General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
CLEVELAND — The pilot of a plane that crashed into Lake Erie last month received his certification to fly that type of aircraft just 21 days before the fatal crash, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report.
The NTSB report issued provides a timeline for the Dec. 29 crash, but does not indicate why the Cessna Citation 525 suddenly lost altitude and crashed just one minute after takeoff.
Killed were Columbus businessman John Fleming, who was piloting the plane; his wife, Sue Fleming; their teenage sons, Jack and Andrew Fleming; their neighbor Brian Casey; and Casey’s teenage daughter, Megan Casey, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The six were heading back to Columbus after attending a Cleveland Cavaliers game that evening.
According to the NTSB report, the air traffic controller at Burke Lakefront Airport cleared Fleming for takeoff at 10:56 p.m. and instructed him to turn right and maintain an altitude of 2,000 feet. Fleming acknowledged the clearance.
After takeoff, the controller told Fleming to contact departure control. Fleming didn’t respond.
The report said position data indicated the plane reached an altitude of approximately 2,925 feet, nearly 1,000 feet higher than what the air traffic controller had instructed.
About five seconds later, the plane quickly descended. The final data point was recorded at 10:57 p.m., showing the plane’s altitude at just 775 feet.
Search and recovery efforts in the days and weeks that followed were hampered by weather and lake conditions, and were eventually called off on Tuesday.
Airplane debris including the cockpit voice recorder was recovered. The NTSB said the recorder captured the entire flight and a committee in Washington will listen to and transcribe it for the investigation into the cause of the crash.
Federal Aviation Administration records indicated Fleming purchased the plane in October and the most recent maintenance activity occurred on Dec. 17.
The records also revealed Fleming did not become certified to fly the plane until Dec. 8 when he successfully completed the FAA practical test.
His initial Cessna 525 training was done in the accident airplane. He then completed a simulator-based recurrent training course at FlightSafety International on Dec. 17.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst.
LONDON (AP) — The British Museum on Thursday appointed National Portrait Gallery chief Nicholas Cullinan as its new director, as the 265-year-old institution grapples with the apparent theft of hundreds of artifacts and growing international scrutiny of its collection.
ATHENS - The European Union needs to get involved in the case of the two-year jail sentence given ethnic Greek Fredi Beleri who was elected Mayor of the seaside town of Himare and said the trial was a farce to get him and protect Prime Minister Edi Rama’s business friends.
Brace yourself for what could be another scorching summer in Greece as scientists are anxious that a warm winter - the warmest January recorded - and climate change will continue to bring weather anomalies.
Mykonos’ run has been going on for a long time, bringing hordes of tourists, but it’s being cut down by its reputation for being rowdy, expensive, overcrowded and gouging diners while businesses evade taxes.