Welcome Aboard Blackwater Airlines

Two days after Thanksgiving 2004, a double-turboprop transport plane began its early-morning taxi toward the runway at Bagram Air Base, a half-hour north of Kabul. Army Spc. Harley Miller was one of two military passengers.

Blackwater had just launched its operations in Afghanistan under a two-month-old, $35 million Pentagon contract, part of the Bush administration's expanded privatization of military services, a shift intended to create what then–Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called a leaner, lighter war machine. Blackwater's duties included shuttling military personnel and cargo over the mountainous Afghan topography, where the ground always seemed to be rising. Upon departing Bagram, a contract pilot had to know the terrain and be ready to wing it without radio or radar tracking.

But then, Blackwater's gung-ho pilots weren't being paid $600 or more a day because it was easy.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-11-14/news/welcome-aboard-blackwater-airlines.php

The story is about a Blackwater plane crash in Afghanistan and the Seattle-area family suing Blackwater for negligence resulting in the death of Army Spc. Harley Miller.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ss_military_10_25.asp

Note: November 2 was the deadline to which Prince was commited!!! Has Waxman gotten that information yet??

The captain called for quarter flaps, presumably to increase lift and reduce the stall speed. But nothing is free. Increased lift means increased drag. When you think you are about to die because the aircraft is not performing up to the situation, shove the power levers as far forward as they will go. Damn the ITTs or EGTs (engine temperatures). If the pilots of Air Florida "Palm 90" (Boeing 737-200 at DCA on January 13, 1982) had applied firewall power, 78 people - including 4 motorists on the 14th St. Bridge, might have lived that day.

Firewall power is now part of almost all airlines' recovery procedures in emergencies like wind shear, stalls, or any other performance degraded situations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Florida_Flight_90