed to the scene,” the Chinese state aviation regulator added.
Tibet Airlines, which is a subsidiary of Air China, owns and manages the airplane in question. The Airbus A319 was preparing to depart Chongqing for Nyingchi, Tibet, around 8:00 am on May 12 when it experienced an unspecified malfunction that caused it to drive off the runway and become damaged in the process.
Reuters on Thursday relayed an alleged eyewitness account of the incident by a passenger identified in Chinese media only as “Mr A.” The man said the cabin shook with a sudden “vibration” and, moments later, “oxygen masks lowered before the plane made an unusual sound and veered off the runway.”
“Crew members noticed that fuel oil was leaking and started evacuating passengers down slides,” Mr. A said.
After a fire broke out on the plane, passengers were forced to abort the slide evacuations and desperately jump from the jet onto the ground below. The witness said he jumped to safety and suffered injuries to his back and legs in the process.
The doomed Airbus A319 had flown with Tibet Airlines for nearly a decade before its failed liftoff on May 12. Tibet Airlines is a regional airline based in Lhasa, which is the capital of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The airline operates a fleet of 39 jets, including 28 A319s. A joint venture between the U.S.-based General Electric (GE) and the French aircraft manufacturer Safran (known as CFM International) produces engines for the A319.
Thursday’s mishap in Chongqing marked the second major aviation accident in China within the past two months. A China Eastern Airlines jet (specifically a Boeing 737-800) crashed into a mountainside in southern China’s Guangxi region on March 21 killing all 132 people on board. CAAC launched sector-wide inspections in the wake of the March 21 accident with the aim of identifying potential safety lapses. A preliminary investigation into the incident has yet to provide a cause for the crash, which was China’s deadliest air disaster since 1994.
Deputies of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) are swatting down claims by pro-migration liberals that she helped cause the racist, anti-migrant shootings in Buffalo, New York.
“Any implication or attempt to blame the heinous shooting in Buffalo on the Congresswoman is a new disgusting low for the Left, their Never Trump allies, and the sycophant stenographers in the media,” said Alex DeGrasse, a senior adviser to Stefanik. He continued:
This is Joe Biden’s border crisis and crime crisis across America and the Left and their allies in the media will do anything to help Joe Biden pass the buck. Congresswoman Stefanik will never stop fighting to secure our borders and secure our elections.
DeGrasse denounced the anti-migrant shooter who murdered 10 people at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in Buffalo, New York, saying:
The shooting was an act of evil and the criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Despite sickening and false reporting, Congresswoman Stefanik has never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement.
She opposes mass amnesty for illegal immigrants and Joe Biden’s wide open border. Like the vast majority of Americans, she opposes giving illegal immigrants the right to vote which NY Democrats support and have made legal in New York City. She strongly supports legal immigration and is one of the national leaders credited with diversifying the Republican Party through candidate recruitment and messaging.
We thank the groveling hacks in the media for reminding voters that Republicans oppose amnesty and will secure the border while Democrats support mass amnesty and voting rights for illegals.
Stefanik chairs the conference committee which represents all GOP members in the House. That makes her a leading spokeswoman in the 2022 elections, where the GOP’s gains are partly fueled by the GOP’s promise to reverse President Joe Biden’s policy of not enforcing the popular laws that bar the inflow of foreign workers into Americans’ jobs and communities.
The anti-Stefanik criticism includes this post by the Washington Post, where a reporter who used to cover immigration issues wrote a passive-voice, unattributed lead:
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers came under scrutiny Sunday for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory that apparently inspired an 18-year-old who allegedly killed 10 people while targeting Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo.
But the Washington Post report quickly deflated itself, saying, “While Stefanik has not pushed the theory by name, she and other conservatives have echoed the tenets of the far-right ideology as part of anti-immigrant rhetoric that has fired up the Republican base ahead of the midterm elections.”
Stefanik is facing the same someone-somewhere-claimed charges from her regional newspaper, the Times Union wrote May 15:
Before an 18-year-old man went to a Buffalo supermarket Saturday and killed 10 people and injured three in a mass shooting that officials have described as fueled by racism, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik and other prominent Republicans had been accused of using language that tacitly aligns with “replacement theory,” which the attacker allegedly cited numerous times in an online manifesto, according to several media descriptions of the post.
