London City Airport Evacuated: CS Gas Found

London City Airport was evacuated today in a “chemical incident” after CS gas is believed to have been discharged inside the terminal.

The alarm was raised after passengers and staff began coughing and were struggling to breathe.

Firefighters and police wearing protective equipment carried out two complete sweeps of the airport building before what is believed to be a CS gas spray cannister was found on a subsequent search.

Paramedics treated 27 people at the scene and two others were taken to hospita.

Police have discovered a CS gas spray at London City Airport which is believed to have been discarded by a passenger prior to check-in

— Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) October 21, 2016

Passengers were warned to expect “long delays” and hundreds of people were evacuated from the central London airport this afternoon.

Among those caught up in the incident was former Unified Cruiserweight and WBA world heavyweight champion boxer David Haye.

The Londoner had been due to fly to Edinburgh, Scotland, to watch fellow boxer Josh Taylor fight but his flight was cancelled.

He tweeted: “Gutted cant get to Scotland for @JoshTaylorBoxer fight tonight. As #CityAirport got evacuated when everyone started coughing uncontrollably!”

Gutted cant get to Scotland for @JoshTaylorBoxer fight tonight. As #CityAirport got evacuated when everyone started coughing uncontrollably!

— David Haye (@mrdavidhaye) October 21, 2016

Witness Tanya Ramsay told Sky News: “Everyone was coughing a lot, struggling to breathe, struggling to not cough.

“People weren’t managing to get their hands over their mouths in time and I heard a couple of men talking about how their eyes were absolutely stinging and streaming.”

The airport has since re-opened and police say they are not treating the incident as terrorist-related.

Incident

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Whilst the cause of the incident has not yet been confirmed, officers are investigating whether it was the result of an accidental discharge of the spray.

“Enquiries continue. This is not being treated as a terrorist-related incident. At this early stage officers believe that the spray may have been discarded by a passenger prior to check-in.”

London Ambulance Service said they were called to the airport at 4.11pm and sent a number of units including their specialist Hazardous Area Response Team.

Incoming planes from Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Belfast City and Paris were diverted to other airports while passengers were advised to check with their airlines for the latest flight information.

Airport has now reopened. We thank passengers for their patience, access to terminal will be staggered & disruption to flights expected.

— London City Airport (@LondonCityAir) October 21, 2016

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From chocolate eggs to chewing gum: 13 surprising banned foods around the world

When you are traveling to new countries for the first time you can never take anything for granted when it comes to banned foods.

Different countries have different laws regarding which foods are acceptable and which are not.

Often a food can be banned in one country because of one ingredient it may contain but other countries may have no concerns about any of its ingredients.

As this infographic shows, some of the most unlikely foods are banned by different countries for a whole variety of reasons.

Haggis

For example the Scottish delicacy Haggis is banned in the US, jelly cups are banned throughout Europe and samosas are banned in Somalia.

In the UK you can drink raw milk if you want to (but not in Canada) while Kinder Surprise eggs (chocolate eggs which contain a small toy) are allowed everywhere except the US.

Don’t expect to get foie gras in India or chewing gum in Singapore while Blueberry Nutrigrain bars can be enjoyed the world over except in Norway, France and Finland.

Check out the infographic below to find out all 13 banned foods, the countries which prohibit them and the reasons why.

Infographic showing 13 banned foods around the world:

 

View Interactive Version (via Pokies.net.au).

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How to order a beer like a native in 17 different countries

Budgies go head to head to help pilots prevent mid air collisions

In the world of civil aviation there are few things worse than the horror of mid air collisions.

Billions of dollars are spent on the very latest technology to keep aircraft safe in the increasingly more crowded skies above us.

Both pilots and air traffic controllers are highly skilled and undergo rigorous training which has to be updated on a regular basis.

In addition most modern passenger aircraft are equipped with hi-tech on-board systems which warn pilots when another aircraft gets too close.

Collisions

However new research from the University of Queensland could have enormous potential for automatic aircraft systems designed to prevent mid air collisions.

The study has revealed that when budgies are faced with a potential head on collision they always fly to the right.

In the study 10 budgies were released in pairs from opposite ends of a tunnel and filmed using high-speed video cameras for a total of 102 flights.

Not a single collision was observed throughout the study which also found that flight direction played no part in the collision avoidance behavior, ruling out the possible involvement of an internal compass.

Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, who lead the research team, said despite the modern advances in aviation, we still had much to learn from bird flight which evolved over more than 150 million years.

Rules

He said that up until now there had been no specific studies undertaken to understand how birds avoided mid air collisions.

Professor Srinivasan said: “Birds must have been under strong evolutionary pressure to establish basic rules and strategies to minimise the risk of collision in advance.

“Our modelling has shown that birds always veer right and sometimes they change their altitude as well, according to some pre-set preference.

“As air traffic becomes increasing busy, there is a pressing need for robust automatic systems for manned and unmanned aircraft, so there are real lessons to be learned from nature.

Strategies

“While we can’t say how birds solve the problem of switching to different altitudes, we can propose some simple strategies for autopilot systems and unmanned aerials vehicles to prevent head-on collisions.”

This research is being conducted in collaboration with Boeing Defence Australia and The Queensland University of Technology.

It was published in PLOS One and funded by the ARC and Boeing Defence Australia.

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