2024-12-29 19:15

OSLO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Finnish police said on Sunday they had found tracks that drag on for dozens of kilometres along the bottom of the Baltic Sea where a tanker carrying Russian oil is suspected of breaking a power line and four telecoms cables with its anchor. The Cook Islands-registered Eagle S was boarded by Finnish police and coast guard officials on Thursday and sailed into Finnish waters where the crew of the impounded tanker is being questioned. Baltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. NATO said on Friday it would boost its presence in the region. A break in the 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia occurred at midday on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 linking the two countries, grid operators said. They said Estlink 2 might not be back in service before August. Finnish police suspect the Eagle S caused the damage by dragging its anchor along the seabed. Investigators have identified a "dragging track" but have yet to find a missing anchor, Sami Paila, tactical leader and detective chief inspector of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement. "The track is dozens of kilometres in length," Paila said. Photos taken of the Eagle S on Friday showed the vessel missing its port side anchor. Finland's customs service believes the ship is part of a "shadow fleet" of ageing tankers being used to evade sanctions on exports of Russian oil. The Kremlin said on Friday that Finland's seizure of the ship was of little concern to it. Russia has denied involvement in any of the previous Baltic infrastructure damage incidents. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-finds-drag-marks-baltic-seabed-after-cable-damage-2024-12-29/

2024-12-29 18:52

PRAGUE, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Slovakia has rejected Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's accusation that Prime Minister Robert Fico had opened a "second energy front" against Kyiv on the orders of Russia as a gas transit dispute deepened between the countries. Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar said on Sunday Slovakia was closely monitoring communications from Ukraine regarding Fico's statements and said Zelenskiy's suggestion of an alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin was "fabricated". "We fully understand that they are exposed to a long-term war conflict, but that is why they should not create new enemies and fabricate a formation of a second front because member states of the European Union, including Slovakia, support Ukraine and its people," Blanar said in a Facebook post. Ukraine pumps Russian natural gas through its territory to several European countries including Slovakia but it is expected to halt the flow when the existing transit deal - signed before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine - expires at the end of the year. Fico, who visited Putin in Moscow a week ago, said on Friday Slovakia would consider reciprocal measures against Ukraine such as halting electricity supplies if Kyiv stops the gas transit from Jan. 1 - spurring Zelenskiy's accusation that Slovakia was opening up a second energy front. The Slovak prime minister also posted on Facebook on Sunday, calling on the European Commission to pay close attention to the matter and repeating his claims that the loss of gas transit across Ukraine would hit European consumers and businesses. "We are coming to a conclusion that must be unacceptable for the European Union and its goals," Fico wrote in an open letter. "Unilateral stoppage of transit through Ukraine towards Slovakia will cost European citizens, businesses and infrastructure tens of billions." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/slovakia-rejects-ukraine-accusations-opening-up-second-energy-front-2024-12-29/

2024-12-29 17:48

MUAN COUNTY, South Korea, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Jeon Je-young keeps playing the video of the plane with his daughter and another 180 people on board slamming into a wall and bursting into flames at a South Korean airport. His daughter Mi-sook died on board. He still can't believe it. "When I saw the accident video, the plane seemed out of control," said 71-year-old Jeon. "The pilots probably had no choice but to do it. My daughter, who is only in her mid-40s, ended up like this. This is unbelievable." Mi-sook was a warm-hearted child, he said. She brought some food and next year's calendar to his house on Dec. 21, which became his last brief moment with her. "She is much nicer than my son, sometimes asking me to go out for a meal," Jeon recalled, showing his last exchanges with his daughter on his mobile phone. The deadliest air accident ever in South Korea killed 179 people on Sunday, when an airliner belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway, erupting in a fireball at the Muan International Airport. Jeju Air (089590.KS) , opens new tab flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was seen skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before crashing into navigation equipment and a wall in an explosion of flames and debris. Only two people - both crew members - survived and were being treated for injuries. GRIEF AND RAGE Authorities called out the names of some of those killed in the crash, triggering an explosion of grief and rage among the passengers' families gathered in the airport's arrival area. They screamed, wept and collapsed on the floor of the terminal where their loved ones had been due to return home. Crime scene investigators collected saliva swaps from families to run DNA tests to identify the victims. Jeon's daughter had been on her way home after travelling with friends to Bangkok for the Christmas holiday. She leaves behind a devastated family, including a husband and teenaged daughter. "The water near the airport is not deep. Here are softer fields than this cement runway. Why couldn't the pilot land there instead?" Jeon said. Fire officials reported that the impact of the crash had left the plane "almost completely destroyed". "Through collision twice and explosion, most of the passengers were thrown off the plane, though two crew members luckily survived at the tail end," said Yeom Dong-bu, a Muan firefighter who was dispatched to the scene. "I used to work on ambulances so I've seen this kind of terrible stuff like car crashes, but not on this scale," he added. Mi-sook was identified by her fingerprints, and her family is looking for a funeral home near her town of Gwangju to transport her body there. "She was almost home, so (she saw) no need to call the family (to leave any final message). She thought she was coming home," Jeon said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/father-woman-killed-south-korea-air-crash-says-tragedy-is-unbelievable-2024-12-29/

