CFB Wainwright Tragedy

A serious tragedy in Alberta, Canada occurred last night at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright. 

CFB Wainwright is a very large training base for the Canadian Forces and NATO with lots of room for maneuvering and exercises.

The most recent live fire exercise there has resulted in a major tragedy. 

Global News: At least 7 dead, dozens injured in explosion and fire at CFB Wainwright: Sources

An explosion, whose origin is not yet confirmed, possibly from an errant munition hitting a gas well or gas pipeline during a live fire exerciser, then caused a rapidly moving grass fire fueled by 60 mile per hour winds.

The fire killed seven soldiers and wounded dozens more.

Medical reinforcements were sent in by parachute drop to the site and nearby hospitals have initiated mass casualty protocols.

In short, it is a terrible tragedy and we'll likely know more as to what occurred.  

For now, here's to hoping the fires are brought under control, and the wounded make as full and complete recoveries as possible.

London - The Grenfell Tower

The next day we got up, had breakfast, checked out of the hotel and met with our driver for the long drive to Southampton to meet the ship and begin our cruise.

As we left the city, we passed by the Grenfell Tower.

The tower was the site of a disastrous fire in June 14, 2017, where 72 residents lost their lives in the worst residential fire in the United Kingdom since World War 2, and its been in the wrap ever since.

The fire was caused by a cascade of errors that all worked together to create an avoidable yet tragic outcome:

1.  The tower had known issues with power surges.  That would have been OK, but -

2. A fridge/freezer in a apartment unit then overheated and burned out creating a fire, likely due to the power surges. That would have been OK, but -

3.  That model of fridge/freezer did not have a metal backing (required in the US but not in the UK) that would have contained the fire. That would have been OK, but -

4.  The fire broke out of the fridge/freezer and lit the wall on fire and made it out the window frame. That would have been OK, but -

5. The outside of the building had been redone in cheap combustible aluminum cladding that created a chimney effect and allowed the fire the potential to quickly spread vertically and horizontally. That would have been OK, but -

6.  The refit had compromised the fireproofing between apartment units. That would have been OK, but -

7.  Inside the cladding was Polyisocyanurate foam that was not properly sealed off. Polyisocyanurate when exposed to open flame burns like gasoline, which it promptly did. That was not OK.

8.  In an unfortunate decision, firefighters lost their chance to contain the fire and failed to immediately douse the unit window that was on fire due to fears of a steam build up in the unit, which then allowed the fire to rapidly breakout of the unit and climb up and across the cladding.

9. Worse than that, the building lacked a central fire alarm so many residents were sleeping and unaware of the fire rapidly consuming the building.

10. Even worse than that, occupants were instructed to remain in their units and await rescue as is typical in the UK high-rises (under the flawed assumption there was fireproofing between the units, and there wasn't).  This is unlike the standard US instruction to people in buildings affected by fire to GTFO ASAP, and only if you're trapped wait for rescue.   Firefighters were unable to reach the victims.

Amazon has a good video on the Grenfell Fire as part of the show What Went Wrong - Countdown to Catastrophe a joint German-UK series that is free if you have Prime and worth watching.

So we passed by that memorial to a tragedy, and headed on to Southampton.

USS Bonhomme Richard To Be Scrapped

After burning for five days straight, the decision while not surprising, is still one that makes for a sad end to a proud ship whose crew has put in years of meritorious service.

USNI News:  UPDATED: Navy Will Scrap USS Bonhomme Richard

It's a sad loss of a proud ship, in service since 1998.  This leaves the Navy down an amphibious assault ship, one that was just in the middle of an upgrade to operate the F-35.

Hopefully the name Bonhomme Richard will soon again adorn a US naval fighting vessel worthy of the name.

Not Sure If These Will Be Reported As Deaths Caused By The Coronavirus

The New York Post: Pilots in Pakistan airliner crash were reportedly distracted by coronavirus

The pilots ignored the sterile cockpit rule while landing, instead chatting about the Coronavirus, and ignored the multiple alarms that their gear wasn't down and went to land anyways.

They then managed to scrape both engines along the runway and then compounded the error by doing a go-round with two damaged and failing engines and then unsurprisingly crashed and killed all 97 people on board.

This is one of the reasons why flying with many foreign airlines is highly contraindicated. Violating the sterile cockpit rule is a major problem that tends to allow an opportunity for disasters to strike. Then sterile cockpit rule is amazingly simple - no non-essential activities or communication is permitted during critical stages of flying such as takeoffs and landings.

Add to the mix that it appears that perhaps 30%+ of Pakistan Airlines' pilots have fake credentials, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Heck, I fly a tiny plane by comparison, and always instruct passengers not to talk during takeoff or landing, except to let me know if they see another plane is on a collision course.

This was a completely and easily avoidable accident that should never have happened.

Well That Would Suck.....

Small chance a big asteroid could hit Earth in 2032

From the Detroit Free Press:

As far as chances go, it's a lot more likely that an asteroid named 2013 TV135 will smash into our planet in 2032 than it is that you'll win Powerball.

But before you panic, know that the chances are still quite slim: one in 63,000; NASA says it is 99.998% positive the asteroid will fly by us.

. . .

But if it did hit, the impact would cause an explosion "50 times greater than the most powerful nuclear bomb ever used," the Telegraph reports.

Yeah, even though the chance of impact is slim, that would ruin your whole day.

An impact event will be even more terrible because the Obamacare exchanges still won't be working by 2032.....

Costa Crusing Disaster Response and Recovery Efforts

Since the Costa Concordia Cruise liner ran aground, Italian police divers have been combing the wreckage searching for survivors who may be trapped in the submerged areas of the ship.

You can see some of the pictures that show what the rescue and recovery divers have to deal with. Lots of floating debris and obstacles impairing their progress, not to mention the layout of a cruise ship makes recovery very difficult as the cabins and decks tend to look the same. It is very easy to become disoriented, especially as the ship has a severe list.

In short, the divers are going to have a very tough job making their way through the submerged areas to try and find anyone to save. It's going to take time to completely clear the submerged areas and each day lessens the possibility that survivors will be still living once their rescuers arrive.

It has been rumored that the captain left the ship before everyone had disembarked, and the behavior of the passengers and crew was rather substandard with panic prevailing and the crew not rising to the occasion but sinking into uselessness faster than the ship.

The Detroit Free Press: Michigan couple recounts escape from grounded Italian cruise ship

No ship workers were around, and a person on overhead speakers tried to calm passengers with claims of an electrical problem, Steve Ledtke said.

“To many of us, it seemed like the boat was going to go down, regardless of what they said overhead,” Steve Ledtke said today. “Once things started happening, all the staff was gone – they disappeared.”

The Ledtkes headed to a lifeboat, where they waited. Then another employee ordered them back onto the ship.

It was an hour and a half before they heard “abandon ship,” Steve Ledtke said. “Once we opened it up again, it was almost like a stampede, like a panic after the abandon ship announcement,” Steve Ledtke said. The boat was only supposed to carry 150 people. “It must have been 250 people in the boat.I thought we were just going to fall to the water there was so much weight. It jerked dramatically but then they lowered us to the water, and we headed to shore.”

In short, the members of the crew, by all witness accounts so far, badly failed in their duty to assist the passengers to safety.

Borepatch, writing on the response of passengers and crew during the disaster had quite an erudite point that is well worth reading.