A news program showed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg using his helicopter over the weekend at a helipad where trips on Saturday and Sunday are prohibited.
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Bloomberg Violates Weekend Helicopter Ban, and Will Stop
A United States Army helicopter crashed on a nighttime mission in southwestern Afghanistan on Thursday.
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4 U.S. Soldiers Feared Dead in Afghan Helicopter Crash
An inquiry blames rally champion Colin McRae for causing the helicopter crash in which he died along with his five-year-old son and two family friends.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Sixty-six U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan so far this month, making August the deadliest month for American forces in the nearly decade-long war. Nearly half of the troops killed died on Aug. 6 when the Taliban shot down a Chinook helicopter in eastern Afghanistan. That was the single deadliest event of the war and sent the monthly total soaring, according to a tally by The Associated Press. The 30 American service members — most of them elite Navy SEALs — were aboard the helicopter as it flew in to help Army Rangers who had come under fire. Most of the SEALs who died were from the same unit that killed bin Laden, although none of the men took part in that mission. Read full article > >
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August is deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan; death toll includes 30 killed in crash
Previously unseen footage of the 9/11 attacks, filmed from a police helicopter hovering above the burning World Trade Centre, has emerged almost a decade after the terrorist atrocity.
The New York Police Department air and sea rescue helicopter was dispatched to the scene of the attack to see whether any survivors could be rescued from the rooftops.
However, as the audio track proves, its crew quickly realised the enormity of the situation below.
“The whole tower, it’s gone,” one officer is heard yelling. “Holy crap, they knocked the whole fricking thing down.”
Another officer asks: “How could it go down?”
The video is part of a cache of information about the attack handed over by city agencies to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal agency that investigated the collapse.
It was released by NIST on 3 March under a Freedom of Information Act request, but it remains unclear who published the footage online.
Although many of the scenes in the 17-minute video are familiar, it provides a chilling aerial view of the burning twin towers and the cloud of smoke and dust that covered the city.
Only police helicopters were allowed in the airspace near the skyscrapers, with the officers gaining exclusive images from above. The helicopter flies over the roof as huge grey clouds billow up, and then moves away, with the video panning out to lower Manhattan. A sea of people can be seen fleeing the area.
The helicopter eventually lands across the harbour from the towers and the camera pans into the aircraft, showing the ropes that would have been used to rescue people. The sparse audio gives an indication of the raw shock experienced by its crew.
“We got out of there at the right time,” one officer can be heard saying.
“I know,” another replies.
The helicopter crew watches as the north tower falls in the distance, the video zooming in to capture the building’s collapse and a huge plume of smoke puffing up.
“Holy shit,” an officer says.
Still images from police helicopters were released to the public last year under a similar request.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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Youngsters stop an airborne ambulance crew landing at an emergency call in Swansea by pelting the helicopter with snowballs.
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Snowballs stop air ambulance crew
AT FORWARD OPERATING BASE WILSON The first sign this isn’t a routine pickup is the rhythmic right and left banking of the helicopter.
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The front lines of saving lives
August is deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan; death toll includes 30 killed in crash
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
This article titled “9/11 attack: US releases previously unseen footage” was written by Sam Jones and agencies, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 8th March 2011 09.57 UTC