Listen live to Ft Hood Shooting emergency Communications

LINK:

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?feedId=219

Breaking News: Army Says 12 Dead, 31 Wounded in Fort Hood Shootings

Army Says 12 Dead, 31 Wounded in Fort Hood Shooting (Update1)
Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Anthony Capaccio

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Twelve people were killed and 31 wounded in shootings on the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, the Army said.

One shooter, a soldier, was killed, Lieutenant General Robert Cone, commander of III Corps at the base, said at a press conference. Two other soldiers were apprehended as suspects, he said.

“We do not know” what the motive was, Cone said. He said there were “eyewitness accounts” that there may have been more than one shooter. The prime shooter used two handguns, said Cone, who also said the base is in lockdown.

The shootings began about 1:30 p.m. local time at a personnel processing center and near the Howzee Theater where friends and family were gathering for a graduation ceremony for troops taking college extension courses on the base, said Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver, a Pentagon spokesman.

Fort Hood, about 60 miles north of Austin, the Texas capital, houses about 45,000 U.S. troops and is home to the Army’s 1st Calvary and 4th Infantry divisions. It is one of the three largest Army bases in the U.S. by population and acreage.

President Barack Obama, speaking at the Interior Department in Washington, called the shootings “horrific” and “tragic.”

The FBI is on the scene and is working with the Army to determine what took place, Special Agent Erik Vasys, a spokesman for the San Antonio Field Office, whose territory includes Fort Hood, said in an interview.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anthony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net

VIDEO: Raytheon Demo-Flies Powered JSOW

VIDEO: Raytheon Demo-Flies Powered JSOW: "Raytheon announced today it conducted the first free-flight test of its powered Joint Stand-Off Weapon - Extended Range (JSOW-ER) on Oct. 1. The weapon used was a JSOW modified to show an engine could be installed within the outer mould line of the basic 'truck'.

Video: Raytheon

The missile flew more than 260 miles after release from a US Navy F/A-18 over the Pacific Missile Test Range at Pt Mugu. Raytheons threshold range target was 150 miles, and its objective was 250 miles. A production JSOW-ER would have a range of 300 miles.

The demonstrator vehicle was powered by the Hamilton Sundstrand TJ150 turbojet planned for the JSOW-ER - the same engine used in Raytheons Miniature Air-Launched Decoy for the US Air Force - but with its BLU-111 warhead hollowed out to form the fuel tank. A production JSOW-ER would have a tank installed behind a smaller warhead.

JSOW-ER is not a program of record, and would be a follow-on to  the unpowered, datalink-equipped JSOW C-1 now in development for the Navy - but it will be a candidate in the upcoming analysis of alternatives for an anti-surface warfare weapon to replace Harpoon. This is to begin in January and is expected to run for 18-24 months"

(Via Ares.)

Marine Helicopter & Coast Guard C-130 colllide

SAN DIEGO - The Coast Guard and Navy are responding to a mid-air collision between a Department of Defense helicopter and a Coast Guard airplane 15 miles east of San Clemente Island, Calif., Thursday evening. As many as nine people are believed to missing from the crash.

At 7:10 p.m. the Navy reported to the Coast Guard that they observed what appeared to be a mid-air collision in the vicinity of San Clemente Island.

The Coast Guard responded by sending three Coast Guard cutters, and diverting an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter to the area to search for survivors. The Navy sent four vessels and multiple helicopters to aid in the search.

The Coast Guard and Navy are actively searching for survivors at this time.

The Coast Guard plane was a C-130, a long-range surveillance and transport, fixed-wing aircraft that is used to perform a wide variety of missions. There were seven people aboard the plane.

The helicopter was an AH-1 Cobra, similar to the AH-1W Super Cobra, the helicopter that crashed near Alpine in May taking the lives of two Marine Corps pilots.


The AH-1 Cobra helicopter was part of the 3rd Marine Air Wing Light Attack Squadron. There were two pilots aboard the helicopter.

San Clemente Island, the southernmost of the eight Channel Islands, is 68 miles west of San Diego.

Northwest Pilots Were On Their Personal Laptops

NY TIMES:

The pilots of the Northwest Airlines flight that flew far past the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last week told investigators that they had been distracted from their duties by a discussion of a new computerized crew-scheduling system that the airline was introducing.

“Both said they lost track of time,” said an interim report released Monday afternoon by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Pilots put in “bids” for routes or work shifts by computer, and both men took out their personal computers in the cockpit, a violation of company policy, the safety board said. The first officer was more familiar with the new system and was explaining it to the captain, the report said.

Both were highly experienced pilots. Capt. Timothy B. Cheney, 53, of Gig Harbor, Wash., was hired in 1985 and had 20,000 hours of experience, about half of it in A-320s, the kind of plane the crew was flying last Wednesday, between San Diego and Minneapolis. First Officer Richard I. Cole, 54, of Salem, Ore., was hired in 1997 and had about 11,000 hours of experience.

“Neither pilot was aware of the airplane’s position until a flight attendant called about five minutes before they were scheduled to land and asked what was their estimated time of arrival,” the interim report said. By that time, they were still at 37,000 feet and more than 100 miles beyond their destination.

There is no procedure for flight attendants to check on pilots during flight. Before the airplane hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, flight attendants casually entered the cockpit as a plane was cruising, but since the terrorist attacks, cockpit doors have been reinforced and are locked during flights.

In separate interviews totaling more than five hours, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Cole told investigators they had not been napping or arguing during the flight. The cockpit voice recorder captured only the last 30 minutes of conversation, some of it on the ground after landing, but investigators said they would try to use the flight data recorder, which captured the entire flight, including use of radios, to determine the type of crew activity.