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Boeing's flight of fancy to fly soon

Boeing said today that the much-delayed 787 Dreamliner will make its first test flight by year's end -- and said it still expects its 787 production to be profitable, Dow Jones Newswire reports. 

The first delivery, to All Nippon Airways, is slated for late in 2010, the sixth delay for a plane once scheduled to arrive in May 2008. Boeing said it expects to produce 10 Dreamliners a month in late 2013.

The Chicago Tribune notes that Boeing has been struggling with a groundbreaking design and a new way of manufacturing the plane that placed much of its development in the hands of subcontractors. The complex, midsized jet features a new generation of electronics systems and a shell made mostly of super-hardened plastics.

"We understand the need to make the best and safest aircraft possible and appreciate that delays due to engineering," All Nippon said in a statement. "However, as launch customer and future operator of the 787, the length of this further delay is a source of great dismay, not to say frustration."

Bantering, jokes shown in transcript around ill-fated Hudson flight

Q1X00140_9 Two minutes after an air traffic controller cleared a private plane for takeoff and a fateful flight over the Hudson River, he was joking on the phone with a woman at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport about barbecuing a dead cat, the Associated Press reports.

"We got plenty of gas in the grill?" the controller asked, according to a transcript of the tape. "Fire up the cat."

"Ooh, disgusting, augh, that thing was disgusting," the woman, who worked in the airport operations center, responded.

The draft transcript obtained by the AP showed that the two continued to chat until seconds before the private plane collided with a tour helicopter over the Hudson River on Aug. 8, leaving nine people dead.

The AP says it obtained the transcripts from a source familiar with the investigation who wasn't authorized to release them and asked not to be identified.

The bantering had begun in an earlier phone call, during which the woman discussed how she and another worker had picked up the cat from airport property. That call ended 12 minutes before the ill-fated Piper's pilot told the tower he was ready for takeoff. The controller directed the Piper toward the Hudson, handed off responsibility for the plane to nearby Newark Liberty International Airport and gave the pilot the radio frequency to contact Newark.

The Teterboro controller then called the woman back and resumed the bantering until he was contacted by radio by a Newark controller who was concerned about aircraft in the path of the Piper.

From the transcript:

"Hey, Teodoro, Newark. Would you switch that guy, maybe put him on a two-twenty heading to get away from that other traffic please?" the Newark controller said.

"Say again, Newark," the Teterboro controller responded

"Can you switch that PA-32 (the Piper)?" the Newark controller said.

"I ... did keep an eye on him, though," the Teterboro controller said.

"I'm not talking to him, so ..." responded the Newark controller.

The Teterboro controller then tried unsuccessfully to radio the Piper.

"One mike charlie, Newark is (on frequency) twenty-seven eighty-five," the Teterboro controller told the plane. And then he reported to Newark: "He's lost in the hertz, try him again."

The Newark controller tried unsuccessfully to raise the Piper: "One mike charlie, Newark."

Shortly after that the controller explained to the woman on the phone that the Piper pilot probably had the wrong radio frequency.

Eight seconds later, the controller said, "Damn ... Let me straighten stuff out," and ended the call.

The Federal Aviation Administration said last week that it has placed the controller and his supervisor, who was out of the building at the time, on administrative leave pending an investigation. The agency said the controller's actions were inappropriate and unacceptable, but didn't appear to have contributed to the accident.

That prompted a rebuke from the NTSB, which said it was up to the board to determine what role the controller's actions may have played in the accident, the AP says.

A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said the nature of the phone conversation wasn't relevant to the accident investigation.

(Photo of the plane's wreckage by Mel Evans, AP)

Hotel claims rape victim negligent in attack in its garage

The Marriott Hotel in downtown Stamford, Conn., is claiming that a woman who was raped in its parking garage three years ago was negligent in the attack.

The Connecticut Post and Stamford Advocate first broke the story in which the hotel is responding to a suit filed by the unidentified woman, who was with her toddlers when she was assaulted at gunpoint.

As part of its defense, the hotel's lawyers say that the victim "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities," according to court documents cited in the stories.

The Stamford Marriott, plus the companies that manage the hotel and its parking garage, made the claim as part of a list of special defenses filed in state Superior Court in Stamford last month, the stories say.

In its defense, the Marriott hotel's legal team claims that the acts were beyond their control and that the woman failed to properly "mitigate their damages," the story says.

The Post's reporter, Monica Potts, says a hotel manager declined to comment on the case and she did not get a return call from the hotel's lawyer on the incident.

For more, click here for USA TODAY's Check-In, which is closely following the story.

New video shows Hudson River crash of plane, copter

NBC News has just aired video of the midair crash between a small plane and a helicopter over the Hudson River. See the report here.

NBC says the video was taken by an Italian tourist trying out a new camera and captures the moment of impact. Nine people died in the crash Saturday.

The video shows the single-engine plane coming up from behind the helicopter and "seems to almost explode on impact." The plane turned, climbed and then its right wing clipped the copter's rotor blades, sheering off the wing and rotors. Both aircraft then plunged into the river.

Investigators theorize the helicopter may have been in the plane's blind spot beneath its wings.

