Word: craft
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...mission was canceled when three of the eight helicopters heading toward Desert One broke down while flying through a blinding sandstorm. An electrical power supply on one craft overheated and failed, knocking out the gyrocompass, the horizon indicator and the cockpit lights. The crew flew back to the Nimitz, making a dangerous landing, with fuel tanks nearly empty...
...crew of the third damaged chopper pushed on to Desert One, despite the failure of a pump that propels the craft's back-up hydraulic system. It is essential, supplementing the primary hydraulic system, which operates the helicopter's control. Because the pump could not be repaired, the helicopter had to be taken out of service, and the rescue mission had to be scrubbed. Planners figured that the rescue required at least six helicopters. There were no back-up helicopters on the Nimitz; even if there had been, they could not have been flown to Desert One before...
Investigators suspect that the overheating in the first craft resulted from a cooling vent having been blocked by a crewman's flak jacket and bag. If so, that obviously was human error. The swirling sand, investigators say, could not have cracked the rotor blade in the second craft. The cause may never be known. The failure of the third chopper's pump also is a mystery and presumably could not have been caused by sand because the helicopters' hydraulic systems are well sealed...
...leisurely and for moving too precipitately, especially in cases involving broad social issues. In an address marking his 30th year on the bench, Irving R. Kaufman, chief judge of the Manhattan-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, offered a defense of the jurist's craft...
...judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it. When we judges get a question, it is almost always (a) very important, and (b) a tough case that is close enough to drive one mad. Hence the craft is hard...