Captain Denise Jeanette McCracken, Died in Air Plane crash near Yuma

Officials identify Tucson Pilot killed in Air Plane crash near Yuma

 Yuma County Sheriff's officials have identified the pilot that was killed in a plane crash last week as a Tucson woman.

Denise Jeanette McCracken, 49, died from injuries sustained during the crash, which occurred on November 24 near the Barry M. Goldwater Bombing Range southeast of Yuma.

The single-engine plane was found by U.S. Border Patrol agents last week, about 15 miles south of Interstate 8 and 50 miles southeast of Yuma on the Air Force's Barry Goldwater bombing range.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor says searchers had been looking for a Piper Cherokee that took off from Tucson on Nov. 23. The pilot's husband reported her missing and a search was launched.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

Bemidji aviation president dies in plane crash Duluth News Tribune The president of Bemidji Aviation Services Inc. who died after his plane crashed Tuesday, will be remembered as a “superb pilot” who was a fair, generous and conscientious person, his business partner said. Larry Diffley, 74, was flying solo in a twin ... See all stories on this topic »

Investigators from NTSB probe Will County plane crash site SouthtownStar The National Transportation Safety Board, the lead investigative agency for plane crashes, was investigating on Wednesday the fatal crash of a small Plane southwest of Manhattan. Investigators from the federal agency were looking at the wreckage from ... See all stories on this topic »

Below the Line: Editing the Crash in 'Flight' New York Times (blog) Here, that sequence involves a breathtaking plane crash that occurs early in the film: “On page, the dialogue is down and the basic action is down,” Mr. O'Driscoll said. “But then you get to a gray area where what we've shot is not exactly what's in ... See all stories on this topic » New York Times (blog)

Officials identify Tucson pilot killed in plane crash near Yuma KVOA Tucson News TUCSON - Yuma County Sheriff's officials have identified the pilot that was killed in a plane crashlast week as a Tucson woman. Denise Jeanette McCracken, 49, died from injuries sustained during the crash, which occurred on November 24 near the Barry M. See all stories on this topic »

Jesse Spencer: 'Chicago Fire' Plane Crash! Just Jared In the upcoming episode being filmed, a plane crashes in the middle of a suburban neighborhood causing a major car accident among other damage. Local police and media believed there to be a real plane crash before finding that it was just a live set. See all stories on this topic » Just Jared

Long review expected of deadly Greensburg plane crash Palladium-Item (AP) — Federal investigators say it could make six months or more before they rule on what caused a small plane to crash in southeastern Indiana, killing all four people on board. The single-engineplane being flown by 46-year-old Donald Horan of ... See all stories on this topic »

NTSB releases initial report on fatal light-plane crash near Albany KOIN Local 6 (AP) — A preliminary report on the investigation of the crash of a light plane last week near Albany says a witness saw one wing fold upward during a turn, and the wing apparently hit the canopy, shattering its glass. The Albany Democrat-Herald ... See all stories on this topic »

Bemidji Aviation Services president killed in Illinois plane crash Minneapolis Star Tribune BEMIDJI, Minn. - A longtime business partner says the pilot killed in an Illinois plane crash was the president of Bemidji Aviation Services in Minnesota. Mark Shough says 74-year-old Larry Diffley was flying solo in a twin-engine Beech Baron and was ... See all stories on this topic »

With Rs 1500 crore exposure, SBI trying to revive Kingfisher Airlines

With Rs 1500 crore exposure, SBI trying to revive Kingfisher Airlines Economic Times MUMBAI: State Bank of India, the lead banker in the 17-lenders consortium that extended Rs 7,000 crore loans to the now grounded Kingfisher Airlines, on Wednesday said the banks are "trying to do everything to find an amicable solution" to the carrier ... See all stories on this topic » Economic Times

Korean Air, Qatar Airways interested in Czech Airlines Reuters India PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech government will decide on the privatization of Czech Airlines (CSA) as early as April next year after weighing possible bids from Korean Air (003490.KS) and Qatar Airways. The state is in early talks with the two airline ... See all stories on this topic »

