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comments911 calls detail Asiana crash horror
"I'm reporting an airplane crash at SFO (San Francisco International Airport)," an early witness said in calls released by the California Highway Patrol.
"An airplane crash at SFO?" a dispatcher asked.
"Yeah. We were hiking on a trail outside Pacifica and we heard a giant explosion and ... an airplane had crashed right there at SFO."
Another caller dialed 911, thinking the response was taking too long.
"We still don't see any firemen or anything," another witness said.
"We are responding, trust me," the operator responded.
Moments before, the Boeing 777's main landing gear slammed into a seawall between the airport and San Francisco Bay, spinning the aircraft 360 degrees as it broke into pieces and eventually caught fire.
Those who could poured out of the plane in the aftermath, dialing for help as they escaped.
"We are at the San Francisco airport and our airplane just crashed upon landing and we think we need someone here, someone here as soon as possible," a passenger said.
The dispatcher asks: Which runway?
"I don't know what runway. We just literally ran out of the airplane."
Did passengers ignore safety messages?
First responders were on the scene two minutes after the crash to tend to the injured, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman said Wednesday. About a minute later, there were firefighters equipped to douse the flames.
"We just got in a plane crash and there are a bunch of people who need help and there is not enough medics," a frantic caller said. "There is a woman out here on the street, on the runway, who is pretty much burned severely on the head and we don't know what to do."
The dispatcher assured the caller that help is on the way.
Did pilot have enough 777 experience?
The toll
The crash claimed the lives of two 16-year-old girls from China, who were coming to the United States for a church camp.
Of the 307 passengers and crew aboard the Seoul-to-San Francisco flight, 305 survived. Out of those, 123 were uninjured, while the rest went to Bay Area hospitals. Some of them were still there, including a handful in critical condition.
The shear number of injured overwhelmed emergency crews for a time, frustrating those who survived, but saw their fellow passengers suffering.
"There are no ambulances out here," a caller said. "We have been on the ground for 20 minutes. Critical injuries."
"Were you on the plane ma'am?" the dispatcher asks.
"Yes I was on the plane! We have been on the ground for, I don't know 20 minutes to half an hour?" she said. "There are people laying on the tarmac with critical injuries, head injuries We are almost losing a woman here. We're trying to keep her alive."
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News Across the World
U.S. delivering F-16 jets to Egypt
The planes were scheduled to be shipped by the end of August, but the delivery could be made more complicated if there is no Egyptian military plan to transition to civilian rule and the United States were compelled to formally declare a military coup had taken place, the official said.
If that declaration were made, it most likely would result in aid being halted. The official declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information.
Until Thursday, all indications had been that the deliveries would go through as part of a $1.3 billion 2010 military aid package that called for 20 F-16s and Abrams tank parts to be sent to Egypt. A second Pentagon official had previously said the deliveries "were on track."
Read: Why Americans should care about Egypt ?
But at the behest of the White House, the Pentagon is now sounding a more cautious note.
"Given the events of last week, the president has directed relevant departments and agencies to review our assistance to the government of Egypt," the Defense Department said in a written statement.
Opinion: U.S. must not fail Egypt
As it measures its response to the recent events on Egypt, the U.S. needs to be extremely careful about focusing on the definition of "coup" and the legitimacy -- or non-legitimacy -- of Mohamed Morsy's election, the draft constitution, and the now-ousted Egyptian president's efforts to give himself additional powers. It needs to be equally careful about focusing on the protests that helped drive him from power, and the legitimacy of political Islam.
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If the U.S. focuses on whether or not a coup took place, it will be ignoring the fact that Egypt is a key center of the Middle East and that U.S. policy will be judged by its success in meeting the needs of Egypt's people. Egypt is a nation whose problems go far deeper than the crisis that began January 2011.
As the Arab Human Development report made clear in 2009, former President Hosni Mubarak's rule had become steadily more ineffective, corrupt, and incapable of meeting the needs of Egypt's people long before 2011. He had been in power since October 1981, but the social and economic progress he made in his first decade in power had faded into a static, incompetent regime by 2005, and one that became steadily more corrupt and unable to meet the needs of Egypt's young and growing population.
The last two years have made the situation far worse in ways that affect every aspect of day-to-day life. Mubarak's fall tore down a fragile regime that mixed a state-driven economy with crony capitalism. It was a country with a bureaucracy that could barely function without a strong leader, one with no opposition parties that had real political experience or capability to govern, and whose "reformers" were (and still are) protesters with no capability to make real reforms.
The end result is that Egypt is not an abstract exercise in political theory. It is a nation of more than 85 million people, at least 25% of whom live in dire poverty, and where unemployment and underemployment can no longer be accurately estimated but have reached the crisis level. It is a nation with over 50% of its populationunder 25 years of age, and 31% under 14, but with an education system in breakdown and much of the infrastructure frozen or losing capacity.