The newspaper is an advocate for cheap labor migration that would help business groups by suppressing Americans’ wages and spiking housing prices. In 2021, for example, the paper’s editorial board wrote:
America flourished because immigrants contributed to its labor force and its culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Today, according to the American Immigration Council, they make up over a third of the farming, fishing, and forestry workforce, and one-fourth of those working in computer and math sciences. Over four million immigrants work in the health care and social service industry. In many cases, they are doing jobs American citizens don’t want to do.
…
It is in this country’s best interests to bring those millions of people who are here illegally but living honest, productive lives out of the shadows and give them a path to citizenship — an idea even some Republican lawmakers once supported before Mr. Trump and his ilk poisoned the debate.
Stefanik’s pro-migration record has done little or nothing to prevent the media criticism of Stefanik. For example, in March 2021, she voted for a bill that would provide farm investors with an unlimited pool of cheap foreign labor and also provide the Democratic Party with a new stream of poor legal immigrants.
In the 2022 election, Stefanik is zig-zagging between the party’s pro-migration and pro-American wings. In 2021 and 2022, amid their differences, the two wings have blocked most of the Democrats’ schemes to expand the flow of white-collar and blue-workers into the United States. In early May, the two wings also announced a consensus plan for border fixes by a GOP-majority Congress in 2023.
The “top-polling issues are inflation, the economic crisis as far as labor shortage and workforce development, the crime crisis as well, the border security crisis as well,” Stefanik told the Hill. “On all of those issues we have been very disciplined on messaging, and the polling shows that we maintain double-digit leads on every single issue.”
As the Tampa Bay Lightning knocked the Toronto Maple Leafs out of hockey’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, Leafs fans turned on each other to vent their frustrations.
After the Lightning rolled the Leafs 2-1 in Game 7 on Saturday night, Leafs fans didn’t seem to know how to cope with the loss and several fistfights broke out in the stadium.
Video of one of the tussles shows a shirtless fan desperately trying to avoid blows from a fellow fan, though none seem to connect — at least in the video.
But as the first two circle each other, a few other fans started flailing about forcing a police officer to intervene to break it all up.
The loss for the Leafs puts them out of Stanley Cup contention, once again. But it isn’t anything new. They haven’t won a series since 2004.
As the New York Post added, the Leafs have crumpled for years every time they come anywhere near a series.
“The Maple Leafs have 10 straight losses when facing a chance to close out a series. The list includes blowing a 3-1 series lead on the Canadiens in 2021 but started with memorably blowing a three-goal lead in the final nine minutes of a Game 7 against the Bruins in 2013,” the paper wrote.
Gas prices reached another all-time high Monday as the Biden administration continues in its failure to take responsibility for rising prices.
The national average for regular gas rose to $4.483 on Monday, reflecting a roughly 15-cent increase over the last week.
According to AAA, has prices have risen over 40 cents during the last month. The national average for regular is also well over $1.40 more than it was one year ago.
As of Monday, the average price for mid-grade stood at $4.845, and the average price for premium is now $5.132. The average price for diesel stands at $5.566, hitting an all-time high on Sunday after reaching $5.568.
Three states are seeing average gas prices over $5.00 per gallon for regular gas — California ($5.983), Nevada ($5.179), and Washington ($5.033).
President Joe Biden speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
President Biden has failed to take responsibility for rising prices across the board, maintaining that Democrat policies “help” the situation. Instead of looking at the massive spending of Democrats and his administration’s assault on American energy independence, Biden said inflation is “really complicated” and blamed Republicans for blocking his agenda while also pointing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the coronavirus pandemic, oil and gas companies, and big corporations.
“Right now it’s confusing. There’s a war in Ukraine and they’re scratching their head,” Biden said about the American people.
“Most people, the vast majority of Americans are hoping that their government just takes care of their problem and they don’t have to think about it in detail at the kitchen table,” he continued.
Biden said the “average person” just did not understand why inflation was happening and tried to signal he understood their concerns.
Biden later added that he can “taste” the frustrations of Americans.