China's Southern Airlines seals $1.9 bln deal to buy 10 Airbus planes Economic Times HONG KONG: China Southern Airlines Co Ltd , the country's largest carrier by fleet size, has agreed to buy 10 Airbus A330-300 aircraft for about $1.9 billion, to be delivered in stages from 2014 to 2016. The deal is the second involving Europe's Airbus... See all stories on this topic » Economic Times

Book cabs, hotels on airline websites as Indian carriers chase ancillary revenue Times of India NEW DELHI: In a bid to boost their abysmally low non-ticket or ancillary revenue, airlines are fast turning their websites into a one-stop shop for all travel requirements. The websites of Jet Groupairlines have started offering hotel bookings for ... See all stories on this topic »

United Airlines Boeing 787 in emergency landing as inspections ordered Financial Express Its latest problem involved a brand new United Airlines 787 Dreamliner with 184 people aboard, which was forced to make an emergency landing in New Orleans due to an undefined mechanical issue. Boeing also said on Tuesday the U.S. Federal Aviation ... See all stories on this topic »

Airlines asked to display the range of fares for each route Times of India MUMBAI: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked domestic airlines to display tariff, slab wise on each route they operate so as to bring transparency in pricing and the consumer will have an idea of the highest and lowest fares on ... See all stories on this topic »

Mozambican and Sao Tome airlines remain on EU blacklist Macauhub The airlines of Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe are still banned from operating in the European Union and Angola's airline, Taag will continue with previously imposed restriction, according to an updated air safety list issued Tuesday in Brussels. See all stories on this topic »

Airlines Try to ClipCriminal Litigation Wall Street Journal International aviation officials will take a big step Wednesday in their campaign to shield pilots andairline officials against criminal cases stemming from flight accidents around the world. At an unusual public meeting in Washington, legal and air ... See all stories on this topic »

7 lessons about airlines this road warrior learned in 2012 Bizjournals.com (blog) American Airlines may have had to declare bankruptcy, but it seems to have a better ear for its customers' concerns than rival United. Joe Brancatelli: Business Travel Columnist. It's nearly 40 years since I took my first business trip as a fledgling ... See all stories on this topic »

Airline of the Year Award for Emirates Travel Daily News International DUBAI, UAE - Emirates, one of the world's fastest growing airlines, has been awarded the prestigious Centre for Aviation (CAPA) Airline of the Year 2012; the third time that Emirates has won the award. The CAPA Airline of the Year is awarded to the ... See all stories on this topic »

Kingfisher loans: Banks hope for 'amicable solution'

Kingfisher loans: Banks hope for 'amicable solution' Hindu Business Line State Bank of India, the leader of the consortium of banks that have lent to the grounded KingfisherAirlines, on Wednesday said the banks are trying to do everything possible to find an amicable solution to the carrier's financial troubles. “They (KFA ... See all stories on this topic »

Court tells Kingfisher to deposit tax money with IT department The Hindu In a setback to Kingfisher Airlines, the Karnataka High Court, on Wednesday, directed the company to deposit 50 per cent of the total amount of Rs.371 crore that the company is required to remit to the Income Tax Department as tax deducted at source... See all stories on this topic » The Hindu

Kingfisher Airlines told to pay up half its TDS dues Times of India BANGALORE: In a setback to the beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines, the Karnataka high court on Wednesday directed it to deposit 50% of the total outstanding amount of Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), deducted from its employees and payments towards ... See all stories on this topic »

Trying to help revive Kingfisher: SBI Moneycontrol.com State Bank of India, the lead banker in the 17-lenders consortium that extended Rs 7,000 crore loans to the now grounded Kingfisher Airlines, today said the banks are "trying to do everything to find an amicable solution" to the carrier's financial ... See all stories on this topic » Moneycontrol.com

