Those Magnificant Men in their magnificant Flying machines

Hudson Miracle is a happy ending to a trying situation. An ordinary flight 'might' be a piece of cake for a well trained pilot with computers doing a lot of work, its the out of ordinary that requires exceptional skills and training. I am reminded of earlier stories I read that illustrates how its also a matter of mind and skill.
One story I am reminded off was where one of the wheels on a plane got blown off (cant remember whether it was while take off or during the flight). Now a plane is a massive beast. So apparently landing with a wheel blown is somehow more dangerous than a wheel blown during a car ride. And the airport in question had a concrete wall some way off the runaway. Now with a wheel blown it would have been probably that the plane would skid and apparently there was significant danger of it skidding towards that wall.
And this is where the skill and prowess comes in. The solution itself was elegant - simple, but not easy. The pilot(s) came down at high speed purposely hitting the runway with the other wheel and whizzing off. 3 attempts and the wheel on the other side blew too lending that necessary symmetry to the plane essential to avoid the slammer of a wall. The plane then landed safely staying on the runway. Wouldnt have been easy on the passengers especially the dive and surge but hey then landed all right!
Another case I recollect was a case of a plane going down under overflying Asia. Somewhere near Indonesia or some place in Pacific a volcano coughed spewing ash all over. Now a lot of ash is carbon. So this plane going high up met the ash and ended up all sooty. So much ash that the engines got choked!
Attempts to revive the engines consternating the passengers. Unburnt carbon can burn and engines seemed on fire. No good. So what do the pilots do? Sit back and simply pray? No Sir we will think of something almost wickedly cool. So these bright folks actually came up with an idea.
The plane was taken to a much lower altitude. Now planes can glide a lot and I am not sure if the engines were totally knocked off or as the fire spewing remark indicate, they had some juice though not enough. So now at low altitude the air gets thicker, a lot thicker (which is why these jets fly so high, thick air means a lot of resistance). So this air now starts acting like a giant blower (the kind that sometimes comes with vacuum cleaners) and it cleaned off the ash that was filled in the engine and there you have the engines back online. Whew! But hey it ain't the end of story. After all an ash bath wont just dirty your engines, it'll mess up your windshields as well. So the wind screen is caked and so we have no visual. Almost no. Apparently a corner had some visibility. So the brave co-pilot stands on the seat and looks out relaying instructions while the captain lands the plane! Wheeewh!
Then there is this case of a jetliner pilot in Canada who was a hobby glider too and one fine day found this engines gone kaput while in the middle of a flight. The cool dude actually glides the plane for almost 250 kilometers to a nearby disused airfield. The locals enjoying their usual cycle races on the paved tarmac had the scare of their lives but the plane landed safely as a glider.
The best story - my recollections are sketchy but it was I think a FedEx plane flying transatlantic. This case apparently got the pilot a medal for bravery and none deserved it better. Now FedEx had a policy that any employee can travel in their planes - these were old days, and a bloke did travel. This bloke was depressed, suicidally depressed and harboring some notions of deep injury done by FedEx. So the plane is over Atlantic coming to US and in between the cockpit door opens (those were easy old days remember) and this traveling bloke comes in with an axe (those were easy old days remember) and hits the caption and the co-pilot. The captain takes a hit and gets paralyzed on side. The co-pilot is also severely injured. So imagine you are those pilots, critically injured, being stricken and are also flying. Not the easiest of time to be thinking one.
So the captain sees the attacker behind the co-pilot getting ready for a fresh heave. Thinking quickly he turns the plane nose up. The co-pilot falls behind and he along with the attacker slide to the rear of the plane. Amazingly maybe because of survival instinct or because he and captain were on same wavelength the co-pilot realizes this is lucky and holds on to the attacker (who maybe did get injured himself in this slide, i do not know) so that he is unable to strike further and both stay in rear grappled.
Meanwhile the caption radios US which arrange for immediate touchdown as soon as the plane arrive and the captain, semi paralyzed flies the plane alone and manages to reach US and land. Amazing story.

Happiness

The wasted lives

Is it just me or have you too noticed a sudden increase in the number of beggars? The cake was when I was eating in "BreadTalk" at Hiranandani Mumbai. Someone pokes me in the arm and there is a beggar! Bang in the middle of the resturant. The Iranian family next to me guiltily gave the juice that the little kid of 5 years had ordered to him. The restuarant waiters took almost 3-4 minutes to come in and remove him.
Its the same at work. Go out to the Chai Tapari behind to what is a private road and there are atleast 10 off kids begging. Then there are the hijras sometime in addition and then those folks dressed up as monkeys also touching you for money. Go out the other side for the lunch from a side entrance to this place 20 ft away and there are at least 5 more beggars.
Every traffic stop has at least 6-7 kids begging and my usual path is not really the heavily used city roads. I think for every hour spent on city roads there are at least 20 beggars who accost me. Which means that each foreigner will easily encounter at least 10 times as many. and those with families probably also 10 times as many. Its almost become like mosquito in a swamp. If I go from Aundh to MG road - a distance of around 9 kilometers I'll easily encounter close to 200 beggers! It is simply impossible to move around in city without having someone or the other grabbing a limb asking for money every few minute.
Now I keep hearing from these NGOs how kids are obtained on rent to beg. Many very young ones are also surgically operated and mutilated since it gets more money. The very young ones are heavily drugged so that they don't cry- ever notice how that infant tagged to the kids begging is nearly always sleeping? I suspect most of us know that beggers are also mafia controlled. Then why do we keep giving so much money to them in the process making it a lucrative trade and hence ensuring that kids stay out of school, drugged and/or mutilated?
I think its time that the local governments got serious to this menace. Haul up all these kids put them all in a shelter. Put their parents behind bars for renting them out and the mafias in jail under charge of human trafficking and child abuse.

