Landing gear failure

Landing gear failure

LONDON — The nose wheel of a British Airways passenger jet collapsed with a loud bang as it landed Friday evening at London City Airport, sending the plane scraping across the tarmac with 71 people aboard, officials and witnesses said. All aboard escaped by emergency slides, but one person was taken to a hospital with a minor injury.

The plane was arriving from Amsterdam about 8 p.m. when the front landing gear failed and the front of the plane slammed onto the runway and skidded, officials and firefighters said.

“As a precaution, the emergency slides were deployed and passengers were evacuated down the slides onto the runway,” British Airways said. “One passenger suffered a minor injury.”

The airline said it did not yet know what caused the landing gear problem on the Avro 146 RJ100, which had been carrying 67 passengers and four crew members. The government sent three investigators to the scene.

Charged in deadly fire

MELBOURNE, Australia — Police charged a man with deadly arson in one of southern Australia’s wildfires and put him in protective custody as survivors expressed fury that anyone could set such a blaze.

Authorities also doubled the property toll Friday, saying more than 1,800 homes were destroyed in the Feb. 7 blazes. Officials say 181 people were killed and expect that total eventually to exceed 200.

Firefighters were still working today to contain about a dozen blazes, though weather conditions were favorable.

The suspect, whose identity was banned from publication by a magistrate because of the risk of reprisal attacks against him or his family, was formally charged with one count of arson causing death, one of intentionally lighting a wildfire, and one of possessing child pornography, Victoria police said.

Vets possibly infected

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Thousands of patients at a Veterans Affairs clinic in Tennessee may have been exposed to the infectious body fluids of other patients when they had colonoscopies in recent years, and now VA medical facilities all over the U.S. are reviewing their own procedures.

A spokesman at the Alvin C. York VA Medical Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., said the clinic is offering free blood tests and medical care to all patients whose records show they had colonoscopies between April, 23, 2003 and Dec. 1, 2008.

Christopher Conklin said in a telephone interview Friday that notification letters were sent this week by registered mail to 6,378 patients of the Murfreesboro facility. He said no related health problems have been reported, and every measure is being taken to assure that affected veterans are screened.

VA officials also said a problem was found with equipment at an ear, nose and throat clinic at the VA medical center in Augusta, Ga., and 1,800 veterans have been notified they may have been exposed to infection there.

Violence threatens truce

JERUSALEM — Hamas officials said Friday an agreement with Israel on a long-term cease-fire in Gaza could be announced within days, but a new cycle of attacks by both sides put new strains on the temporary truce that has held since Israel’s offensive.

Two rockets and a mortar shell fired from Gaza hit southern Israel, the Israeli military said. No one was injured, and no Palestinian group took responsibility for the attacks.

Hours later, Israel retaliated with an airstrike that killed a man and critically wounded another near the Gaza town of Khan Younis, Palestinian security officials said. The dead man was a member of the small, violent Popular Resistance Committees group.

The Israeli military, confirming the strike, said the men were planning an attack on Israel.

Deportation of parents

WASHINGTON — More than 100,000 parents whose children are U.S. citizens were deported over the decade that ended in 2007, a Department of Homeland Security investigation has found.

The parents were removed from the country on immigration violations or because they had committed crimes. The removals of the 108,434 parents were among the approximately 2.2 million carried out by immigration officials between 1998 and 2007, Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner said in a report made public Friday.

Skinner warned the numbers were incomplete because Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn’t fully document such cases. The agency also does not keep track of how many children each parent has. He recommended immigration officials start collecting more data on removed parents and their children.

Associated Press