Mallya seeks more time; lenders reschedule meet to December 17 Hindu Business Line Kingfisher Airlines' promoter Vijay Mallya has sought more time with the 17-bank consortium to present a suitable proposal for the beleaguered private carrier. Following this request, the bank consortium on Wednesday rescheduled its meeting to December ... See all stories on this topic » Hindu Business Line

Aviation stocks in demand Business Standard Shares of Kingfisher Airlines were flat over the past one month till 4 December 2012, underperforming the the Sensex's 3.16% rise. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, soaring 44.84% as against Sensex's 10.94% rise. See all stories on this topic »

Kingfisher calender girls 2013: Full list of finalists Wonder Woman While the world eagerly awaits the moment that will see the final winner emerge from among the contestants who have been subjected to innumerable tests, here is a list of 12 finalists who have come out with flying colours in the Kinfisher calender Girl ... See all stories on this topic » Wonder Woman

HP: Virbhadra for resumption of flights Jagran Post Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Virbhadra Singh on Tuesday expressed concern over suspension of Kingfisher and Air India flights to the state for past four months and made a fresh request to the Prime Minister Manmohan...

Massive Job and Cost-cutting by all Airlines across Europe and US

Eight trade unions representing workers at Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) have lent their support to drastic cost-cutting proposals drawn up by management. The measures, revealed on November 19, were claimed to be necessary to avert a bankruptcy declaration. SAS, the flagship carrier of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, is the largest airline in Scandinavia.
The “4Excellence Next Generation” plan will see the elimination of 6,000 jobs, 40 percent of the total workforce of 15,000. For workers who retain their jobs, pay cuts of 17 percent are being imposed, with pilots receiving pay reductions of up to 30 percent. The unions, covering workers in the three countries, also accepted no wage negotiations until at least 2015, a move that will ensure more pay cuts over the coming years. SAS also plans to sell-off its Widerøe regional subsidiary and centralise administrative functions in Sweden as part of the plan.

