Love of Life : Seven Decades After His Disappearance in WWII, Wife Discovers The Truth

Peggy and Billie Harris were madly in love. From the moment the pair met, they knew they were destined for one another, but unfortunately, the universe had different plans for them. Billie was hurled into the throes of WWII to fight for the U.S. in Northern France against the Nazi occupation. Just as Billie was ready to come home to visit his wife, the plans drastically changed and Billie never returned home. Peggy waited and waited to hear news of her husband, but nothing concrete ever came. For almost seven decades, Peggy couldn’t move on or remarry, until something amazing happened that would change her life forever, all thanks to one mysterious woman. Read here to find out what really became of Billie Harris.

1. Seven Decades Ago

It all began around seven decades ago. A small-town girl named Peggy Seale had just graduated high school while World War II was creating a horrific storm on the other side of the world. Men were being called to service, and Peggy knew she needed to help out.

So she left her hometown of Vernon, Texas to start working at the Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma, just across the border from her home state. Here, Peggy was employed as an electrical mechanic for a number of different instruments.

2. Female Mechanic

Peggy Seale just happened to be the only female mechanic on the entire base, and she quickly caught the attention of many men because of her talent and natural beauty. She even caught the attention of one of her generals who thought Peggy would be perfect for his son.
Billie Harris

The general’s son was an aviation pilot and stationed down in San Antonio at the time. The father tried to get Peggy to write his son, Billie Harris, but she just couldn’t bring herself to write a strange man she had never met.

3. The Letters

So, Billie wrote to Peggy through his dad. Enclosed in the letters he would send to his father, Billie would also include a letter for Peggy. At first, Peggy was hesitant to answer, but soon it would be apparent that they were destined to be together.
Billie Harris

“I worked with Billie’s father at that time,” Peggy said. “He was writing letters to [Billie], telling him about me, and I refused to write to him first or give him or his father my address. So he wrote a letter to me and put it in an envelope to his father to give to me. That was my first acquaintance with him.”

4. Young Lovers

Soon, these letters turned into back and forth correspondence between the two young budding lovers. However, at first, it was harder to convince Peggy that they were meant to be together. She even actively tried to discourage him from wanting to be in a relationship with her.
Billie Harris

“I wrote to him that I loved opera and listened on Saturday afternoons. I thought that would turn any man off, but he wasn’t and he wrote back. I wrote him that I memorized poetry and he wrote back that he memorized poetry as well and he thought that was really great,” Peggy recalled.

5. Inseparable Souls

Over and over again, Peggy tried to dissuade Billie from wanting to be with her until the fateful day when the two finally met. While Billie was on leave he came to Peggy’s base, where his father was serving.


The two met in a plane hanger at Altus AFB, and ever since that fateful moment, the two became inseparable. Their courtship lasted for months, with both of them writing back and forth to each other frequently, and soon enough, the love birds got engaged.

6. Alarming News

The couple’s engagement was short, as the pair married shortly after in 1943. Just as they were basking in marital bliss, news came in that Billie Harris was being transferred to Florida. He was due to be shipped out to Europe within a matter of weeks.
Peggy and Billie Harris Married

The newlyweds didn’t want to be separated, so Peggy flew out to Florida to be with Billie. The two were given just two weeks to be together before Billie was to be shipped off to fight in the horror that was the Second World War. However, the plans would change once again.

7. True Love

Billie and Peggy were extremely poor, so instead of buying wedding rings, the two happily exchanged their high school senior rings. They were in love and nothing, especially money, was going to stand in their way.
Peggy and Billie Harris

The couple had only been married six short weeks and were looking forward to their two-week vacation together when suddenly the vacation came to an abrupt end! A German U-boat attacked a US vessel off the coast of East Florida, killing everyone on board, so Billie had to be shipped out immediately.

8. Ambushed!

If that wasn’t bad enough, the vessel that the Germans downed was full of aviator pilots; pilots that were desperately needed for the European war effort. As a result of this sudden attack, Billie and his team were called up early.
Billie Harris

Even though young Billie was straight out of pilots school, he was given a promotion to 2nd lieutenant and sent off to the battlefields. Peggy didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the very last time she would see her husband.

9. Sworn to Secrecy

In the meantime, Peggy was sent back to Texas, but was instructed not to tell a soul where her husband had been sent. At the time, there were spies all across the United States, so people needed to remain tight-lipped about the whereabouts of the pilots.
Billy Harris

If the enemy discovered that there were more pilots on the way to Europe, they would have done anything possible to make sure they didn’t reach their destinations. Luckily, Billie managed to reach his intended destination.

10. Returning Home

Billie Harris was stationed in the allied United Kingdom and performed operations over Northern Nazi-occupied France. In fact, he completed around 60 to 100 different missions, an great achievement on its own. Given the number of missions he completed, he was allowed to return home.

Thrilled by the prospect of going home to see his beloved wife once more, he raced to the boat to take him home. Only there was one problem! The wounded soldiers were first priority on the boat and there was no room for Billy.

11. Delayed

Billie kept his spirits up, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he would be on a boat back home. He wrote a letter to his beloved Peggy, just to let her know that he had been delayed on his return.

Peggy, of course, was not pleased when she heard the news of the delay. However, she was very thankful that her husband was safe and going to be on his way home soon, or so she thought.

12. Back to the Frontlines

Unable to return back home, Billie couldn’t just sit around waiting with a war raging on around him. He jumped back into his plane and headed back towards the war in an effort to rid France of the Nazi occupation.

Days turned into months, and Peggy hadn’t heard a word from her husband. Then, one day, she received a correspondence from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. The letter said that Billie Harris had returned to the United States.