Earlier today, the coffins of the five Italians in the helicopter arrived home for funerals. The three family members in the plane will be buried tomorrow outside Philadelphia.

Flower shop worker accused of key role in Indonesian hotel blast

Our colleagues over at Hotel Check-In are carrying an AP report that Ibrohim, a hotel flower-shop worker who had worked in upscale Indonesian hotels for about 14 years, helped orchestrate last month's  deadly suicide bombings at Jakarta's Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott.

The attacks killed seven people and injured more than 50.

For more, click here for Hotel Check-In.

Lockerbie bomber may soon be released from prison

Q1X00115_9

Is one of the Libyans behind the bombing of Pan Am 103 about to be released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds?

Q1X00198_9 Two British broadcasters, the BBC and Sky News, are both reporting that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, will be freed next week.

The BBC says al-Megrahi's release was influenced by the hope that he could be back on Libyan soil in time for Ramadan next week.

The former Libyan secret service agent is serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 of Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, most of them American.

Sky News quotes American Susan Cohen, whose 20-year-old daughter, Theo, was among the victims, as saying that if al-Megrahi is released, he will be treated as a hero in Libya.

"I'm sick of hearing about compassion --- have your compassion for all those people who died," she tells Sky News.


X00029_9 Scottish ministers have denied any such decision has been made,  the Associated Press reports.

Scottish TV quotes Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill as saying the decision will be made next week.

Scottish TV also says the governor of Grenock jail has recommended the release because of al-Megrahi's health.

"The Justice Secretary has three options," Scottish TV reports. "He could keep Megrahi in jail, or he could, under a prisoner transfer agreement have al-Megrahi transferred to serve his sentence in Libya. Lastly he could release Mr. Megrahi on compassionate grounds which in effect means he goes free."

(Photos: Top, AP; al-Megrahi, from Crown Office via PA, AP: victim Theo Cohen from Peter Dejong, AP)

Today's video: 96-year-old great-grandmother parasails

It looked like fun, so 96-year-old Pauline Sherman thought she'd join her 17-year-old great-granddaughter, Hilary Ford, for a little parasailing near the Isle of Palms, The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C. reports.

"I've never done many outrageous things in my life," Sherman tells columnist Ken Burger. "I had been in a little boat once before and it was kind of scary. But this was fun."

Or as Burger puts it: "Not bad for a lady who was born the year the Titanic went down (1912) and has never even driven a car."

Click here for a link to the video.

Fla. population shrinks for first time since WWII

Q1X00224_9 Florida, a longtime magnet for job seekers and retirees, is losing population for the first time since the mass demobilization of troops after World War II, the St. Petersburg Times reports.

The Times says University of Florida demographers will report Friday that the state lost about 50,000 residents from April 2008 to April 2009. The population currently is 18.3 million.

The newspaper says that even during the Great Depression, new residents swept into the state looking for work and leisure.

But the housing bust and the "sputtering of Florida's job creation machine" has reversed the state's former "gravitation pull," the newspaper says.

Correction: The report will be released on Friday, not today.

(Photo by Cheryl Gerber for USA TODAY)

Eighth body found in Hudson crash wreckage

Crash081009

Divers have found a man's body in the wreckage of the plane that collided with a helicopter over the Hudson River on Saturday, killing all nine people on both aircraft.

But New York police say the body cannot be dislodged from the wreckage, which is buried in about 60 feet of water between New York and New Jersey.

That leaves one other body unaccounted for. The dead include a Pennsylvania family and five Italian tourists.

In Italy, a magistrate has opened a manslaughter investigation, the New York Daily News writes.

(The wreckage of the helicopter was repositioned earlier today on a pier in Hoboken, N.J. Photo by Seth Wenig, AP.)

At the Jersey shore, battle rages over baby parades

Two New Jersey resorts are arguing about which one can legitimately celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first "baby parade," the Philadelphia Inquirer says.

Wildwood, N.J., held its first baby parade exactly 100 years ago, but the Inquirer reported that the parade skipped several years due to an apparent lack of interest. Ocean City, N.J., is set to hold its 100th baby parade, although World Wars I and II and the polio outbreak of 1916 accounted for five years without the parade.

"I don't think Wildwood really can make the same claim we can," Ocean City historian Fred Miller told the newspaper.

"There have been some hiccups over the years, in terms of participation and interest, but the anniversary of the first baby parade in Wildwood is documented as August 1909," said Robert Scully Jr., curator of the Wildwood Historical Museum.

The parades feature hundreds of costumed babies and give prizes for cutest, prettiest, and best-costumed tots, the newspaper said.  A "youngest-baby" category was removed when organizers started fearing for the safety of infants who were dressed in heavy costumes on hot summer days.
This year, officials from each town have advertised their events as the oldest, best, or largest, the Inquirer reported.

Still, the competition remains mostly friendly.

"It's a fun thing, really, rivalries and everything else aside," Susan Adelizzi-Schmidt, a spokeswoman for Wildwood, told the newspaper.  "Both of these parades are about 100 years of celebrating kids, and that's what the Jersey Shore is all about, whether we're talking about Wildwood or Ocean City."