The cuts were conditional on the airline receiving an increased credit line from major shareholders and banks of 3.5 billion Swedish kronor (US$525 million) through March 2015. The credit facility has yet to be approved by the parliaments of Sweden and Norway.
SAS has not made a yearly profit since 2007. More than half of the firm is jointly owned by the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish governments, while Sweden’s Wallenberg family controls a significant stake. SAS has lost out to low-budget airlines such as Ryanair and Norwegian airlines on many of its traditional routes.
According to SAS, the restructuring will result in annual cost savings of 3 billion kronor (SEK) and another SEK 3 billion through asset sales.
The imposition of management’s demands by the unions was celebrated by the financial elite, as SAS stock rose by 23 percent by the end of trading on November 19.
The attack launched against SAS workers is part of a global assault by airlines to drive down labour costs and impose intolerable working conditions. The economic crisis that erupted in 2008 has led to deepening financial problems for some of the largest airlines, as passenger numbers have dropped sharply.
The announcement at SAS came only weeks after a series of strikes across Lufthansa’s operations in Germany, against attempts by the company to hire workers through its subsidiary Germanwings with much lower rates of pay. Lufthansa has already laid off 3,000 administrative workers over the past year and now plans even further cuts.
This week, in a newsletter to its employees, Lufthansa stated its intention to cut costs on its long-haul business by 10 percent by 2015 and by 20 percent by 2025, compared with 2011. The new restructuring plan, known as SPRINT, is based on increasing Lufthansa’s annual earnings by €1.5 billion by the end of 2014. A Reuters report Monday noted that as well as moves to cut its fuel cost and renegotiate expensive contracts, it will “also examine possible measures related to infrastructure, crew, fleet planning, cabin layout and ground processes….”
At Air France/KLM, 10 percent of the workforce or 5,000 jobs will be eliminated in the coming year. This comes after the implementation of job cuts and flexible working practices that saw the firm’s profits rise by 28 percent in the third quarter of 2012.
The Spanish airline Iberia plans to lay off 4,500 workers, a quarter of its workforce. Pay for workers who are not laid off will be slashed by between 25 and 30 percent. Willie Walsh, CEO of International Airlines Group, which owns Iberia, declared on November 9 that the airline was in a “fight for survival.” He warned that without an agreement with the unions by the end of January, further job losses would be announced.
Earlier this year, Iberia proposed salary cuts for pilots of 20 percent and the creation of a new budget airline, Iberia Express, which would hire staff on lower rates of pay.
These are only the latest examples of a process of restructuring that has swept the airline industry in recent years, as firms have sought to offload the cost of the economic crisis on to workers. At Iberia’s parent British Airways (BA), starting in 2009, a massive programme of job cuts and wage reductions was launched and implemented with the full support of the unions. Then British Airways (BA) CEO Walsh noted in similar tones that BA faced a “fight for survival.”
These jobs cuts have allowed BA to go on the offensive, with the company announcing further job losses Tuesday. BA said that 400 jobs of senior cabin crew on both its long- and short-haul routes will be lost. The first of these are set to go in March 2013.
At every airline, the unions have collaborated fully in imposing the dictates of management on pilots, cabin crew, ground staff and other support workers. No attempt has been made to mobilise workers against the destruction of jobs and working conditions.
After calling one-day strikes, the unions at Lufthansa reached a settlement with management that imposed many of the original demands of the company, including cuts to wages, the introduction of flexible working patterns, and the creation of new pay structures to cut costs.
Unions at Iberia responded last Thursday to the 4,500 job cuts by calling strikes for December. But this move was aimed at preventing the opposition of workers from getting out of control rather than any principled rejection of management’s attacks.
Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO) trade union representative Jose Carillo, capitulating to Walsh’s threat of deeper cuts, remarked, “We are ready to negotiate salary cuts and increased productivity, but we don’t want outright sackings.”
At SAS, the unions presented management’s demands as a fait accompli. Justifying the deal after having signed up to its terms, all the union heads could offer by way of justification was the claim that they had no alternative if SAS was to avert bankruptcy.
The cuts will only whet the appetite of the employers for deeper attacks on workers. As Arctic Securities analyst Kenneth Sivertsen told Reuters, “Although they [SAS] are cutting their costs by 3 billion Crowns, they will still be a high-cost company.”
The unions did nothing to warn their members of what was being prepared by management. This was despite the fact that they had been in discussions with the company for months regarding the cuts. An SAS representative told the Wall Street Journal after the deal was made public, “This is exactly what we know as the Scandinavian model, where labor market parties agree on changes needed for the company to continue operations. It has almost been portrayed as if the first they heard was an ultimatum Monday which they were invited to talk about Thursday. In fact, we have talked about this with unions since August.”
According to the Financial Times, trade unions hold three seats on the SAS board—an arrangement that has been one of the cornerstones of the so-called Swedish model of labour management in many key industries. Jacob Wallenberg, who is the head of the Wallenberg family business empire and a leading SAS shareholder, told the newspaper, “The labour unions were informed in detail about the situation over the summer and in order to strike an agreement with the banks what kind of demands [would be] put on them.”
The role being played by the union bureaucracy poses airline workers with the urgent task of breaking free from these organisations if they are to defend their jobs and working conditions against the attacks of the airline companies.
Workers at SAS, BA, Iberia, Lufthansa and other airlines where jobs are threatened must unite across borders and form independent action committees to take forward the struggle in defence of working conditions. Only through the adoption of a socialist programme, fighting for the international unity of the working class, will it be possible to oppose the demands for job losses and cost-cutting sweeping the airline industry.

