Quakeweek
June 9, 1997


Archives

Disney Begins Production on Quake! The Animated Movie

Fox Licenses Quake 2 Engine

PointCast Unveils .PlanCast

Nike 'Foxes' AirFist

Carmack Scraps DLLs, Not 'BASIC' Enough

Carmack's Ferrari Made 'Internet-Ready'

id Renews Business Contract

NY's Dept. Of Transportation Eagerly Awaiting Quake Rally

Raven and Columbia Tristar Sponsor 'Serpent Rides'

Industrial Spy Pleads Guilty
MPlayer Software Suspected in Plane Crash


Comparable 'replica' of the crashNEW YORK, NY - Debris and scrap metal are all that are left of United Airlines Flight 853 as it crash-landed on the runway of JFK International Airport last night, killing 239 people. According to preliminary investigations, interference from the Airfone system mysteriously caused the plane to lose too much speed during its final approach.

Of the few passengers who narrowly averted disaster by assuming crash positions instead of panicking to death, only two were able to give their accounts of what happened during the final moments before the crash. One survivor blames the entire incident on a passenger who was sitting next to him, a teenager described as being a "pathetic and hopeless nerd."

"He just kept babbling about how he had this great way to cheat in some Quaker tournament, Red Obliteration or something," said Geoffrey McLane, who was flying to New York to visit his family. "He insisted on showing it to me, and soon as that laptop of his stopped making noise, the locks on the restrooms began flicking red and green every few seconds."

Mary Seiler, a stewardess serving on the flight, also noticed a disturbance before impact:

"At around the same time that kid turned on his computer, everything in the Second and First Class cabins stopped working. Then a weird voice on the speaker system said something about having to pay a yearly fee if you wanted better service. I was busy thanking my lucky stars that we didn't lose cabin pressure. Guess I spoke to soon."

While airline officials have expressed their skepticism regarding the role of the notoriously bug-ridden MPlayer software in the crash, they have not completely ruled out the possibility, due to the baffling final entry in the plane's flight recorder:

"You must have Windows 95 in order to land."