Egypt's foreign reserves have dropped by more than 50%and it faces a crisis in getting loans from the International Monetary Fund. It is a nation where foreign investment has critically declined, tourist revenue has dropped sharply, where many small businesses have already collapsed, and many middle class Egyptians have lost their jobs and savings. Fuel and electric power are lacking, food subsidies are uncertain and sometimes failing, the currency is increasingly unstable, and crime has skyrocketed.
U.S. policy must focus on these realities, and not just politics. The U.S., in partnership with its allies, the World Bank and other international aid agencies institutions needs to support immediate Egyptian efforts to salvage the economy and bring economic reform. It needs to focus on bringing relief and stability. No Egyptian government can succeed -- democratic or not -- that cannot meet the needs of the Egyptian people. Real political legitimacy is not determined by how a government is chosen, but by how well it can meet the needs of its people.
As for politics, the U.S. needs to work with other states to push Egypt's military to support the reforms that failed between early 2011 and Morsy's fall. This means a broad-based effort to agree on a constitution, the creation of real political parties, and help for protesters learning how to organize politically and focus on practical governance and reform. It means taking enough time for elections to be open, to include Islamic and more secular parties, and focusing on the same kind of mixed national government and consensus politics that seem to have emerged in Tunisia.
One test of a solution to a problem is that it does not make things even worse. Threatening Egypt's military, rigidly cutting off aid because of a "coup" under conditions where there is no credible replacement government, and standing aside as Egypt drifts towards internal collapse is not a strategy.
Letting today's celebration of Morsy's fall turn into civil conflict and political paralysis will be a moral and ethical failure on the part of the Obama administration and the Congress, one that will do the Egyptian people vast harm, cripple a key ally, and leave a legacy of lasting anger in both Egypt and the region.
Courtesy & Thanks: CNN
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NEWS ANALYSIS
Why Americans should care about Egypt ?
Washington -- As political turmoil engulfs Egypt, Americans are watching closely -- and they should be: What happens in Egypt will directly affect Americans in many ways.1. Travel: See the pyramids along the Nile -- NOT
Egypt, with its 5,000-year history, the pyramids and pharaohs, was always a luxury travel destination for Americans but the political and social violence that has wracked the country for 2½ years has virtually destroyed Egypt's U.S. tourist business.
Post-coup violence erupts in Egypt
Now, the State Department is warning citizens not to travel to Egypt and U.S. citizens living in Egypt to leave. It also ordered non-emergency personnel and families of Americans working at the U.S. Embassy and consulate to leave.
2. Money
Egypt is America's closest ally in the Arab world and it gets $1.5 billion a year in U.S. taxpayer money for military and civilian programs. In fact, in the last 30 years, the United States has sent more foreign aid to Egypt than to any country except Israel.
Now, that money hangs in the balance as the Obama administration decides whether to call the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsy a "coup."
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells CNN: "If this were to be seen as a coup then it would limit our ability to have the kind of relationship we think we need with the Egyptian armed forces."
3. Mideast peace
The United States helps Egypt because it's one of only two Arab countries -- along with Jordan -- that made peace with Israel. If Washington pulls its aid, it could affect prospects for peace in the Middle East.
ElBaradei: Morsy's ouster was needed so Egypt cannot 'fail'
"All of these things are tied together," says CNN's Fareed Zakaria. "The aid is tied to Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, so if our aid gets cut off what happens to the peace treaty with Israel? It's a hornets' nest and that's why the administration is trying not to stir it too much."
4. Gas prices
Egypt controls the Suez Canal, a crucial sea route for more than 4% of the world's oil supply and 8% of seaborne trade. So far, the canal is running smoothly -- but increased violence could end up hitting Americans in the pocketbook.
5. The linchpin
With 83 million people, Egypt is a cultural heavyweight in the Arab world.
"The great trends that have affected the United States have come out of Egypt," says Zakaria: everything from pan-Arab nationalism of the 1950s, Islamic fundamentalism which began in Egypt in the 1970s -- even al Qaeda has its roots in Egypt and Islamic Jihad.
"Egypt is the source of all the pop music, the soap operas, the movies of the Arab world," he added, "so what happens in Egypt tends to have a much wider resonance throughout the Arab world."
Until the Egyptian military ousted Morsy, Egypt also had a claim to fame politically: a democratically elected president and his Muslim Brotherhood party. It was a message to the Islamic world that democracy just might work. Now, there's a danger the military could violently repress the Muslim Brotherhood and it, in turn, could resort to violence.
That would make the whole Mideast region more unstable -- a worrisome development for the United States.
Courtesy & Thanks: CNN
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NEWS ANALYSIS,
Opinion
US drone lands on carrier deck in historic flight
A US Navy drone successfully touches down on the deck of an aircraft carrier in an historic first for robotic flight. Duration: 00:35Watch Video:
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