13. Good News

Peggy was ecstatic by the news that her husband Billie had returned and that they would soon be reunited. But yet again, as the time before that, days turned into months without hearing a word from Billie.

Peggy was told not to worry that she hadn’t heard from Billie since his return to the United States. She was told that he was simply being processed, which could take some time. But Peggy and Billie’s family feared that something else had happened to him.

14. Where is Billie?

Peggy and her father-in-law were worried that Billie Harris had in fact returned to the United States but was in a hospital, gravely wounded. They also wondered if he had perhaps lost his memory and couldn’t even remember who he was.

With that in mind, Peggy turned to the Red Cross to try to track down Billie, but that turned out to be far less than helpful. All the Red Cross told Peggy was that they were unable to launch an investigation into the whereabouts of her husband.

15. The Red Cross

The Red Cross assured Peggy that Billie was simply being processed, but that they didn’t have the funds necessary to locate him. She was also told that he should be in contact with her prior to the completion of an investigation.

Many soldiers and wounded soldiers were returning home from Europe, which meant the Red Cross was simply unequipped to deal with the surge of investigations about missing persons. Peggy, however, wasn’t about to just sit around and wait for news.

16. MIA

Then one day the news came in.  According to the United States Armed Forces, Billie Harris was listed as “missing in action.” The letter was dated July 7, 1944, but something just didn’t sit right with Peggy. She knew that something was amiss.

Peggy Harris went back and searched her records. And sure enough, she was right. She had received a handwritten letter from Billie Harris dated after the 7th of July. She didn’t know what to think, but she hoped, and prayed.

17. Reports From Berlin

Peggy then received a report from Berlin that she had been fearing since her husband left for Europe: Billie had been killed in action. This was shocking to Peggy,  but she knew that many reports coming out of Berlin at the time were unreliable.

According to Peggy, they didn’t know who he was, where he was from, or how he was killed in battle. She didn’t want to believe the report, and years later she would discover that she had good reason to question its reliability.

18. Off the Radar

Peggy then decided to take matters into her own hands and wrote a letter to her congressman in Washington D.C. Surely someone there would be able to find some concrete answers regarding Billie Harris’s last whereabouts.

Peggy hoped at the very least for some closure. She desperately wanted to know what really happened to her long-lost husband who suddenly dropped off the military’s radar. When she received a response from her congressman, all she got was that Billie Harris was still listed as missing in action.

19. Never Giving Up

As the years went by, Peggy kept waiting to hear any news about the fate of her husband. She eventually gave up hope that he was alive, but she wanted to know how he had died and where he was buried, at the very least. Only this would give her closure.

Unfortunately, this crucial information wouldn’t see the light of day for almost 70 more years. Peggy never moved on from her one true love. “Billie was married to me all of his life, and I choose to be married to him all of my life,” she told CBS News.

20. Still MIA

Peggy Harris never gave up hope. By this point, she knew that he had most likely died in the horrific war, but at the very least she wanted to know where his remains were buried to gain some closure in her life.

So, in 2005 she wrote another letter to her congressman in Washington D.C., Representative Mac Thornberry. She eventually received a reply from him, but it wasn’t what she had hoped for. According to the representative, Billie Harris was still listed as missing in action.

21. The Archives

That wasn’t an answer that Peggy was pleased with, nor could accept. She knew that someone, somewhere knew where Billie Harris was and what had happened to him during the war. That’s when Billie’s cousin Alton Harvey got involved.

Together, they called every organization that they could think of, which led them to check with the Arlington National Cemetery Archives. According to them, the process of looking into their records could take around six months. Just then, something surprising happened!

22. A Surprise

Just a few weeks after they put in their request to search for Billie Harris, Peggy got a very unusual call. Someone had already requested and paid for a copy of Billie’s records. An unknown French woman from Les Ventes, France.

The copy of the records was sent to the woman in France. Peggy made it her mission to find out just who this mysterious woman was and why she had requested her husband’s records. When she finally made contact, Peggy was shocked by the reason.

23. KIA

The mission that Peggy and Alton thought would take months, turned out to be a very simple process. Since the records had been pulled so recently, what should have taken months, turned into a matter of a few minutes.

The records clearly stated that Billie Harris had been killed in action. This was something Peggy and Alton both knew in their hearts, but needed to see written in black and white on an official document. They needed this harrowing information to move on with their lives.

24. A Congressional Blunder

But if Peggy and Alton had so easily found the answer to their question, why had their representative in Congress told them Billie Harris was missing in action? Well, as it turns out, no one ever looked into it.

Representative Thornberry issued a formal apology to Peggy Harris, stating that it was a mishandling of a highly sensitive matter, and apologized for any distress she had suffered as a result. Peggy, however, is a very forgiving woman and doesn’t hold any grudges against him.

25. The Annual Parade

But who was the mysterious French woman who requested Billie’s records? Turns out it was the mayor of the French village of Les Ventes; a place where the name Billie Harris was well known. In fact, he was considered a hero there!

After Peggy got in contact with the mayor of the French city, she was invited to come to France to participate in one of their annual parades. They wanted her to witness the yearly parade, which includes a procession of the village’s citizens marching down a street called Place Billie D. Harris.

26. A Life of Death Decision

Billie Harris is considered a hero in the small hamlet of Les Ventes because he saved the entire village as well as countless other lives. During the war, the village was under the occupation of the Nazis where his plane was shot in combat.

As his plane was falling down from the sky, it was headed straight for the village square, full of people. He had two choices, either eject and let the plane crash straight into the village square, killing people, or try to divert the plane.

27. Saving a Town

Billie made a quick decision and turned his plane away from the village, knowing that he wouldn’t have time to eject from the crashing plane to save his life. He crash-landed in a wooded area just outside of Les Ventes.

