Player quizzed over fatal crash

3 May 2011 Last updated at 13:06 Marcos Alonso could face trial accused of involuntary manslaughter Footballer Marcos Alonso could face trial after a woman died in a car crash in Madrid.

The Bolton Wanderers defender crashed a BMW into a wall near Real Madrid's former training complex, not far from the Bernabeu, on Monday morning.

One woman suffered fatal injuries and another was seriously hurt. Mr Alonso's brother Miguel and former Real Madrid teammate Jaime Navarro were also hurt.

Mr Alonso, who was uninjured, allegedly failed a breathalyser test afterwards.

Police have not revealed what the breathalyser and subsequent blood test showed.

'Formal suspect'

Mr Alonso, 20, appeared before an investigating judge at a closed hearing on Monday evening.

The judge will have to decide if the player caused the accident and the girl's death. If the judge rules he caused the crash he could face a trial accused of involuntary manslaughter.

In a statement, the court said: "Magistrates' Court number four in Madrid yesterday released the footballer Marcos Alonso Mendoza after naming him as a 'formal suspect' in an alleged crime against road safety, a crime of intoxication, of accidental killing and causing accidental injury.

"In addition the judge has removed his driving licence as a precaution and he is banned from driving in Spain for the entire period of the court process."

Night out

Mr Alonso, who joined Bolton Wanderers from Real Madrid last summer, was at home in the Spanish capital on a weekend break.

It is understood he had been on a night out with his brother and Mr Navarro when they met the two women.

The emergency services said the car crossed into the opposite lane, overturned and collided with a wall.

One woman, who has been named only as Barbara, received severe head injuries and died 30 minutes after arriving at hospital.

The other, Teresa, suffered injuries to her thorax and is described as being in a serious condition.

Miguel Alonso also remains in hospital with three broken ribs and bruising to his lungs.

Mr Navarro broke his collar bone and was later released from hospital.

'Intense' fire in fatal balloon crash

1 January 2011 Last updated at 13:57 Help

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Software bug behind Skype crash

30 December 2010 Last updated at 10:02 Skype said the service outage lasted for about 24 hours Server overloads and a bug in Skype for Windows caused the two-day outage for the net phone firm.

Details of what caused the service to be unusable for millions of users prior to Christmas have been posted on the firm's blog.

The two events combined to create a cascade of problems that managed to knock out much of the network underpinning the phone service.

Skype is assessing how its network is built to stop the problem recurring.

Traffic cascade

Writing on the Skype blog, Lars Rabbe, chief information officer at the company, said the problems started on 22 December, when some of its servers that handle instant messaging started getting overloaded.

This meant that the responses they sent to Windows machines running Skype were slightly delayed. Unfortunately, a bug in one version of Skype for Windows meant this delay caused the program to crash.

About 50% of all Skype users ran the buggy 5.0.0.152 version of the software, said Mr Rabbe.

This caused problems for Skype because of the way the network supporting it is organised. Some of the data travelling round Skype's network are passed through all those machines logged on to the service.

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Within moments, a rather scruffy figure loomed into view on my phone - and I was video calling an old friend and colleague.”

End Quote Rory Cellan-Jones Those participating machines act as what Skype calls "supernodes" and carry out some of the administrative tasks of the global network and help to ensure calls get through.

With a huge number of these machines offline because of the crash, the rest of the network quickly became overloaded.

Mr Rabbe wrote that the disappearance of the supernodes meant the remaining ones were swamped by traffic.

"The initial crashes happened just before our usual daily peak-hour and very shortly after the initial crash," wrote Mr Rabbe, "which resulted in traffic to the supernodes that was about 100 times what would normally be expected at that time of day."

Traffic levels were so high that they blew through the safe operating specifications supernodes usually use. As a result, more supernodes shut down.

Compensation offer

The "confluence of events", said Mr Rabbe, led to Skype being offline for about 24 hours as engineers put in place hundreds of dedicated supernodes and gradually brought the service back to life.

To ensure the outage does not happen again, Mr Rabbe said Skype would look at its update policy, to see if it should automatically move users to newer versions of its software.