British Airways to cut hundreds of jobs Press TV British Airways (BA), which is one of the UK's largest airlines, is entering talks with the trade union Unite over plans to cut 400 senior cabin-crew jobs on both its long and short-haul routes. BA announced on Tuesday that it had started a 90-day ... See all stories on this topic » Press TV

Massive cost-cutting by airlines across Europe World Socialist Web Site At Air France/KLM, 10 percent of the workforce or 5,000 jobs will be eliminated in the coming year. This comes after the implementation of job cuts and flexible working practices that saw the firm's profits rise by 28 percent in the third quarter of 2012. See all stories on this topic »

It’s Not Always Sunny in Cloud Computing

 A Look At The Risks



With so many organizations moving to some type of cloud model, we’ve been able to gain greater visibility into the design, maintenance and security of cloud computing. A well-planned cloud deployment can serve a company very well. To accomplish this, there has to be thorough planning and a solid use-case for moving towards a cloud platform.

Steering Clear of Drawbacks

Unfortunately, there are some issues to manage in the cloud model. Truth be told, there are still some inherent drawbacks and weaknesses to a cloud model’s security or design. Not everyone utilizes cloud best practices. And, expecting too much from a cloud provider can lead to overuse and improper utilization of cloud resources. The bottom line: it’s not always sunny in the cloud computing world.


Cloud Considerations

Although we’ve come a long way with cloud design, there are still some concerns and issues to overcome. There are so many moving parts that create a cloud environment that sometimes, not all of the pieces fit together entirely well. In looking at cloud computing, consider some of the following dangers and cautions.

Security. This is still absolutely an issue. In fact, it’s a growing issue. As cloud computing becomes more popular, cloud infrastructure will become the target of more malicious attacks. No single environment is safe and every infrastructure must be controlled with set policies in place. Take Dropbox, for example, which recently had a security breach which forced people to rethink just how secure the cloud really is.
Data loss. Allowing users to get into the cloud is one thing. Accessing applications through a cloud model is a powerful way to allow end-users to work remotely. However, what happens when users start uploading files to the cloud? Many organizations don’t have a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) system plan in place. This means that a user, even non-maliciously, might post some information or upload a file which can contain sensitive company information to a less secure environment.
Outages. Many organizations view the cloud as a truly distributed model with multiple redundancies built in to maintain the highest uptime possible. Well, these organizations aren’t quite correct. No entity is 100 percent safe from some type of disaster or emergency. In fact, a powerful storm in June knocked out an entire data center which was owned by Amazon. What was hosted in that data center? Amazon Web Services. All affected AWS businesses in that data center were effectively down. Cloud-centric companies like Instagram, Netflix and Pinterest were all made production-ineffective for over six hours. To paint a clearer picture, there was a recent study conducted by the International Working Group on Cloud Computing Resiliency. This report showed that since 2007, about 568 hours were logged as downtime between 13 major cloud carriers. This has, so far, cost the customer base about $72 million.
Learning curve. Cloud computing isn’t easy. That’s why we’ve seen such a huge jump in demand for cloud computing architects and engineers. (See 2013: The Year of the Cloud Architect.) Building a successful cloud model takes knowledge around multiple technological disciplines. Once that plan is in place, however, managing it also can be an issue. Working with private cloud technologies with an untrained staff is certainly not a good idea. However, even in the public cloud, organizations need to know what their infrastructure is doing and how it’s operating. “It’s working” isn’t an excuse not to understand the details of a given cloud model.
Vendor lock-in. This problem extends well beyond cloud computing, but it can still be an issue. Migrating a cloud environment from one vendor or provider to another can be a very tricky business. Furthermore, not many organizations actually think about this step until they’ve outgrown their current environment and are in trouble. Planning a cloud environment must include some future thought. Where will the business be 3-5 years from now and can the current provider support that growth? Still, in the future, the migration process looks to become simpler with better migration strategies and more powerful cloud APIs.
Compliance. This is certainly an issue for many organizations. Relatively open public cloud technologies like Dropbox are considered a big no-no for compliance-driven companies. This is why the rise of other technologies with increased security like ShareFile can be seen. These new models are trying to help the enterprise company by storing “cloud” data both on premises and remotely. Creating zones for data means that the information not only stays in the country – it can be configured to stay in the state. So, users can still have a “Dropbox-like” experience, but have the environment be on-premises. The other issue is that many providers aren’t too keen on penetration testing within the cloud environment. The problem there is that conducting a “pen-test” is one of the requirements to be PCI compliant. So, organizations have to look for community or hybrid cloud models to stay compliant – and this can be more expensive. Similarly, regulations around FISMA, HIPAA and SOX can potentially lock a lot of cloud providers out of the mix. Still, there are a few, like Rackspace, who are in fact, PCI-compliant because of their unique cloud model.
There have been many, many articles touting the power of the cloud. They’re right. However, every organization must consider the downside of moving towards a cloud model. The idea is to understand your current environment and see how components of it will behave in the cloud. Even when designing a business continuity plan or a DR environment with the cloud in mind – treat it like any other IT infrastructure. This means using best practices, working closely with security teams, and maintaining constant control and visibility over the entire environment.