The villagers, seeing what Billie had done for them and their village, raced into the woods to see if they could save the injured pilot. Sadly, it was too late for Billie and the crash proved to be fatal.

28. Billie the Hero

Peggy Harris arrived at the village, and to her surprise, she learned the tale of Billie the hero and how he valiantly save the townspeople. She was moved to tears to see that their main road was named after her late husband.

In attendance at the ceremony were people that carried Billie’s casket to the local graveyard, and even the man who raced into the woods to check on Billie to try and save him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be saved, but his efforts moved Peggy nonetheless.

29. Normandy

Billie Harris’ body was moved from Les Ventes to the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial shortly after the war ended. There, on the gravestone, was his name clearly written: Billie D. Harris. It was the closure Peggy had been in search of for almost 70 years.

Now that she knows where her dear husband is buried, Peggy sends him flowers at least 10 times a year. People say that Billie’s grave is the most decorated in all of the cemetery. Finally, Peggy can move on with her life as best she can.

30. A Legacy

Peggy Harris can now return to her hometown of Vernon, Texas knowing that her husband was not only a great man, but also a cherished hero loved by so many. His legacy will surely live on for decades to come.

Peggy Harris still remains married to Billie, refusing to marry again. At least now she has peace. She visits her husband at the cemetery in France at least once a year and sends flowers to his grave frequently.

Tales of George Michael's Philanthropy in the Wake of his Death

Former Deal or No Deal producer Richard Osman told how one contestant's partner had said she needed £15,000 for for IVF treatment. She was Lynette Gillard, 38, from Bolton, whose partner Steve Davies had appeared on the show in 2008. The next day Micheal phoned in to donate the money.

Other stories of Michael's benevolence includes a £50,000 Sport Relief donation. He had supported his 2006 cross-Channel swim to the tune of £50,000.

Michael's donations ranged in scope from major charities and appeals to individual acts of kindness.

The proceeds from sales of Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me, his 1991 live duet with Sir Elton John, were donated to HIV and children's charities, including the Terence Higgins Trust.

Wham! royalties from Last Christmas went to Ethiopian famine relief efforts, He had also donated proceeds from the song Jesus to a Child to the cause.

Children's charities were also at the fore when he donated each year to Capital Radio's appeal. The latest he donated was £100,000.

He also suffered the loss of his mother to cancer in 1997 and in 2006 played a special, free concert at the Roundhouse in Camden, north London, for NHS nurses to thank them for their care.

And he gave his time to Macmillan Cancer Support as one of their ambassadors.

Alongside major charities, individuals on Twitter shared their accounts of his kindness.

He had also once tipped a barmaid £5000 because she was a student nurse in debt.

George Michael's £100m fortune to go to his Godchildren

George Michael's £100m fortune to go to his Godchildren

The Godchildren of George Michael are expected to inherit large sums from the singer's will following his shock death from heart failure on Christmas Day. Offspring of his celebrity friends could inherit tens of millions each after star died without heirs

Micheal was a Godparent to a number of his celebrity friends' children, oman and Harley Moon Kemp, the children of his Wham! bandmate Shirlie Holliman and Spandau Ballet bassist Martin Kemp, are now thought to have been left a share of his estimated £100million estate. He is also expected to leave money to Geri Horner's daughter Bluebell, who was the Goddaughter of his ex-boyfriend Kenny Goss.

He was a long-term supporter of a number of charities - including Childline, the Terrence Higgins Trust and Macmillan Cancer Support - who could also be bequeathed large sums. Also Michael's older sisters, Melanie and Yioda, his boyfriend Fadi Fawaz and his cousin Andros' two children, to whom he is also a Godfather, are also expected to be named in his will.

Despite the generous charitable donations he made during his life, his  estate is said to be worth millions. He was own at least four properties, including the Oxfordshire cottage where he died, his mansion in London and lavish homes in New York and Sydney.

George Michael, Pop Superstar, Died from the Heart Failure at 53

George Michael, Pop Superstar, Died from the Heart Failure at 53

Michael “passed away peacefully” at home on 25 December 2016. He had died from heart failure in bed.

George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in East Finchley, London, on June 25, 1963, the son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer. In 1979, he and a schoolmate, Andrew Ridgeley, played together for the first time in a ska band called the Executive. That didn’t last, but they continued to make music together — nearly all of it composed and sung by Mr. Michael — and began releasing singles as Wham!, cultivating the image of carefree teenage rebels in songs like “Young Guns (Go for It!).”

He first achieved pop success with school friend Ridgeley in the pop duo Wham! They split up in 1986 and he went on to have a glittering solo career in which he collaborated with Elton John, Aretha Franklin and Queen, after the death of Freddie Mercury.

Mr. Michael was one of pop’s reigning stars in the 1980s and ’90s — first as a handsome, smiling teen-pop idol making lighthearted singles like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” with Wham!, then arriving as a grown-up pop sex symbol with his 1987 album “Faith.”

But Mr. Michael grew increasingly uncomfortable with the superficiality and relentless promotion of 1980s-style pop stardom. He turned away from video clips and live shows; he set out to make more mature statements in his songs, though he never completely abandoned singing about love and desire.

Mr. Michael wrote supple ballads, like “Careless Whisper” and “Father Figure,” as well as buoyant dance tracks like “Freedom ’90” and “I Want Your Sex.” For much of his career, including his best-selling albums “Faith” and “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1,” he was also his own producer and studio backup band. Much of his music drew on R&B, old and new, but his melodic gift extended across genres.

He won a Grammy Award in 1988 for “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me),” a duet with Aretha Franklin, and “Faith” won the Grammy for album of the year. In Britain, he was showered with awards, and in 2004, Britain’s Radio Academy said he had been the most-played performer on British radio from 1984 to 2004.