Satyam Saga: Case of missing money

Something just doesn't square up in the Satyam saga. Raju's letter to SEBI mentioned figures to the rough tune of declared profits like 5400 crore and of this 5100cr is inflated. So that means actual profits are like 300 cr over a turnover of like 8000 cr. How is that possible and especially over a period of years?
My early days in IT while I was pretty much the end of food chain even then I had to explain a lot if my small team was below the margin threshold. and here is a firm that apparently has a 3% margin over all and its Project managers not realizing that their current project is like at 3% and their previous projects were at like 3% and their friend;s projects are like at 3% and yet they aren't being flogged by senior managers? And senior managers can't be flogging everybody?
And such state of affairs would have leaked out. So how can what is said by Raju be true that that's the extent of over reported earnings and only he and his brother knew. I would expect 2/3rd of the firm to know when there is orders of magnitude kind of differences. and if 2/3 of 50000+ know, all the world gets to know it very quickly. So things don't seem to tally up there.
Then there is the question of why did Raju confess it, why in such dire times? And why did PwC not uncover the fraud. How come only Raju knew? What about the financial analysts of the projects generating the invoices for clients? the finance guy collecting bills etc? Did PwC not check with banks? Was someone in banks giving Satyam false statements?
My initial thought was that maybe Satyam ran out of money for payroll so he confess to get a ligther sentence. But then there is the PwC angle. How come PwC didn't uncover anything? If a bank employee was giving false certificates what abt the other bank top brass who might be reading of a top client's disclosures and finding discrepancies?
Today's Business standard though gave another very plausible answer. Apparently after the Maytas fiasco Raju got Meryl Lynch to come and suggest some M&A activity. Meryl Lynch within 1 week of due diligence noticed huge issues with accounts and walked out. M L would have been obligated to report it to stock exchange so Raju came clean.
Which begs the question if PwC is not lying and they actually saw credible receipts than how did ML discover this? If that's not true then PwC is exposed? Maybe the truth is somewhere in between. The auditors where hand is glove with the embezzlers. But still that leaves the issue why did most of Satyam not realize the extent of fraud? Remember is not like 1 cr inflated to 3 cr, its more like 1 cr inflated to 30 cr which is very tough to carry out.
My hunch is that the real over reporting is not as bad as is made out in Raju's letter. They were earning more than 3%. But somewhere a lot of that money has been siphoned off. Apparently overstating profit while being a crime is a lot less serious crime than actual embezzlement of funds. And it might be done in connivance with auditors certainly in a group lot larger than 2.
Already there are reports in TV of how there are huge real estate investments done by promoters and some very credible people had already leveled charges of politicians awarding huge contracts and land allotments to the Rajus and these charges were levelled earlier.
It seems to be that some very serious crimes have been committed here and many shareholders and employees have been destroyed. This deserves serious examination

What letters reveal

Spent an interesting day reading some Pakistani newspapers. I usually find the Dawn pretty good and even at times pretty unbiased at least to the extent that they report what Indian media might be saying. However a quick perusal of the letters in the Statesman Pakistan was instructive. Except for one letter that probably came in during Mumbai attack that asked India not to finger point but work to find out culprits every other letter from private citizens apparently was to the effect that it is a RAW/CIA/Mossad/Indian Armed forces operation to foist a war on peace loving Pakistan. Some even said that Marriott blast in Pakistan was bigger and Pakistan didn't blame India for it then why is India blaming Pakistan for Mumbai!!
While it is possible that the newspaper selected only those letters that it found following its own world view a likely scenario is that the propaganda is so strong that majority of Pakistanis actually believe it so. Its surprising how many of the letter writers believed that 9/11 was enacted by US to start a war against Afghanistan and 26/11 was an in house job to inflame a war with Pakistan.
And that is the scary part. One person mentions how Kasab was apparently arrested in Nepal and framed for the Mumbai carnage? And this when TVs were showing footage of him strolling with an assault weapon in CST and people battling them. Really remarkable frame up where you 'arrest' someone (apparently against his will) and give him plenty of assault weapons and leave him loose? And people believe this story is what scares me and should scare all Pakistanis too.
The propaganda is so effective that most people are unable to accept the truth and deal with it. That is as much a problem because it makes even those in Pakistani establishment who might seriously want to confront the terror menace in Pakistan and actually work with India to really uncover the truth hesitate in the face of hostile public opinion since the public seems unable to see the truth. So someone comments that West is with India because of some conspiracy and China - Pakistan's old friend - is not supporting Pakistan enough because of commercial reasons? No one seems to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe all other countries are supporting India because it has a valid case atleast this time?
There is that old saying that - if every one is coming your way, You are in the wrong lane. Alas many of us forget that. So many letters blame US/Israel/India for the creation of Taleban, the troubles in FATA, the Marriott bombings etc. On one hand someone will comment India did Marriott and the same person will also mention how innocents Pakistanis are fighting Taleban which is a menace to Pakistan. Unfortunately they seem unable to connect Taleban to Marriott etc. Which might be a reason why so much of Pakistan is unstable. Years of brainwashing has ensured that an objective assessment of reality is no more possible.
Cleansing such a head in sand view I believe is the tougher task ahead of us.