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Factbox: Details of crashed Boeing 737-800 and Chinese Eastern Airlines

Published

2 years ago

Farwa

WASHINGTON: Here are some facts about the Boeing 737-800 jet and China Eastern Airlines, involved in a crash on a domestic flight on Monday with 132 people on board.

Boeing 737-800

The Boeing 737-800 is part of the 737 family — the world’s most-flown commercial aircraft series. It was developed in the 1960s to serve short- or medium-length routes.

The 737-800 is part of the 737 NG or Next-Generation family — with more than 7,000 delivered since 1993 — and it has a strong safety record after nearly three decades of flights. The 162- to 189-seat 737-800 was launched on Sept. 5, 1994. The NG is the predecessor to the 737 MAX.

The MAX was grounded worldwide for 20 months after two fatal crashes killed 346. It remains grounded in China.

The jet involved in the China Eastern accident, en route from the southwestern city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, was six years old, according to Flightradar24.

In the United States, American Airlines has the most 737-800s in operation with 265 followed by Southwest Airlines with 205 and United Airlines with 136, according to Cirium data.

The last fatal 737-800 crash occurred in August 2020 when an Air India Express plane overshot the table-top runway and crashed while landing at Calicut International Airport in the southern state of Kerala in heavy rain, killing 21. A government report cited pilot error as the probable cause.

China

China’s airline safety record has been among the best in the world for a decade but is less transparent than in countries like the United States and Australia where regulators release detailed reports on non-fatal incidents.

According to Aviation Safety Network, China’s last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport.

In 1994, a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 crashed en route from Xian to Guangzhou, killing all 160 on board in China’s worst-ever air disaster, according to Aviation Safety Network.

Monday’s disaster was the first fatal crash for China Eastern since 2004, when a plane crashed shortly after it took off from an airport in north China, killing 55, according to ASN.

Shanghai-based China Eastern was created in 1988 and is one of the largest three airlines in China, with one of the youngest fleet of planes.

It is part of the SkyTeam Alliance and US carrier Delta Air Lines holds a 2% stake. China Eastern has ranked in recent years among the ten largest carriers in total passengers carried. Delta has “a strategic joint marketing and commercial cooperation arrangement covering traffic flows between China and the US.”

Passenger traffic between China and the United States has declined dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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PM Shehbaz will meet with Saudi ministers and speak at the WEF special session today.

Published

9 hours ago

Farwa

On the third day of his visit to the Kingdom, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will speak at the World Economic Forum Special Meeting’s final plenary, which is titled “Rejuvenating Growth.”

Other speakers at the concluding plenary, in addition to the prime minister, are Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Economy and Planning Faisal Alibrahim, British Secretary of State David Cameron, WEF Geneva President Brørge Brende, and WEF Head of Middle East and North Africa Maroun Kairouz.

Meetings with Saudi ministers of trade, energy, the environment, and agriculture are also scheduled for the third day of the prime minister’s visit. He will probably also meet with his counterpart from Malaysia.

Mohammed bin Salman, the prime minister and crown prince of Saudi Arabia, will be present at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth, and Energy for Development, which gets underway here today.

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The nomination of Ishaq Dar as deputy prime minister raises concerns.

Published

9 hours ago

Farwa

A lot of doubts have been raised by Ishaq Dar, the foreign minister, being appointed deputy prime minister.

No reference to the Constitution, regulations, or any other law was mentioned in the Cabinet Division’s notification of the appointment.

What powers Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif used to designate Ishaq Dar as deputy prime minister has come under scrutiny in light of this.

There are questions about the legal foundation for the deputy prime minister’s nomination as it appears from the notification’s phrasing that rules for the position have not yet been established, according to insiders.

Likewise, the announcement is vague about the deputy prime minister’s proposed authority.

Deputy prime minister would be purely symbolic, according to government sources, and would not be authorized to carry out prime ministerial duties. In Pakistan, the deputy prime minister has previously been nominated.

The PPP administration appointed Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as deputy prime minister.

Observe that Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar was appointed deputy prime minister on Sunday with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s consent; the Cabinet Division formally announced the appointment.

Dar holds the position of Pakistan’s fourth deputy prime minister. Previous appointments to the position of deputy prime ministers included Parvez Elahi, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto.

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The green colour of WhatsApp ‘angers’ some users.

Published

9 hours ago

Farwa

After changing its display colour from blue to green, WhatsApp, which was before well-known for its blue motif, caused its users to hold divergent views.

New upgrades to the Meta app always spark a lot of discussion, regardless of how big or small the changes are.

Still, Meta-owned WhatsApp hopes that these modifications would “make it more accessible as well as easier to use” and offer a “modern, new experience” with relation to the updated display color.

A statement from the firm claimed that they had altered WhatsApp’s “looks and feels, including spacing, colors, icons, and more.”

Both iOS and Android users can now view the new WhatsApp update; the green tint on the latter has changed from the previous version.

However, iPhone users will notice that every display element, including the chat-list window and status bar, has changed with the recent design update. WhatsApp used to have a blue color scheme on iPhones.

Furthermore, the formerly blue links shared within the app are now displayed in green.

In addition, WhatsApp has made other improvements to improve its user experience outside of the color shift.