In 1998, Mr. Michael came out as gay after being arrested on charges of lewd conduct in a men’s room in Beverly Hills, Calif. He had long lent his name and music to support AIDS prevention and gay rights. During interviews in later years, he described himself as bisexual, and said that hiding his sexuality had made him feel “fraudulent.” He also described long struggles with depression.

During the 2000s, Mr. Michael’s output slowed; his last studio album of new songs was “Patience” in 2004. In later years he put out individual songs as free downloads, encouraging listeners to contribute to charity. But in 2006, 25 years into his career, he could still headline stadiums worldwide.

He also had frequent brushes with the law, including his highly publicised arrest in a Los Angeles public toilet in 1998, an episode that led him to acknowledge his homosexuality and his relationship with Kenny Goss. His track Outside, released the same year, poked fun at the arrest and reached No 2 in the charts.

But Michael would struggle to recapture the same success and his last studio album, Patience, was released in 2004.

In later years he was arrested for drugs and driving offences and twice banned from driving. In 2011, he officially announced the ending of a turbulent 15-year relationship with Goss – though he said that the pair had actually split about two years earlier. After a career hiatus that he described as “a very long period of grief and self-abuse”, he announced his return to performing and said he felt remorse for the impact his high-profile arrests might have had on young gay people striving for acceptance.

Michael nearly died of pneumonia in late 2011. After receiving treatment in a Vienna hospital, he made a tearful appearance outside his London home and said it had been “touch and go” whether he lived. Doctors had performed a tracheotomy to keep his airways open and he was unconscious for some of his spell in hospital.

In May 2013, Michael had to be airlifted to hospital with a head injury after falling from his vehicle on the M1.

Michael’s 1990 album Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 had been set to be reissued, accompanied by a new film featuring Stevie Wonder, John and the supermodels who starred in the video to his hit single Freedom! 90.

The movie, with the working title Freedom: George Michael, was to be narrated by Michael and set to feature Mark Ronson, Mary J Blige, Tony Bennett, Liam Gallagher, James Corden and Ricky Gervais.

The record was his second solo album, after the hugely successful Faith, and was arranged, produced and almost entirely written by Michael, but did not feature him on the album cover. It contained hits including Cowboys and Angels, Mother’s Pride and Praying for Time and outsold Faith in the UK, where it went platinum four times but led to a court case with US record label Sony spurred by Michael’s frustration at how the album was marketed. Michael lost the case.

Michael, who was set to release a documentary in 2017, rose to fame as half of Wham!, known for their hits Club Tropicana and Last Christmas. He had a highly successful solo career that included the songs Careless Whisper, Faith, Outside and Freedom! 90.

Michael had 11 UK No 1s and sold more than 100m albums during a career spanning almost four decades. His last album, Symphonica, was released in 2014.

Thames Valley police said an ambulance had attended a house on 25 December in Goring, Oxfordshire, at 1.42pm. They said the death was being treated as “unexplained but not suspicious” and they would not comment further until after a postmortem.

Brasilian Chapecoense Plane Crash : Columbian LaMia Flight 2933 Tragedy

LaMia Flight 2933 (LMI2933) was a charter flight of an Avro RJ85, operated by LaMia, that crashed in Colombia shortly after 22:00 local time on 28 November 2016, killing 71 of the 77 people on board. It was heading to the Colombian city of Medellin when it crashed in a mountainous area just outside it – the pilot had radioed to report that the plane had suffered an electrical failure and was out of fuel. Only six people survived.

The aircraft was transporting the Brazilian Chapecoense football squad, including 22 players, 23 coaching and other club staff, 2 guests and 21 journalists, from Viru Viru International Airport in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, to José María Córdova International Airport in Colombia. The team was en route to play the first leg of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana Finals in Medellín, against Colombian team Atlético Nacional. Two of the nine crewmembers, three of the players and one journalist survived.

Due in part to the pilot reporting a lack of fuel, and that the distance between the source and destination airports was very near to, or exceeded, the maximum rated range of the aircraft, it has been speculated that the cause of the crash was fuel exhaustion.

The aircraft was on a flight from Viru Viru International Airport, in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, to José María Córdova International Airport, outside Medellín in Colombia, carrying 68 passengers and 9 crew members. Among the passengers were members of the Brazilian Associação Chapecoense de Futebol who were travelling to play their away leg of the Final for the 2016 Copa Sudamericana in Medellín against Atlético Nacional.

Brazil's national aviation authority, the Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (ANAC – National Civil Aviation Agency), had denied Chapecoense's request to use LaMia's services from São Paulo to Medellín, leading to a stop and change of aircraft in Santa Cruz. In line with the freedoms of the air governing international air traffic under the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, ANAC had required that the aircraft be operated by a Brazilian or Colombian company in order for a direct flight to take place. However the club opted to retain LaMia, which had already transported other football clubs, including teams playing in the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL) competitions, and the Argentina national team (who had flown on the same aircraft just 18 days prior). The team flew from São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, on a Boliviana de Aviación commercial flight, before embarking on the chartered aircraft.