2024-12-29 11:39

Experts say many questions yet to be answered Jeju Air says investigation is underway Deputy transport minister says runway length not a contributing factor Dec 29 (Reuters) - Uncertainty surrounds the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil, aviation experts said on Sunday, questioning how much impact a potential bird strike cited by authorities could have had in bringing down the Jeju Air (089590.KS) , opens new tab flight. The apparent absence of landing gear, the timing of the twin-engine Boeing (BA.N) , opens new tab 737-800's belly landing at Muan International Airport and the reports of a possible bird strike all raised questions that could not yet be answered. The single-aisle aircraft was seen in video broadcast on local media skidding down the runway with no landing gear deployed before hitting a wall in an explosion of flame and debris. "At this point there are a lot more questions than we have answers. Why was the plane going so fast? Why were the flaps not open? Why was the landing gear not down?" said Gregory Alegi, an aviation expert and former teacher at Italy's air force academy. South Korean officials are investigating the crash of Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, including the impact of a potential bird strike and the weather. 179 of 181 people on board died. Deputy Transport Minister Joo Jong-wan said the runway's 2,800-metre length was not a contributing factor, and that walls at the ends were built to industry standards. A spokesperson for Jeju Air was not immediately available for comment. Jeju Air declined to comment on the cause during news conferences, saying an investigation is under way. Christian Beckert, a flight safety expert and Lufthansa pilot, said the video footage suggested that aside from the reversers, most of the plane's braking systems were not activated, creating a "big problem" and a fast landing. Beckert said a bird strike was unlikely to have damaged the landing gear while it was still up, and that if it had happened when it was down, it would have been hard to raise again. "It's really, really very rare and very unusual not to lower the gear, because there are independent systems where we can lower the gear with an alternate system," he said. The probe should paint a clearer picture, he added. Under global aviation rules, South Korea will lead a civil investigation and involve the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States where the plane was made. Experts say air accidents are usually caused by a cocktail of factors and that it can take months to piece together the sequence of events. The flight data recorder was found at 11:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), about two and a half hours after the crash, and the cockpit voice recorder at 2:24 p.m., South Korean officials said. Australian aviation consultant Trevor Jensen said fire and emergency services would normally be ready for a belly landing, "so this appears to be unplanned". CHAIN OF EVENTS In the space of a few minutes, the control tower issued a bird strike warning, pilots declared mayday and then attempted to land, officials said, although it was not clear whether the aircraft had hit any birds. "A bird strike is not unusual, problems with an undercarriage are not unusual. Bird strikes happen far more often, but typically they don't cause the loss of an airplane by themselves," said Airline News editor Geoffrey Thomas. A bird strike could have impacted the CFM International engines if a flock had been sucked into them, but that would not have shut them down straightaway, giving the pilots some time to react, Australian airline safety expert Geoffrey Dell said. After the bird strike warning and the mayday declaration, the pilots attempted to land on the runway from the opposite direction, a transport ministry official said. That change of plan raised more questions for investigators, said Marco Chan, a senior lecturer in aviation operations at Buckinghamshire New University and a former pilot. "It was changed to the opposite direction fairly late as well, which added to the workload," Chan said. "It's a lot of guessing games at this stage." The captain of the Boeing 737-800 plane had worked at that rank since 2019 and logged 6,823 flight hours, the South Korean government said. The first officer had worked at that rank since 2023 and had logged approximately 1,650 flight hours. The 737-800 is one of the world's most flown airliners with a generally strong safety record. It was developed well before the MAX variant involved in a recent Boeing safety crisis. Birds hitting the plane alone were unlikely to explain the scale of the disaster, said Italian aviation expert Alegi. "Of course there might have been a bird strike," he said. "But the consequences are much too big for that to be the direct cause of the accident." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/experts-question-bird-strike-cause-deadly-south-korean-airliner-crash-2024-12-29/

