Latest news with #CurtisWalsh
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
GR firefighters head north after ice storm to ‘help in any way'
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Two Grand Rapids firefighters are heading north to help add to the ever-growing response to the devastating ice storm in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula over the weekend. Cpt. Curtis Walsh and Lt. Abe Schnieder are both Grand Rapids firefighters and members of Michigan Task Force One, a search and rescue team that is called upon when disaster strikes. They told News 8 on Thursday before they left the station that while they have been a part of many recovery efforts, the northern ice storm might be a little different. 'Ice storms to this caliber probably will be a little bit new but of course being here in West Michigan, we are no stranger to ice storms, so we have dealt with them here as well,' Walsh said. 'We are going to go up there and help in any way that we can.' West Michigan crews head north to help after ice storm There will be 18 total task force members heading to Grayling to assist. The effort comes as 10 counties in Northern Michigan remain in a state of emergency from ice storms that damaged the region. As of Thursday, thousands from Grayling to Mackinaw City and Petoskey to Rogers City , heat or fuel. 'The local responders have been inundated and overwhelmed, so we are sending 18 people from Michigan Task Force One to embed with local resources, to help clear roadways, debris, create ingress/egress in critical infrastructure and any other needs that are needed up in the area,' Walsh said. Both Walsh and Schnieder joined the task force in 2018. Since then, they have helped with flooding in Texas and recently went to the Carolinas for hurricane relief. What Michigan crews saw in North Carolina after Helene News 8 was there as they packed up their equipment into their van before heading north. 'We prepare multiple ways; we have all of our personal protective equipment and stuff to sustain us over the three to four days that we are going to be gone,' Walsh said. 'We have gear and equipment for everything from swift water rescue to a building collapse, and obviously anything in between there will fill the mold for assisting with an ice storm response.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
BBC News
06-02-2025
- General
- BBC News
Stansted Airport staff recall UK's longest hijack situation
Twenty-five years ago, an Afghan airliner landed at London Stansted Airport, and so began the longest-ever hijack situation on British would be another four days before the hostages were released and the hijacking came to an Boeing 727 Ariana Airlines jet was hijacked on 6 February 2000 after taking off from Kabul, Afghanistan, on an internal had made stops in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Moscow before landing in the north Essex countryside at Stansted, the UK's designated hijack airport, in the early hours of 7 February with more than 150 passengers on News has spoken to some of the airport workers and others about the role they played in the crisis. 'I can't even put into words what it was like' Airport worker Curtis Walsh was 19 at the time. He was sent over to disconnect ground power from the aircraft following the four-day crisis, and then went on board."I can't even put into words what it was like," he says."These people had been on that aircraft for four days. It was pretty awful."I remember just the silence on board the aircraft. As a passenger when you fly you are used to it being all lit up, and clean, and this was just cold and dark; just a cold, dark tunnel."Now 45, he has since become a security trainer at the airport and refers to the hijacking during training sessions. 'I definitely had the adrenaline pumping' Alex Adams, 48, is head of fire and rescue operations at Stansted Airport, but back in 2000 he was a Green Watch firefighter, just 14 months into the had experienced disaster at the airport just a month and a half earlier, when a Korean Air cargo flight crashed shortly after take-off in December the hijack crisis, fire crews were put on standby while negotiations continued."We would get regular briefings and instructions, along the lines of 'Special forces have an intent to storm the aircraft if there isn't a resolution.' "Fourteen months into service, I was thinking, 'This is quite an interesting place to work.' I definitely had the adrenaline pumping for some time." 'Everyone we saw was treated as hostile' Among the special forces personnel at the airport was Colin MacLachlan, then a 24-year-old based at barracks in Colchester, he had just come through selection for the Special Air Service (SAS).He was paged to head to the airport and was the first special forces soldier on site, dressing as a police officer to blend in."I was watching the front of the plane," he remembers."You have to keep the line of sight and provide commentary as to what's going on. Everyone we saw was treated as hostile." 'You could see people coming out of the window' The crisis began to come to an end when the plane's captain and three senior crew members escaped through a cockpit window in the early hours of the fourth day. Rona Wetherall-Young, now 53, worked in the airport's press office and was on duty that night. "I remember watching Sky News as they had a live feed fixed on the aircraft," she recalls."It started showing movement inside the cockpit and you could see people coming out of the window. It was very exciting." All hostages were released soon after, with 60 going on to claim asylum in the Afghans were jailed in 2001 for hijacking, false imprisonment, and possession of firearms and explosives, but were acquitted in 2003 after they were found to have been acting under duress. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, external, Instagram, external and X, external.