Originally the flight was planned to have a fuel stop at the city of Cobija, on Bolivia's border with Brazil, but the flight's late departure meant the aircraft would not arrive at Cobija prior to the airport's closing time. An officer of Bolivia's Administracion de Aeropuertos y Servicios Auxiliares a la Navegacion Aerea (AASANA — Airports and Air Navigation Services Administration) at Santa Cruz de la Sierra reportedly rejected the crew's flight plan for a direct flight to Medellín several times despite pressure from the aircraft's captain — one of LaMia's owners — to approve it, because of the aircraft's range being almost the same as the flight distance; the flight plan was reportedly altered to include a refueling stop in Bogotá instead and was approved by another AASANA officer. The distance between Santa Cruz and Medellín airports is 1,598 nautical miles (2,959 km; 1,839 mi).[14] A fuel stop in Cobija would have broken the flight into two segments: an initial segment of 514 nautical miles (952 km; 952,000 m) to Cobija followed by a flight of 1,101 nautical miles (2,039 km; 1,267 mi) to Medellín, a total of 1,615 nautical miles (2,991 km; 1,859 mi).Bogota's airport is 1,486 nautical miles (2,752 km; 1,710 mi) from Santa Cruz's airport and 116 nautical miles (215 km; 133 mi) from Medellín's.

Under standard conditions, the RJ85 has a range of approximately 1,600 nautical miles (3,000 km; 1,800 mi) with a payload of 7,800 kilograms (17,196 lb). Using the International Air Transport Association (IATA)-recommended estimate for weight of passengers and luggage of 100 kilograms (220 lb) would place the aircraft's payload at 7,700 kilograms (16,976 lb) meaning a flight from Santa Cruz to Medellín would be at the limit of the aircraft's capability. IATA's 100-kg recommendation, however, is based upon observations of international scheduled passenger flights consisting of a mix of passenger ages and genders. Failure to properly account for the weight of predominantly adult male passengers and equipment has been a contributing factor in previous crashes including the 1985 crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285 carrying US military personnel.

At 22:00 local time on 28 November (03:00 UTC, 29 November), the pilot reported electrical failure and fuel exhaustion while flying in Colombian airspace between the municipalities of La Ceja and La Unión.During the last 15 minutes the flight had completed two laps of a racetrack holding pattern, adding about 54 nautical miles (100 km; 62 mi) to its flight length. The crash site is along the approach path to José María Córdova International Airport's runway 01, ten nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) south of the runway.

Helicopters from the Colombian Air Force were initially unable to get to the site because of heavy fog in the area, while first aid workers arrived two hours after the crash to find debris strewn across an area about 100 metres (330 ft) in diameter. It was not until 02:00 on 29 November that the first survivor arrived at a hospital: Alan Ruschel, one of the members of the Chapecoense team. Seven people were found alive in the wreckage although one of them, first choice goalkeeper Danilo, died shortly after arriving at a hospital. The last survivor to be found was footballer Neto, who was discovered at 05:40. Chapecoense reserve goalkeeper Jakson Follmann, who was among survivors, later underwent a potentially life-saving leg amputation. Including Danilo, 71 of the 77 occupants died as a result of the crash; the number of dead was initially thought to be 75 but it was later revealed that 4 people had not boarded the aircraft.

Colombian Air Force personnel extracted the bodies of 70 victims from the wreckage and took them to an air force base. They were then taken to the Instituto de Medicina Legal in Medellín for identification. On the afternoon of 29 November the UAEAC reported that both flight recorders had been recovered undamaged.

The flight attendant who survived the accident stated that the aircraft ran out of fuel. The claim is being investigated by the UAEAC. Crews of other aircraft reported hearing radio reports from the Flight 2933 pilot that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing. The person leading the investigation stated that there was "no evidence of fuel in the aircraft" and the aircraft did not explode when it crashed. The suspected cause of the crash is fuel exhaustion.

On 8 December, an investigative report by Spanish-language American media company Univision, using data from the Flightradar24 website, claimed that in eight of the twenty-three previous flights conducted by LaMia since 22 August the fuel- and loading regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organization were contravened — including two flights from Medellín to Santa Cruz: one on 29 October transporting Atlético Nacional to the away leg of their Copa Sudamericana semi-final; and a flight without passengers on 4 November. The report claimed the eight flights would have used at least some of the aircraft's mandatory fuel reserves (a variable fuel quantity to allow for 45 minutes of flying time); an analyst consulted in preparing the report said this meant that the company was accustomed to operating flights at the limit of the RJ85's endurance.

Execution of Saudi Princess Misha'al bint Fahd

Princess Misha'al bint Fahd  was a member of House of Saud, who was executed by gunshot for alleged adultery in 1977, at the age of 19. She was a granddaughter of Prince Muhammad bin Abdulaziz, who was an older brother of King Khalid.

Her family sent Misha'al bint Fahd, at her own request, to Lebanon to attend school. While residing in there, she fell in affection with a man, Khaled al-Sha'er Mulhallal, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Shaer, the Saudi ambassador in Lebanon, and they began an affair. Upon their return to Saudi Arabia, it emerged that they had conspired to meet alone on several occasions and a charge of adultery was brought against them.




She made few attempts to evade and escape from Saudi Arabia. She made an attempt to fake her own drowning and was caught trying to escape from Saudi Arabia with Khaled. She also disguised as a man and tried to escape but she was recognized by a passport examiner at Jeddah airport. She was subsequently returned to her family.

Under Sharia law, a person can only be convicted of adultery by the testimony of four adult male witnesses to the act of sexual penetration, or by their own admission of guilt, stating three times in court "I have committed adultery." There were no witnesses. Her family urged her not to confess, but instead to merely promise never to see her lover again. On her return to the courtroom, she allegedly repeated her confession: "I have committed adultery. I have committed adultery. I have committed adultery." This account has been challenged by the docudrama Death of a Princess, which claims the princess and her lover were never actually tried in court.

On 15 July 1977 at the only age of 19, she was executed along with her boy friend. Both were publicly executed in Jeddah by the side of the Queen's Building in the carpark. Princess was shot several times in the head in 1977 in a carpark. Her death is thought to have been ordered by her grandfather, Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the King's older brother.  Despite her royal status, she was blindfolded, made to kneel, and executed with the gun shot on the explicit instructions of her grandfather, a senior member of the royal family, for the alleged dishonour she brought on her clan and defying a royal order calling for her to marry a man selected by the family.


