A SMALL PLANE CRASHED INTO A CONWAY, ARKANSAS HOUSE Saturday afternoon after misjudging the runway.  The crash killed the pilot and a resident of the house.  A passenger and another resident survived the crash.

The Pine Bluff Commercial has the full STORY.

THE HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA TIMES reports that a  27-year-old Decatur man died Thursday in Florida while delivering a new fire truck to Huntsville, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.Gary John Sherrill, an employee of North Alabama Fire Equipment Co. of Decatur, was killed when he lost control of the fire truck on Interstate 10 near Greenville, Fla., about 30 miles east of Tallahassee at about 5:25 p.m., according to a report released this morning by the highway patrol.

The $700,000 fire truck, which Sherrill was delivering from Orlando to Huntsville, was totaled, according to highway patrol.

A FIRE ENGINE RETURNING TO STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA from the South Lake Tahoe fire lost its brakes on a winding road in the mountains.  The driver purposely drove the engine into a mountainside to stop it.  None of the four firefighters on board were injured.

Recordnet.com has the full STORY.

VISION ROBOTICS OF SAN DIEGO is close to completing its model orange-picking robot.  The machine with 8 picking arms can seek out the oranges, determine how far away they are and their readiness for picking, and pluck them carefully, depositing them safely in the collector bin.

Fred Reed of the Washington Times gives a good description of the robot’s workings HERE.   And Wired.com gives the story of the company designing the machine HERE.

Once the robot is perfected, it’s a simple step to make one for apples, grapes, cherries,etc.  It is basically a two-part machine.   One an eagle-eyed scout, the other a metallic octopus with a gentle touch. The first robot will scan the tree and build a 3-D map of the location and size of each orange, calculating the best order in which to pick them. It sends that information to the second robot, a harvester that will pick the tree clean, following a planned sequence that keeps its eight long arms from bumping into each other.

The prototype scout will be ready next year, with the harvester ready two or three years later.  The biggest hurdle is writing the software.  After the scout robot makes a 3-D map of the tree, it has to evaluate each piece of fruit. What size is the orange? What color is it? Does it have black spots on it?

 
Sky News photo

JUST OVER TWO HOURS AGO A BURNING CAR occupied by two barbarians attempted to crash through the doorway of the Glasgow, Scotland airport terminal.

BBC News

The two men, one of whom had his clothing on fire, were subdued by passersby until the police joined in within moments.

There are early reports from BBC HERE,  and from Sky News HERE.

(editor’s note:  The British term “Asian” is what we describe as “Middle-Eastern.”)

Firegeezer will be updating the links as reports come in.

update 12:15 edt:  Sky News has an amateur VIDEO HERE.

update #2:  From the AP:  Leeson said bollards — security posts outside the entrance — stopped the driver from barreling into the bustling terminal at Glasgow’s airport.

“He’s trying to get through the main door frame but the bollards have stopped him from going through. If he’d got through, he’d have killed hundreds, obviously,” he said.

Leeson said only the nose of the vehicle made it inside the building. Richard Grey told the BBC that the vehicle was lodged into the center of the terminal’s main entrance.

IN PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA, near Philadelphia, the Treasurer of a non-profit ambulance company, Harvey S. Grossman, was sentenced Thursday to serve 5 - 20 years for plundering $2.2 million from the company.

The Plymouth Community Ambulance Association serves seven townships in Montgomery County.

His lawyer issued a statement:  “Obviously, he won’t be home tonight.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer has the full STORY.

This story first broke 18 months ago when police served a search warrant on Grossman and removed practically every piece of furniture and appliances from his house.  It was covered in the Times-Herald HERE.

Harvey S. Grossman

CHINA JUST CAN’T STAY OUT OF THE “BAD NEWS” column these days.  Yesterday one of their airliners shredded some tires (tires again? - ed.), lost a wheel assembly and tore a hole in the fuselage during takeoff.

The Los Angeles Fire Dept. staged a full-alarm standby at LAX while the plane returned and landed.  The FD’s public information office has the full details HERE.

IN SCOTLAND A HIGH-RANKING BANK EXECUTIVE was suspended by his golf club for cheating.  Now he has gone to court to get it reversed.

The personal scandal has caused the bank to lose the club’s banking business and they are seriously thinking of dismissing the executive because of the adverse publicity.  The club has suspended him for a year.

Nairn Golf Club

The Scotsman reports:

Yesterday, a judge was told the fall-out caused such concern within the Royal Bank of Scotland that the matter went all the way to the top - to the chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin.

His lawyer is quoted:  “It created an enormous amount of adverse publicity. I am told by my client the implications of how to deal with this went up to Sir Fred Goodwin, the head of the bank. They had teams of people sitting around with press releases waiting to ensure that the bank’s reputation was not damaged.”

Firegeezer always knew the Scots took their golf seriously, but……Wow.

Read the full story in today’s The Scotsman HERE.

TAHOE FIRE 70% CONTAINED.  One third of the 2,200 firefighters have been released.  STORY.

FOREST FIRE NEAR ATHENS, GREECE has destroyed the last forest next to the city and burned out most of the greenery in the Capital.  STORY.

THE TWO PITTSBURGH MOTHERS who left their children alone while they went to a bar were ordered today to stand trial on 5 counts of involuntary manslaughter.  HERE.

A GUEST HOUSE ON PROPERTY owned by Tiger Woods burned down today on Jupiter Island, Florida.  Nobody was in the cottage at the time.  STORY.

A FIRE IN HOUSTON CAUSED HEAVY DAMAGE to the home of a state Supreme Court justice and also damaged two neighboring houses.  HERE.

EXPLODING BUG BOMBS start house fire in Imperial Valley, Californina.  It was the bombs that exploded, not the bugs.  Story HERE.

ISAAC FELICIANO HAS FULFILLED A DREAM he has held since he was 4 years old……to become a firefighter.

Some of you may recall back in January that Isaac went to court in New Jersey to be permitted to apply for the job.  He has worn a prosthesis on his lower left leg since childhood, but has adapted.  In high school he played football and when taking the FF entrance exams, scored in the top third in the physical fitness test.

Finally, on March 15 he was admitted to the Passaic County Public Safety Academy and today he graduated.  He will be going to work in the Paterson FD.

Read the whole story HERE.