2024-12-29 09:10

SEOUL, Dec 29 (Reuters) - The crash of Jeju Air (089590.KS) , opens new tab flight 7C2216 on Sunday marks the deadliest ever on South Korean soil and the worst involving a South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air Lines (003490.KS) , opens new tab crash in Guam that killed more than 200. The crash of the Boeing 737-800 at Muan International Airport is the first fatal accident involving the country's biggest budget airline, which was founded in 2005. Jeju Air ranks only behind Korean Air Lines (003490.KS) , opens new tab and Asiana Airlines in terms of the number of passengers in South Korea. The previous most deadly air accident in South Korea was in 2002, when a Boeing 767-200 operated by Air China (601111.SS) , opens new tab crashed into a hill near South Korea's southeastern port city of Busan, killing 129 people and injuring 37. Here are some of the other major plane crashes in South Korea or involving South Korean airlines: - In September, 1983, Korea Airlines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet jet when it strayed into Soviet airspace over Sakhalin island, killing all 269 people on board. - In July 1993, a Boeing 737-500 operated by Asiana Airline landed several kilometres (miles) short of the runway at South Korea's Mokpo airport in poor weather. More than 60 people died. - In August 1997, Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747-3B5B (747-300) operated by Korean Air, ploughed into a hill near Guam's international airport, killing 228 out of 254 persons on board. - In July 2011, an Asiana Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft crashed in the sea off South Korea's Jeju Island. This was later determined to have been caused by a fire in the cargo hold. Both pilots were killed. - In July 2013, Asiana Airlines flight 214 crashed at the San Francisco airport when the Boeing 777 jetliner's tail struck a seawall short of the runway, sending the aircraft into a spin, leading to the deaths of three teenage passengers from China and injuries to more than 180 passengers out of about 300 people on board. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/jeju-air-crash-deadliest-south-korean-soil-2024-12-29/

2024-12-29 06:37

Companies confirm being targeted by Chinese-linked Salt Typhoon hacking operation Networks now secure and out of threat Companies say they are working with law enforcement and government officials Dec 28 (Reuters) - The Chinese-linked Salt Typhoon cyberespionage operation targeted AT&T (T.N) , opens new tab and Verizon's (VZ.N) , opens new tab systems, but the wireless carriers' U.S. networks are now secure as they work with law enforcement and government officials, the companies said on Saturday in their first acknowledgment of the attacks. "We detect no activity by nation-state actors in our networks at this time. Based on our current investigation of this attack, the People's Republic of China targeted a small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest," an AT&T spokesperson said. While only a few cases of compromised information were identified, AT&T was monitoring and remediating its networks to protect customers data, and continues to work with authorities to assess and mitigate the threat, the spokesperson said. "We have not detected threat actor activity in Verizon's network for some time, and after considerable work addressing this incident, we can report that Verizon has contained the activities associated with this particular incident," Verizon's Chief Legal Officer said in a statement. An independent and highly respected cyber security firm has confirmed the containment, Verizon said. On Friday, U.S. officials added a ninth unnamed telecom company to the list of entities compromised by the Salt Typhoon hackers and said the Chinese involved gained access to networks and essentially had broad and full access, giving them the capability to "geolocate millions of individuals, to record phone calls at will." The U.S. Department of Defense and the Federal Communications Commission did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the company statements. China's foreign ministry could not immediately be contacted for comment. Chinese officials have previously described the allegations as disinformation and said Beijing "firmly opposes and combats cyber attacks and cyber theft in all forms." Officials previously alleged hackers targeted Verizon AT&T, Lumen (LUMN.N) , opens new tab and other telecom companies, and stole telephone audio intercepts along with a large swath of call record data. In response to that cyberattack, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Dec. 18 urged senior government and political figures to move mobile communications to end-to-end encrypted apps. Targets of Salt Typhoon reportedly included officials connected to Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaigns. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, a Democrat from New Mexico, called Salt Typhoon the "largest telecommunications hack in our nation's history" during a Dec. 11 hearing, while Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said the U.S. "must plug any vulnerabilities in communications networks." There is growing concern about the size and scope of the reported Chinese hacking into U.S. telecommunications networks and questions about when companies and the government will be able to assure Americans about the issue. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/chinese-salt-typhoon-cyberespionage-targets-att-networks-secure-carrier-says-2024-12-29/