Moscow Domodedovo blast kills at least 35; world leaders condemn terrorist attack

By -
An explosion that occurred at Moscow Domodedovo Airport around 4:30 p.m. local time Monday is believed to have killed at least 35 people and injured dozens of others. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in televised remarks that evidence points to "a terror attack" at Russia's busiest airport, while US President Barack Obama condemned what he called an "outrageous act of terrorism."

The blast detonated inside DME's international arrivals hall, reportedly just outside customs clearance, where crowds were gathered awaiting arriving passengers who had claimed bags from flights arriving from around the world. Medvedev said he was forming a "task force" to immediately begin investigating "while the trail is still warm." He said a "special [security] regime" would be put in place at all Russian airports and other "large transport facilities," but did not specify details.

Even as first responders tended to the dead and wounded in the smoky DME arrivals hall, there appeared to be consensus that the explosion was caused by terrorism. Russian media widely reported that a suicide bomber was responsible, saying the explosion emitted shrapnel that added to the carnage.

President Obama issued a statement in which he described the explosion as a "premeditated attack against innocent civilians." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called it a "deplorable and unjustifiable act of violence against innocents." French President Nicholas Sarkozy said it was a "barbaric and cowardly terrorist act." The blast appears to be the second major act of terrorism in the Moscow region in less than a year; the city's subway system was attacked last March by suicide bombings that left 40 dead.

It is unclear how airport security worldwide will be affected by the DME explosion, which occurred in a crowded area of the airport that can be accessed without passing through a security checkpoint. Minneapolis-St. Paul International announced that it was increasing the police presence around the airport, particularly on the curbs outside its terminals and at the airport perimeter; it said it had not been asked to do so by the US government.

Source : http://atwonline.com/airports-routes/news/moscow-domodedovo-blast-kills-least-35-world-leaders-condemn-terrorist-attack-0?cid=nl_atw_dn

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should frequent flyers pay for the decarbonization of the air industry?

By -
Image
Researchers are proposing a frequent flyer tax to pay for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the airline industry. A new paper from the International Council on Clean Transportation proposed the tax as a way to fund some of the $121 billion that needs to get invested every year to decarbonize flying. "Varying the levy based on flying frequency focuses the tax burden on wealthier frequent flyers and helps ensure that people with lower incomes are not priced out of air travel because of climate policy," the study's authors, Xinyi Sola Zheng and Dan Rutherford, wrote. A sliding fee for flights beginning at $9 for the second flight and $177 for their twentieth in a given year would raise $121 billion -- versus a flat tax of $25 per ticket for all flights. For the study's authors, the tax is a way to avoid penalizing people in lower income brackets and shifting the load to the wealthiest 10 percent of the world's population. Not only would the revenues come from wea
Read more

Autonomous aviation startup Xwing hits $400M valuation after latest funding round

By -
Image
  The safety pilot has his hands off the controls during an Xwing demonstration flight. Image Credits: Xwing Xwing has scored another win two months after it completed its first gate-to-gate autonomous demonstration flight of a commercial cargo aircraft. The company said Thursday it has raised $40 million at a post-money valuation of $400 million. The company is setting its sights on expansion — not only tripling its engineering team, but eventually running regular fully unmanned commercial cargo flights. Xwing has been developing a technology stack to convert aircraft, including a widely used Cessna Grand Caravan 208B, to function autonomously. But it’s had to solve a few problems first: “the perception problem, the planning problem and the control problem,” Xwing founder Marc Piette explained to TechCrunch. The company has come up with a whole suite of solutions to solve for these problems, including integrating lidar, radar and cameras on the plane; retrofitting the servomotors that
Read more