A version of Skype for Windows that is free of the bug already exists, but is not automatically given to users.

It said it would also look at its network to improve capacity and get on with an investment programme that would boost this resilience.

Mr Rabbe apologised again on behalf of the company and added: "We know that we fell short in both fulfilling your expectations and communicating with you during this incident."

Skype has offered compensation to customers in the form of vouchers for pre-pay users and a free week of service for subscribers.

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Two die in hot air balloon crash

1 January 2011 Last updated at 15:37 Eyewitness Sarah Andrews: ''The fire was really intense''

Two men died when a hot air balloon crashed on a bowling green in Somerset.

The accident happened at about 0930 GMT at Pratten's Bowls Club in Midsomer Norton, near Bath.

Initial fears of a third fatality proved unfounded. No other aircraft and no-one on the ground were involved, investigators said.

An investigation was launched by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), with a team of experts making their way to the scene.

Det Insp Mike Williams, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: "An air crash investigation team are currently looking at the circumstances of this incident to establish the cause.

"We would like to speak to anyone who may have seen the balloon in the air before the incident, or witnessed the balloon come to the ground."

Witnesses said flames were seen coming from the basket.

Sarah Andrews said: "I could hear a flapping noise and looked up and there was a balloon. The canopy was collapsing in on itself; it was on fire on one side and the basket was on fire. It was coming down fairly quickly.

It was the first fatal balloon crash in the local area for 40 years

"I thought it was about to come through the roof of the house, but it moved on a couple of hundreds yards and thankfully came down in a field away from houses."

She said it was terrifying to watch.

"As soon as it hit the ground, there was no way anyone was going to survive that. The fire was really intense and the gas canisters on the side started to go as well."

Robert Biggs, who was walking with friends, said: "It first sounded like a plane in trouble. It was more of a whistling sound. We looked up, there was a break in the cloud and this hot air balloon came hurtling down."

He said the basket was not intact when it crashed and the canopy was trailing up.

"It came straight down about 400 yards from us. It came down and there it was slap bang in the middle of the bowling green," Mr Biggs said.

Avon Fire Service said the balloon was being monitored by Bristol Air Traffic Control and was believed to have been attempting a high altitude flight at about 20,000ft.

There was a ground crew, containing some family members, who lost the balloon in cloud but arrived on scene soon after the crash.

Two off-duty firefighters from Bath were on a bike ride nearby and saw the balloon but the fire was well developed and they were unable to do anything.

The balloon also contained four liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders which were venting gas. Crews used three high pressure hose-reels to extinguish the fire.

Don Cameron, who owns Bristol-based Cameron Balloons, said it was difficult to speculate what could have gone wrong, but it was the first fatal balloon crash in the local area for 40 years.

Mr Cameron, who was the race director of last year's ill-fated Gordon Bennett Cup, in which two US competitors went missing and were later found dead off the coast of Italy, said the ballooning community would be in "total shock".

"Everyone who flies balloons in this area are known to each other. It's a dreadful business at the start of the New Year," he said.

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Third teenager dies after crash

1 January 2011 Last updated at 16:54 Frankie Bowyer, 16, died at the scene of the crash, which happened close to Rowdeford School A third teenager involved in a crash in Rowde near Devizes, which killed two other boys, has died from his injuries.

George Connor Forester, 17, of Tudor Close, Chippenham, died in hospital early on Saturday.

A Renault Clio hit a tree on the A342, near the entrance to Rowdeford School, at about 0130 GMT on Friday.

Frankie Bowyer, 16, of St Teresa's Drive, Chippenham, died at the scene. Jamie Thomas Walker, 17, of Hatherell Road, Chippenham, died in hospital.

The male driver, 20, was not badly hurt, but was taken to hospital complaining of chest pain.

Wiltshire Police said he provided a negative breath test, but suffered minor injuries and was treated for extreme shock.

A statement from the family of Frankie Bowyer said he was a "dearly beloved boy".

The statement said: "Frankie lived life to the full. A popular friend to all that knew him, he will be sorely missed by his family and friends."

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