Western Media reports that ISIS has been reduced to its weakest level in two years under a sustained blitz from British and coalition bombing. Some 600 fighters have been killed in the past month - bringing the total number of terrorists killed to 25,000 since the campaign began. Britain is the second biggest contributor to the allied air campaign after the United States, No 10 said today. Elsewhere in UK, loud bangs heard in parts of Yorkshire were sonic booms from Typhoon jets scrambled to identify "an unresponsive civilian aircraft", the RAF has said. The aircraft were launched from RAF Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, on Monday and helped guide an Air France plane to a safe landing in Newcastle. People reported their houses shaking at about 21:50 BST after hearing what sounded like two loud explosions.
These were later confirmed
to have been sonic booms. A sonic boom
is created as an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, causing a high-energy
shockwave. When an aircraft approaches the speed of sound, the air in front of
the nose builds up a pressure front because it has "nowhere to
escape", Dr Jim Wild of Lancaster University said. It can be heard over a
large area because "it moves with the plane", similar to the wake on
the bow of a ship spreading out behind the vessel. The noise is created when an
aircraft travels faster than 768mph (1,236 km/h). At that speed the air at the
front of the nose of the plane builds up a pressure because it has
"nowhere to escape", added Dr. Wild.
Sonic boom that rattled
north-east England was caused by Typhoon jets breaking the sound barrier and racing to intercept an Air France flight that
wasn't responding to radio calls. Terrified
homeowners heard loud bangs in Yorkshire last night when Typhoon jets broke the
sound barrier to intercept a passenger plane which wasn't responding. Typhoon jets (like the one pictured) were
launched from RAF Coningsby on Monday night to identify an unresponsive
civilian aircraft, the Ministry of Defence said. North Yorkshire police sent
out several tweets about the noise saying they would investigate the cause.
Air France confirmed that
the unresponsive plane had been one of their aircraft which had a radio
communication problem but it later landed safely guided by the Typhoon jets. The
message over two tweets said: 'Air France confirms that due to a radio
communication problem AF 1558 had to be accompanied by two British fighter
aircrafts according to the procedure.
Now getting
back to Insurance, the All India Fire Tariff was largely simplified and
released with a new look effective April 1987 when there were three variants
Fire Policy A, B & C. The first two, broadly, covered residences and non
manufacturing / storage risks. Based on the perils covered, B & C offered
similar protection. Policy A covered 9 perils : Fire, Lightning,
Explosion/Implosion, RSMD, Impact damage, Aircraft damage, STFI, Subsidence
& Landslide and Earthquake Fire & Shock. B covered only first six perils.
C covered first six but the latter 3 could be extended upon payment of
additional premium. Remember that those
policies contained text ‘sonic damage’ under aircraft damage section.
The Standard
Fire & Special Perils Policy has 12 named perils and ‘aircraft damage’ is
one among the perils named. It reads : Aircraft Damage: loss, destruction or damage caused by Aircraft other aerial
or space devices and articles dropped there from excluding those caused by pressure
waves.
Thus the loss or damage to the property directly caused
by aircraft and other aerial devices and/ or articles dropped there from is
covered. However, destruction or damage resulting from pressure waves caused by
aircraft traveling at supersonic speed is excluded from the scope of the
policy.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
3rd May 2016