Khaled, after being forced to watch her execution, was beheaded with a sword by, it is believed, one of the princess's male relatives. The executioner was not practiced or dressed as a normal executioner. Prince Muhammad’s bodyguards  likely carried out ‘the execution’. Khallid received a blow on the left and on the right of the head with a short sword. It took five blows to sever his head, which was not the work of a professional executioner. Both executions were conducted near the palace in Jeddah, not in the public execution square in Jeddah.

ISIL Execution: 19 Yazidi Girls Burned Alive in Cages After Refusing to be Sex Slaves

7 June 2016, A group of Yazidi girls who refused to become Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) sex slaves were locked in cages and burned alive, reports say.

ISIL jihadists publicly executed the 19 Yazidi girls in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, according to the Kurdish ARA news agency.

The girls were killed in front of hundreds of people, according to local media activist Abdullah al-Malla. “They were punished for refusing to have sex with ISIL militants,” he told ARA.

ISIL is said to view Yazidis – members of an ancient religion who are of Kurdish ethnicity – as heretics and “fire-worshipers.”

A witness told the agency: 'The 19 girls were burned to death, while hundreds of people were watching.



'Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment.'

It is estimated more than 3,000 Yazidi girls have been taken as sex slaves by ISIS after they took over northern Iraq.

Thousands of them remain trapped on Mount Sinjar and according to local and military sources, they have suffered mass killings, rape and kidnappings.

In territories occupied by ISIS anybody who opposes their religion can be turned into slave, and they are often considered as 'devil worshippers' by the terror group.

When ISIL overran northern Iraq “it engaged in a systematic genocide of the Yazidi population, murdering the men and taking the women and children captive, forcing many into sex slavery,” the ARA report said.

Healthy Baby Born to Woman Brain-Dead for Almost 4 Months

A healthy baby has been born to a woman who has been brain-dead for almost four months, hospital officials say.

The boy was born in Portugal's capital Lisbon by Caesarean section after 32 weeks, weighing 2.35kg (5lb, 3oz).

His mother was declared brain dead on February 20 after having a brain haemorrhage.

"The foetus appeared to be in good health [so] the decision was taken with the family to follow through with the pregnancy," the hospital said.

It added that the birth represented Portugal's longest-ever survival of a foetus whose mother was brain-dead.

In January, a baby boy was born in Wroclaw, Poland, after surviving for 55 days in the womb of his mother, who had been declared brain-dead after a tumour.

Peter Farmington, Survives two Execution Attempts Finally is Released From Prison

A Tennessee death row inmate has been released from prison today after two attempts to execute him have failed. Peter Farmington was convicted of 3 counts of murder in the first degree when he pled guilty to murdering his wife and their two young children in March of 2006.

The prison warden, Joseph Goldsmith, called Farmington’s survival “a divine intervention.”

“We have two methods of execution in the state of Tennessee.” said Goldsmith. “It is has always been our tradition to let the inmate choose how they want to go. Mr. Farmington is the first person to try their hand at both options. We are taking it as a sign from God that this man is just not meant to die.”

Farmington had his first execution scheduled in late 2013 via lethal injection. At that time, his body did not react to the sodium thiopental, which is the first in a series of three drugs given to someone being executed. Sodium thiopental is designed to render a person unconscious before they inject bromide, which causes paralysis, and finally potassium chloride, which induces cardiac arrest.

Dr. Robert Liston was the medical examiner on staff for the state prison during Farmington’s first execution.

“I have never seen anything like it in all my years as a medical doctor.” Said Liston. “Sodium thiopental is not something someone can generally be ‘immune’ to, but Farmington’s body did not react. The drug should have hit him within 30 seconds. We waited over ten minutes, then dosed him again. Nothing.”

Doctors and prison staff had no choice but to postpone the execution, and the governor granted temporary reprieve for Farmington, giving him another six months on death row, while he awaited his second execution date.

Last week, the prison again tried to execute Farmington, this time via electric chair.

“Farmington chose to not go through lethal injection a second time, and opted for electrocution.” Said Goldsmith. “We hadn’t fired up ol’ sparky since 2007, but it was his choice and we honored it.”

Prison officials were stunned when, for a second time, Farmington was spared death, this time when the electric chair failed to operate.

“We threw those switches, and on the third flip, you’re supposed to see sparks fly, but we saw nothing.” Said Goldsmith. “We got Farmington out of the chair, hooked everything back up, fired it up, and it worked like a charm. We didn’t even try putting him back in again.”

Per federal law, Farmington was immediately released from prison, as any inmate who survives his execution twice is automatically allowed a full pardon.

“We wish Farmington all the best in his new life outside prison walls.” Said Governor Bill Haslam as he signed Farmington’s release forms. “This man may be a bloodthirsty, violent individual, but some higher power has given him a second chance at life. We certainly hope he uses it for something better this time around.”

Embarrashing 21st Century Realities : Honour Killings

In one of the most publicized honour killing cases committed in Pakistan, Samia Sarwar was murdered by her family in the Lahore office of well-known human rights activists Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani in April 1999. As Sarwar sought assistance for a divorce from her first cousin, her family arranged her murder after the shame felt in her attempt to marry a man of her choice. The police did not make any arrests or pursue prosecution as Sarwar's family is highly well known in elite, political circles. The 2000 award-winning BBC documentary, "License to Kill," covers Samia's killing in Pakistan.

Amnesty International reported that on 27 April 2010, Ayman Udas, a Pashtun singer from the Peshawar area, was shot to death apparently by her two brothers who "viewed her divorce, remarriage and artistic career as damaging to family honour." No one was prosecuted. In 2008, three teenage girls were buried alive after refusing arranged marriages.