Although there are some cautions around cloud computing, public and private cloud environments can still be a powerful tool for your enterprise. Still, like any technology there needs to be due diligence in the planning, deployment and control of any cloud initiative.

EMC, VMware Team To Woo Cloud Developers InformationWeek They issued only a vague statement about its ultimate goal: "We are experiencing a major change in the wide-scale move to cloud computing, which includes both infrastructural transformation and transformation of how applications will be built and used, ... See all stories on this topic »

Andreessen Horowitz bets big on cloud security InfoWorld Because Web 1.0 is many years behind us, we can all look back and laugh at the sorry state of application and database security in those days. When we look back at Cloud 1.0 in a few more years, we're sure to have another good chuckle. New technology ... See all stories on this topic »

It's Not Always Sunny in Cloud Computing: A Look At The Risks Data Center Knowledge With all of cloud computing's benefits, there are still some inherent drawbacks and weaknesses to a cloud model's security or design. (Photo by BCP via Flickr. With so many organizations moving to some type of cloud model, we've been able to gain ... See all stories on this topic » Data Center Knowledge

Out of beta, into the fire: Can HP Cloud compete? InfoWorld HP has announced the general availability of HP Cloud Compute, its flagship IaaS offering, first launched in public beta seven months ago. At the same time, HP unveiled beta versions of HP Block Storage and HP Cloud Application Platform as a Service ... See all stories on this topic »

Plexxi will reinvent networking for a scaled out era GigaOM Thus, the giants in the web and cloud worlds are demanding new infrastructure and remaking the world of computing for their own needs. These giants are deconstructing the server, rethinking the data center and building new databases. And they are also ... See all stories on this topic » GigaOM

QualityStocks Blog - GlobalWise Investments, Inc. (GWIV) Brings Cloud ... International Business Times (press release) The idea of cloud computing dates back to at least the 1950s when Herb Grosch, an early computer scientist, predicted that computing power would ultimately be centralized in approximately 15 large data centers, with users accessing the information and ... See all stories on this topic »

Younity Launches Beta Version of Personal Cloud Service Technorati Santa Monica based younity announced today the beta launch of it's unique personalcloud storage service designed to eliminate device to computer syncing and storage limitations for iPhones and iPads. Today marks the public beta launch of the app ... See all stories on this topic » Technorati

Kerio Puts Connect in a Private Cloud Windows IT Pro (blog) It's important to know your market, particularly if you're in marketing. That's why it wasn't much of a surprise to hear Dusan Vitek, vice president of worldwide marketing for Kerio Technologies, say, "You hear sometimes one size fits all. I don't ... See all stories on this topic » Windows IT Pro (blog)

Day 1 at International Workshop on Mobile & Cloud Computing (IW-MCC) 2012 UdaipurTimes The International Workshop on Mobile and Cloud Computing (IW-MCC) 2012 organized by Techno India NJR, with joint efforts of IEEE India Educational Society had its first day yesterday. Inaugurated by John Walz, President of IEEE Computer Society, the ... See all stories on this topic »