Posted on Fri, Nov. 06, 2009

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Pilots appeal revocations

WASHINGTON — The Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles are appealing their license revocations with the National Transportation Safety Board.

The appeals were filed late Wednesday, said board spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz. He said that appeals typically are heard by an administrative law judge with the board within 120 days.

The FAA revoked the licenses of Capt. Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., and First Officer Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., last week. The agency said the pilots put the 144 passengers of Northwest Flight 188 in serious danger on Oct. 21 when they failed to communicate with anyone on the ground for 91 minutes.

Texas gay bar raid prompts suspensions

FORT WORTH — After a four-month internal investigation, the Fort Worth (Texas) Police Department announced Thursday that it has suspended a sergeant and two officers in connection to a summer raid on a gay bar in which authorities clashed with hundreds of bar patrons.

Though the investigation found that the officers had violated numerous department policies, the agency cleared them of claims that they had used excessive force. The officers' suspensions ranged from one to three days.

The raid on the Rainbow Lounge was conducted June 28, on the 40th anniversary of the police raid on New York's Stonewall Inn, an event often regarded as the launch of the modern gay rights movement.

SUV almost hits elephant in Okla.

OKLAHOMA CITY — It's not unusual to see a deer or a cow crossing Oklahoma's rural highways. But an elephant?

A couple driving home from church nearly slammed into a giant pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus late Wednesday.

"Didn't have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road," driver Bill Carpenter said Thursday. "At the very last second I said 'elephant!' "

Carpenter, 68, said he swerved his SUV at the last second and ended up sideswiping the 29-year-old female elephant on U.S. 81 in Enid, about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City.

"So help me Hanna, had I hit that elephant, not swerved, it would have knocked it off its legs, and it would have landed right on top of us," he said. "We'd have been history."

The couple weren't injured. But the 8-foot, 4,500-pound elephant was being examined Thursday for a broken tusk and a leg wound. A local veterinarian said it appeared to have escaped major injury.

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