A widely reported case was that of Tasleem Khatoon Solangi, 17, of Hajna Shah village in Khairpur district, which was widely reported after her father, 57-year-old Gul Sher Solangi, publicized the case. He alleged his eight months’ pregnant daughter was tortured and killed on March 7, 2008, by members of her village claiming that she had brought dishonour to the tribe. Solangi's father claimed that it was orchestrated by her father-in-law, who accused her of carrying a child conceived out of wedlock, potentially with the added motive of trying to take over the family farm.

On 27 May 2014 a pregnant woman named Farzana Iqbal (née Parveen) was stoned to death by her family in front of a Pakistani High Court for eloping and marrying the man she loved, Muhammad Iqbal. Police investigator Mujahid quoted the father as saying: "I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it." Muhammad Iqbal stated that it had been a prolonged engagement, and Farzana's father had become enraged only after Iqbal refused a demand for more money than the originally agreed amount of the bride price. Muhammad Iqbal strangled his first wife so that he would be free to marry Farzana, and police said he had been released after that murder when a "compromise" was reached with his first wife's family.

Recent cases include a 16-year-old girl, Imrana, from Bhojpur, India who was set on fire inside her house in a case of what the police called 'moral vigilantism'. The victim had screamed for help for about 20 minutes before neighbours arrived, only to find her smouldering body. She was admitted to a local hospital, where she later died from her injuries.

In May 2008, Delhi, India Jayvirsingh Bhadodiya shot his daughter Vandana Bhadodiya and struck her on the head with an axe.

In June 2012, rajastan, India, a man chopped off his 20-year-old daughter's head with a sword in Rajasthan after learning that she was dating men. According to police officer, "Omkar Singh told the police that his daughter Manju had relations with several men. He had asked her to mend her ways several times in the past. However, she did not pay heed. Out of pure rage, he chopped off her head with the sword"

In 9th September 2008 include that of three teenage girls who were buried alive after refusing arranged marriages.

Another case was that of Taslim Khatoon Solangi, 17, of Hajna Shah village in Khairpur district, which was widely reported after her father, 57-year-old Gul Sher Solangi, publicized the case. He alleged his eight-months-pregnant daughter was tortured and killed on 7 March on the orders of her father-in-law, who accused her of carrying a child conceived out of wedlock.

On 27 May 2014, a pregnant woman was stoned to death by her own family in front of a Pakistani high court for marrying the man she loved. "I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it," Mujahid, the police investigator, quoted the father as saying.

In 2010, in New South Wales, Indonesian born Hazairin Iskandar and his son killed the lover of Iskandar's wife. Iskandar stabbed the victim with a knife while his son bashed him with a hammer. The court was told that the reason for the murder was the perpetrators' belief that extramarital affairs were against their religion; and that the murder was carried out to protect the honour of the family and was a "pre-planned, premeditated and executed killing". The judge said that: "No society or culture that regards itself as civilized can tolerate to any extent, or make any allowance for, the killing of another person for such an amorphous concept as honour".

Pela Atroshi was a Kurdish 19-year-old girl who was killed by her uncle in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1999. The decision to kill her was taken by a council of her male relatives, led by Pela's grandfather, Abdulmajid Atroshi, who lived in Australia. One of his sons, Shivan Atroshi, who helped with the murder, also lived in Australia. Pela Atroshi was living in Sweden, but was taken by family members to Iraqi Kurdistan to be killed, as ordered by a family council of male relatives living in Sweden and Australia, because they claimed she had tarnished the family honor. Pela Atroshi's murder was officially deemed an honour killing by authorities.

In 1989, in St. Louis, Missouri,US, 16-year-old Palestina "Tina" Isa was murdered by her Palestinian father with the aid of his wife. Her parents were dissatisfied with her "westernized" lifestyle.

In 2008, in Georgia, US,  25-year-old Sandeela Kanwal was killed by her Pakistani father for refusing an arranged marriage.

In 2009 a Turkish news agency reported that a 2-day-old boy who was born out of wedlock had been killed for honor in Istanbul. The maternal grandmother of the infant, along with six other persons, including a doctor who had reportedly accepted a bribe to not report the birth, were arrested. The grandmother is suspected of fatally suffocating the infant. The child's mother, 25, was also arrested; she stated that her family had made the decision to kill the child.

In 2010 a 16-year-old girl was buried alive by relatives for befriending boys in Southeast Turkey; her corpse was found 40 days after she went missing. Ahmet Yildiz, 26, a Turkish-Kurdish physics student who represented his country at an international gay conference in the United States in 2008, was shot dead leaving a cafe in Istanbul. Ahmet Yildiz was who was from deeply religious family was believed to be the victim of the country's first gay honor killing.

Banaz Mahmod, a 20-year-old Iraqi Kurd woman from Mitcham, South London, UK was killed in 2006, in a murder orchestrated by her father, uncle and cousins. Her life and murder were presented in a documentary called Banaz a Love Story, directed and produced by Deeyah Khan.

Another well-known case was Heshu Yones, stabbed to death by her Kurdish father in London, UK in 2002 when her family heard a love song dedicated to her and suspected she had a boyfriend.[131] Other examples include the killing of Tulay Goren, a Kurdish Shia Muslim girl who immigrated with her family from Turkey, and Samaira Nazir (Pakistani Muslim).

A highly publicized case was that of Shafilea Iftikhar Ahmed, a 17-year-old British Pakistani girl from Great Sankey, Warrington, Cheshire, who was murdered in 2003 by her parents.

