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San Francisco Chronicle
27 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Collapse at Chile's major copper mine kills 1 worker and leaves 5 missing
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A collapse at a copper mine in Chile killed one worker and left five trapped underground, authorities said Friday, forcing Chile's state mining company to suspend operations in affected areas of the world's largest underground copper deposit. Nine other mine workers suffered injuries, said Chile's National Copper Corp., known as Codelco, describing the incident as the result of 'a seismic event.' The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 5 earthquake in an area of central Chile where Codelco's El Teniente mine is located, at 5:34 p.m. local time on Thursday. Codelco reported the tremor had a magnitude of 4.2. Authorities said they're still investigating whether it was a naturally occurring earthquake or whether mining activity at Codelco's flagship El Teniente mine caused the quake. Chilean prosecutors also launched a criminal investigation to determine whether any safety standards were violated. Chile's national disaster response service, Senapred, said that the tremor struck the Machalí commune in the O'Higgins region, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the capital, Santiago. Codelco identified the deceased as Paulo Marín Tapia and said he had been working on the Andesita project, a new 25-kilometer (15-mile) tunnel complex extending from the El Teniente mine on the western slopes of the Andes Mountains. That expanded section had only recently started to produce copper. The company said that search-and-rescue teams had determined the exact location of the partial collapse but could not communicate with the five trapped workers. As the mountain shook, mounds of rocks and dirt caved in, falling into the tunnel where the five miners were working and blocking all access routes to the sites 900 meters underground. It was not clear whether the workers were alive or dead, but Codelco emphasized it was treating its efforts as a rescue operation. The names of the trapped miners were not released. 'We are making every effort to try to rescue these five miners,' said Andrés Music, general manager of El Teniente, detailing rescue operations involving 100 experts, including some of whom participated in the dramatic 2010 rescue of 33 trapped miners in northern Chile — who, after 69 days underground, emerged alive and into the spotlight of international celebrity. 'The next 48 hours are crucial,' Music said. Codelco halted operations at the affected section of the copper mine and evacuated 3,000 people from the wider site to safe areas. The company canceled a presentation of its first-half financial results, set for Friday morning, due to the rescue efforts. Chile, the world's largest copper producer, also lies in the seismically active 'Ring of Fire' that surrounds the shores of the Pacific Ocean. ___ ____
New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
Army Pilots Might Have Struggled to See Passenger Jet Before D.C. Crash
Before an Army Black Hawk crashed into a passenger jet on the night of Jan. 29, the helicopter pilots told the air traffic controller guiding them near Ronald Reagan National Airport that they saw a nearby jet and would steer clear of it. But experienced Army aviators told the National Transportation Safety Board during hearings on Friday that American Airlines Flight 5342 might have been difficult for the helicopter pilots to keep in their sights. Federal investigators will release their findings early next year about the cause of the midair collision, which killed 67 people — the worst airplane crash in the United States in nearly a quarter-century. But one question is whether the Army pilots ever actually saw the airplane that the air traffic controller flagged in his communications with them that night. In their testimony Friday, Army experts explained why that might have been difficult for the pilots, Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, who was undergoing her annual flight evaluation, and her instructor, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves. At night, light pollution from Washington, the Pentagon and the airport itself is a common problem for pilots. It can be worse when flying with night-vision goggles, as the Army pilots were using on the night of the crash, the aviators said. Further complicating matters were exterior lights on the commercial jet that were dimmer than those on more modern planes. Even the configuration of the Black Hawks can cause sightline problems. All those factors could have complicated the Black Hawk pilots' ability to keep their eyes on the correct airplane, even after telling the air traffic controller they could see it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
28 minutes ago
- CBS News
Key takeaways from 3-day hearing on deadly D.C. midair collision
Over the course of three days of investigative hearings, the National Transportation and Safety Board sought to gather more information about the factors that lead to the deadly midair collision over Washington, D.C., in January between an Army helicopter and a passenger plane. The NTSB heard testimony from air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army, and the families of several of the victims attended. At one point on the first day of the hearings, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said of the circumstances leading up to the crash, "Every sign was there that there was a safety risk." Addressing the families, she said the hearings would be "a critical part of our ongoing investigation." On Jan. 29, a Black Hawk helicopter struck an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, as it was coming in for a landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft. The NTSB will continue its fact finding and will compile a final report with determinations about the probable cause, likely within the next year. Here are the top takeaways from the hearings: The barometric altimeter the Black Hawk crew members were relying on may have given them incorrect information, according to NTSB investigators, because the crew was calling out altitudes that were lower than the actual height at which the helicopter was flying. The helicopter and commercial airliner collided approximately 300 feet above the Potomac River, and the maximum altitude for helicopters at that part of the route near D.C.'s Reagan Airport is 200 feet. The NTSB, as part of its investigation, tested three helicopters that are in the same battalion as the one that crashed and found that the barometric altimeter for all three was off by 80 to 130 feet. Army representatives on Wednesday told investigators that discrepancy is within the accepted variability because pilots are trained to maintain their altitude at plus or minus 100 feet. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told CBS News' senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave the NTSB calculated the margin of error on Route Four in that area of the Potomac to be 75 feet. The Army said it is conducting additional reviews to determine how to proceed, frustrating investigators who asked why it would not make changes to the equipment, based on the findings of the NTSB tests. In 2022, an FAA working group considered moving helicopter traffic away from the airport, but ultimately did not. Transcripts from the airplane's cockpit voice recorder show the pilots received an automated verbal warning about traffic in the vicinity approximately 20 seconds before the collision. Less than two seconds before impact, the pilots shouted in alarm. Flight data indicates the plane's pilots attempted to climb to avoid the helicopter just before impact. The transcripts also reveal the pilots of the American Airlines flight questioned the move to Runway 33. The plane was originally supposed to land on Runway 1 but was redirected by air traffic controllers to Runway 33. As it was trying to land on that runway, the helicopter and plane collided. The pilots of the Black Hawk missed a key word when communicating with the air traffic control tower, according to a transcript released during the hearings of the conversation between the helicopter crew and the control tower. Fifteen seconds before the collision, DCA Tower asked the helicopter if it had the regional jet in sight. Four seconds later, the DCA Tower instructed the helicopter to pass behind the plane. The Black Hawk's cockpit voice recorder indicated that the phrase "pass behind" was rendered inaudible because a helicopter crew member pressed the microphone key. Although it was already known — based on control tower audio from that night — that the controller did not warn the American Airlines plane that the Black Hawk might cross its path, the FAA only openly acknowledged this for the first time during this week's hearings. In a key moment from the second day, Homendy asked FAA Air Traffic Oversight Service executive director Nick Fuller if any traffic advisories or alerts were issued to the plane. He responded, "No safety alerts." Homendy then asked, "Should the local controller have let the [plane] crew know that there was a helicopter there?" "Yes," Fuller responded. Rick Dressler, of Metro Aviation – which operates medical helicopters — was asked if there are units flying in the National Airport airspace that make him uncomfortable. "I don't like saying that first heli of [U.S. Air Force] from Andrews (Air Base) and I don't like saying that 12th Aviation Battalion gives us all pause in the community…," Dressler said, but "we are all very uncomfortable when those two units are operating." During the hearing, the Army admitted helicopters regularly flew below flights that land at Reagan National Airport.
