Area News

2008-12-22T00:24:00.000-08:00

Accident investigators could have clues as early as this evening as to why a Continental Airlines plane slid off a runway Saturday at DIA, but it may take up to a year to complete the full probe into what happened, a senior air-safety official said Sunday.

The flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders from the plane that crashed during takeoff at Denver International Airport are covered with soot but appeared to have made it through the crash intact.

The recorders were retrieved from the plane and taken to Washington, D.C., on Sunday. They could provide evidence for National Transportation Safety Board investigators about the cause of the accident, said Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB board member who is acting as agency spokesman.

Investigators will download and interpret the flight data and listen to the voice recordings and come up with a detailed transcript of what was said in the cockpit, Sumwalt said.

The probe is expected to dig into the reason the crew of Flight 1404 apparently aborted the takeoff and what caused the plane to leave the runway.

The Boeing 737-500 jet, bound for Houston with 115 people onboard, traveled first across a field, then across taxiway WC and an access road for DIA vehicles before stopping at the bottom of a hill near DIA's Airport Rescue and Firefighting station 4. At some point, the plane caught fire.

Aerial photos shot by The Denver Post show a crack in the fuselage and fire damage on the plane's right side.

There were 110 passengers, three of them children on laps, and five crew members. A total of 38 people were injured, but on Sunday, most had been released from hospitals.

The Boeing jet was manufactured in 1994, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. A review of FAA and NTSB databases showed no accident or incident reports involving the plane that crashed Saturday.

How will interest rate cuts affect consumers?

2008-12-21T03:42:00.001-08:00

The Federal Reserve essentially cut rates to 0 percent last week. What does that mean for the average consumer? What does it mean for the economy? The last several rate cuts don't seem to have produced positive results.

W e obviously live in some pretty inter esting times. I never thought I would see the day the Federal Reserve would take the overnight lending target rate to effectively 0 percent when the United States will likely run a $1 trillion budget deficit next year. It would be foolhardy and inflationary if times weren't so desperate.

With that said, a lot of people are worried Washington's aggressive actions haven't appeared to produce more meaningful short-term results. After all, credit is still tight and the economic data has been dreadful. But that isn't necessarily being fair. After all, Fed rate cuts and changes to monetary policy usually take some months to take full effect; so any actions taken this week won't likely bear any sort of significant fruit until the middle of next year.

Then we have to ask ourselves a more disturbing question: What would the situation be like if Washington hadn't thrown all this money at it? In truth, things would probably be decidedly different.

With that said, focusing solely on this week's rate cut, the Fed's actions were largely psychological or symbolic. This particular move likely won't do too much. After all, we previously had a 1 percent overnight rate, and if I have said it once I have said it a hundred times: "If a 1 percent overnight rate is so restrictive it drives the economy in the dirt, well, the economy probably needs to be driven into the dirt."

That might not be a popular thing to say, but 0 percent interest rates in Japan haven't led to much more than massive government borrowing in that country. The Japanese economy has pretty much trailed the rest of the developed world's for the better part of two decades. As such, if extraordinarily low interest rates were the panacea for economic sluggishness, Japan would be growing at 5 percent.

But that is Japan, what of the American consumer? This rate cut isn't going to hurt, right? Of course, it doesn't hurt, but it likely won't have a major impact either, one way or the other. Banks across the country have increased their spreads and put interest rate floors on new loans. Credit card companies are tinkering with their variable rates for their benefit, not the borrowers'. Loans are resetting at what is increasingly being called the "the new world," and the terms aren't as favorable as they were in the past.

All told, regardless of the Fed's actions, the banking system has changed. Credit will be more difficult to get until banks have cleaned up their balance sheets and they can find a way to sell off mortgages and other loans to the secondary markets. Until such time, banks, in aggregate, won't be looking to massively grow their loan portfolio, and they will want squeaky clean, profitable assets. In short, a lot of firms will be paying the piper in 2009.

I would imagine most bank CFOs would tell you the same in confidence. One percent wasn't that restrictive, and they weren't getting 1 percent lending money out overnight anyhow. Zero percent? If bank CFOs could speak with one voice, they would likely say something along the lines of: "OK, we get it. We understand you want us to loan out money. But to whom? We have to get our housekeeping taken care of first."

Area braces for new storm

2008-12-21T01:50:00.000-08:00

Residents fresh from digging out after a wintry blast that dumped almost a foot of snow on the area, caused dozens of fender-benders and hampered last-minute Christmas shopping can expect up to 15 more inches from another storm that will make travel hazardous into Monday afternoon.

A storm warning is in effect from 4 a.m. today to 1 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Ten to 15 inches of snow is expected across much of the central and northern part of the state, and six to 12 inches in parts of south central Vermont, the weather service said.

Snow will begin falling in earnest today mid to late morning, moving quickly from the southwest to the northeast, the weather service said. By tonight, the heavier precipitation will shift mainly to the north.

The effects of the storm will be aggravated by stiff winds gusting up to 40 miles an hour Sunday night through Monday afternoon that will lead to considerable blowing of snow and make travel conditions difficult.

"Significant amounts of snow are forecast that will make travel dangerous," the weather service said, recommending that motorists only venture out in an emergency.

Eric Evenson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in South Burlington, said the first storm dropped 11.4 inches of snow at the weather station between 2 p.m. Friday and 7 a.m. Saturday. Most of the state received between six and 11 inches.

The amount of snowfall recorded in Burlington is well above the average for December, Evenson said. In the first 19 days of the month the area received about 27 inches of snow, whereas the average for the period is 9.5 inches, he said. For the entire month of December the average is 17.2 inches.

"We will definitely be above normal" for the whole month, he said.

Vermont State Police at the Williston barracks were busy Saturday responding to dozens of reports of cars sliding off Interstate 89, dispatchers said. By 3 p.m. at least 30 cars had gone off the roadway between exits 11 and 17.

No serious accidents or fatalities had been reported by early evening, dispatchers said.

The snow made the going a little harder for shoppers flooding into University Mall in South Burlington, where traffic usually backs up on Dorset Street around Christmas even under ideal conditions. City Police Corporal Ed Soychak said he spent several hours directing traffic at the intersection of Dorset Street and the north entrance to the mall.

"It was pretty crazy," he said. "The weather was definitely a factor."

However, he said motorists were patient and polite to him and others, unlike other years.

"Usually we have incidents of road rage, screaming and not getting along," he said.

Soychak said numerous minor accidents were reported around the city because of the weather, but "nothing big."