Sad news that the horrible express train crash between Moscow and St. Petersburg late Friday took the life of Andrey Golopurov RU1AO, described by his peers as a high achiever in contests and DXing generally.
Authorities report that a powerful improvised bomb was planted in the path of the high speed Nevsky Express derailing three carriages. That killed at least 26, including Andrey RU1AO who was heading home to take part in the CQ WW CW DX Contest.
No group has claimed responsibility for this terrorist act, with investigators hoping the remains of the bomb found at the scene will yield some clues on the perpetrators.
Crap like this makes me sad. Trust me, I understand what it is like to be distrusting of, and pissed off at, ones government. But to indiscriminately slaughter lives of people doing nothing more than "traveling to granma's house," is beyond sick.
Seems to me, a couple hams died in a plane crash here in the US a couple months ago. We never know when our time is up, and should cherish each and every day we are given. A bad day vertical is way better than the best day horizontal.
The really sad part is that the further we get away from Sept, 2001, the more the people here fall back into the attitude of "it only happens 'over there', it can't happen here." Well, stay tuned folks...coming soon to a neighborhood near you...
Yup it doesn't take long for some to become complacent for sure.
I do remember a small plane going down with 2 radio operators and their gear earlier this year. I believe they were on an island hop in the carribean IIRC. A lot of ops go there foi the natural salt water amplification of signals and some R&R while there. I've made numerous contacts with some there on those mini DXpeditions. On today was a spanish op on Martinique. Last week was one on Turks and Caicos.