Monday, 02 April 2012 20:04

Written by Navid Iqbal

On Monday, in Siberia, a passenger plane went down and crashed taking the life of 31 people in the process. The plane was carrying 43 people. 39 were passengers and 4 were crews. The other 12 people who survived were immediately hospitalized, on duty emergency officers said. The survivors were in serious condition.

The aircraft flew from Tyumen, a west Siberian city and was on its way to Surgut a place well known for its vast reserve of oil.

A local airline named UTair operated this crashed carrier. UTair mostly functions in the Ural Mountains and the western part of Siberia.

The crashed plane at hand is an ATR-72, French-Italian collaboration with twin engine.

The plane went down within a very short amount of time while the attempt for an emergency landing, the airline website said. The accident occurred about one and a half kilometers away from the Roshchino airport.

From UTair, no immediate explanation behind the crash was published.

An airport official said that the plane climbed hardly a hundred meters and suddenly lost every radio contact. It is assumed that the problems occurred during the take off and the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing.

Russian aviation officials have obtained technical documents regarding the aircraft. A full scale investigation has already been started. Poor quality pilot training and ‘conked out aircrafts’ are the primary suspects.

The plane took the crash quite hard. The jet broke down into manifold pieces.

The ‘Russian Emergency Ministry’ said that the black box had been found.

Tyumen city is about 1,700 kilometers east from the capital, Moscow. The city represents the capital of a big oil producing state with the same name. The aircraft’s destination was Surgut, heart of a large oil and natural gas company named ‘Surgutneftegaz’.

This is another big and crucial hit to the aviation industry of Russia. The country’s aviation industry has been going through a rough ride for quite a few years till now. President Vladimir Putin has set ‘reforming of aviation industry’ as a top priority.

Officials pointed out lack of strict rules and testing process and also age old training systems. Use of Soviet-era planes is also another prime cause behind the accidents in recent years.

Immediately Putin’s order came to lay off broken down and old planes by the end of 2012. New rules and regulations will be set to ensure a safer and better aviation industry.

Saturday, 31 March 2012 00:00

Written by Navid Iqbal

A blazing flame that had ignited at one of the North Sea platforms has been reported to be put out. ‘Total’ the French oil giant confirmed the news on Saturday.

In Aberdeen the company held a press conference to explain the current situation.  Total spokesman, Brian O'Neill confirmed about the fire being extinguished. The company also completed the evacuation process at the Elgin platform.

According to Total, the fire extinguished itself as expected.

The leak is causing wastage of almost 200,000 cubic meters of gas everyday. If exposed to naked flames, the ignition could result in a deadly explosion.

On Friday, after observing from a surveillance flight a team of experts made sure of the fact that the fire had gone out. Afterward, on Saturday another team brought positive news that the gas hadn’t burned all night long.

Brian O'Neill also said that attempts to stop the leak are being performed, as Total is sinking 2 additional wells along with a plugging process for pumping ‘heavy mud’ at high pressure to the damaged well.

Before drilling some primary work had to be done. These procedures will take at least 7 to 10 days before the drilling can start. To serve the purpose, 2 drilling rigs had been moved from elsewhere.

In Twitter, Total chief executive said that they called for ‘special firefighters’ to control the situation. He also accused a certain rock formation for the damage done on Elgin platform.

Fortunately no human casualty was found. According to the Total officials the leaked gas is evaporating causing no major threat to the environment nearby.

Meanwhile, from Germany, a Greenpeace research vessel had visited the affected area to test samples of air, soil and water for toxicity.

The team went back to Germany after 24 hours and processed the data found. If the results are positive, no further investigation will be launched. Greenpeace also intends to publish their test results and other findings.

The fire hit Total pretty hard. After this incident, Total suffered a loss of a significant amount of total 8 billion euros (in U.S dollar 10 billion) from its stock value.

This was the biggest setback Total has faced since it started its business in this area almost a decade ago.

The North Sea saw its last major industrial accident in the year of 1988. The ‘Piper Alpha’ oil platform blew out, killing 167 people.