However, a lesser-known case is that of Gurmeet Singh Ubhi, a Sikh man who, in February 2011, was found guilty of the murder of his 24-year-old daughter, Amrit Kaur Ubhi in 2010. Ubhi was found to have murdered his daughter because he disapproved of her being 'too westernised'. Likewise he also disapproved of the fact that she was dating a non-Sikh man.

In 2012, the UK had the first white victim of an honor killing: 17 year old Laura Wilson was killed by her Asian boyfriend, Ashtiaq Ashgar, because she revealed details of their relationship to his family, challenging traditional cultural values of the Asian family. Laura Wilson's mother told Daily Mail, “I honestly think it was an honour killing for putting shame on the family. They needed to shut Laura up and they did”. Wilson was repeatedly knifed to death as she walked along a canal in Rotherham city.

In 2013, Mohammed Inayat was jailed for killing his wife and injuring three daughters by setting his house on fire in Birmingham. Inayat wanted to stop his daughter from flying to Dubai to marry her boyfriend, because he believed the marriage would dishonour his family. In 2014, the husband of Syrian-born 25-year-old Rania Alayed, as well as three brothers of the husband, were jailed for killing her. According to the prosecution, the motive for the murder was that she had become "too westernised" and was "establishing an independent life".

In 2006, 20-year-old Hina Saleem, a Pakistani woman who lived in Brescia, Italy, was murdered by her father who claimed he was "saving the family's honour". She had refused an arranged marriage, and was living with her Italian boyfriend.

In 2009, in Pordenone, Italy, Sanaa Dafani, an 18-year-old girl of Moroccan origin, was murdered by her father because she had a relationship with an Italian man.

In 2011, in Cerignola, Italy, a man stabbed his brother 19 times because his homosexuality was a "dishonour to the family".

In Sweden the 26-year-old Iraqi Kurdish woman Fadime Şahindal was killed by her father in 2002. Pela Atroshi was a Kurdish girl who was shot by her uncle who was radical Muslim in a brutal honour killing in Sweden.

Anooshe Sediq Ghulam was a 22-year-old Afghan refugee in Norway, who was killed by her husband in an honor killing. She had reported her husband to the police for domestic violence and was seeking a divorce.

In 2010, a 16-year-old Pakistani girl was killed near Zurich, Switzerland, by her father who was dissatisfied with her lifestyle and her Christian boyfriend.

In March 2009, Germany, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey, Gülsüm S., was killed for a relationship not in keeping with her religious family's plan for an arranged marriage.

In a well-known case, a Kurdish man killed his pregnant girlfriend in Berlin in January 2015 and burned her alive.In 2016 a Kurdish woman was shot dead at her wedding in Hannover for refusing to marry her cousin in a forced marriage.

Ghazala Khan was shot and killed in Denmark in September 2005, by her brother, after she had married against the will of the family. She was of Pakistani origin. Her murder was ordered by her father to save the family 'honour', and several relatives were involved.

In 2011, Belgium held its first honor killing trial, in which four Pakistani family members were found guilty of killing their daughter and sibling, Sadia Sheikh.

Air Crash Disasters 2013 - 2016

Air Crash Disasters 2013-2016

Air Asia Flight 214 (July 6, 2013) - a Boeing 777 from Seoul, south Korea, crashes at San Francisco international Airport as it tries to land. Three people are killed and 180 are injured.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 (March 8, 2014)- One of aviation's mysteries: A Boeing 777 disappears from radar after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. The disappearance has never been explained, but wreckage believed to be from the plane washed ashore on the coast of Africa.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (July 17, 2014)- A passanger plane en route from Amsterdam to malaysia is shot down over Ukraine. All 298 people onboard are killed. Officials conclude that the Boeing 777 was struck by a missile, and the Dutch inverstigators say evidence points to pro-Russian rebels as being responsible.

TransAsia Airways Flight GE 222 (July 23, 2014) - A Taiwanese ATR 72 plane crashes in heavy rain while attempting to land at Magong Airport in the Penghu Islands. The pilot had asked for a second landing attempt before the crash, which kills 48 people.

Air Algerie Flight 5017 (July 24, 2014) - An MD 83 plane crashes in mali after taking off from Burkina faso. Less than an hour into the flight to Algeris, the aircraft dissapears from radar after changing its flight path because of bad weather. All 116 people on board are killed.

AirAsia Flight 8501 (December 28, 2014) - An Airbus 320 crashed en route from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to singapoe, crashing into the Java Sea after stalling following a sudden ascent. all 162 people on board are killed.

TransAsia airways flight 235 (February 4, 2015) - An ATR 72 crashes into a river in Taian's capital, taipei, shortly after takeoff, killing 43 of the 58 people on board. The captain of the turboprop aircraft mistakenly switched off the plane's working engine after the other lost power, Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council says.

Germanwings Flight 9525 (March 24, 2015) - Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashes an Airbus 320 into the French alps. All 150 people on board are killed. An investigation later reveals that Lubitz had suffered from depression.

Metrojet Flight 9268 (October 31, 2015) - All 224 people on board are killed when a bomb explodes. the Airbus 321-200 had departed from sharm el-Sheikh, egypt and was heading for St. Petersburg, Russia when it broke into pieces midais over the Sinai Peninsula. ISIS claimed responsibility.

flydubaiFlight 981 (March 19, 2016) - A passanger jet from United Arab Emirates crashed during a landing attempt in Russia, killing all 62 people onboard. The Boeing 737 took off from Dubai and was scheduled to land at the Rostov-on-Don airport. Wing gusts had reached 60 miles per hour and visibility had been poor.

EgyptAir flight 804 (19 May, 2016) - Air traffic controller lose contact with an Airbus 320 heading for cairo from Paris with 66 people onboard.