• Passengers jumped to safety but sudden change of weight sent blimp soaring skywards
• Investigators piecing together last moments of doomed flight
• Wife of Australian pilot pays tribute to 'hero' who stayed at controls

Investigators were today piecing together the last moments before a a Goodyear blimp burst into flames and plunged to earth in a weekend crash in Germany.

The pilot, Michael Nerandzic, 53, was killed but three passengers managed to jump to safety when the airship caught fire as it was coming in to land at the Reichelsheim aerodrome near Friedberg.

Flights grounded or delayed at many large airports; airline working on problem.

Thousands of travelers were stranded at airports around the United States Friday night after a computer failure of United Airlines' reservation system.

United spokesman Charles Hobart confirmed the outage and said the airline apologized to customers.

"At approximately 7:15 pm CT tonight, United Airlines experienced a computer outage interrupting the airline's flight departures, airport processing and reservations systems," the airline said in statement. "Our technology team is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible."

Long lines of passengers formed at check-in counters at Chicago's O'Hare International and Denver International airports, two of United's largest hubs.

Passengers in Chicago told NBC station WMAQ that they were frustrated they were kept in line waiting for about two hours before any announcements came from the airline.

"I was only going home for 38 hours, so it's kind of cutting into that," said Sean Doyle, who was trying to board a 10:15 p.m. flight from Chicago to Denver.

"I'm a little cheesed, and I've been spending the entire time looking up who the new CEO of United Airlines is so I can compose a vitriol-filled note to him," said Kasey Madden, who was trying to fly to Minneapolis.

[Editor's Note: A member of our forum was an eyewitness to this event and has submitted the following report. This is an appeal for all Sott readers who are in a position to do so, to do what they can to help. This is an opportunity to show your humanity in the face of what appears to be naked psychopathy in action.]

A Frontier Communications Internet Installation Technician has been charged with "Cruelty to an Animal" after brutally clubbing a leashed, miniature schnauzer in the head with a Heavy Duty Test Phone. The 15 lb dog, "Pepper" is currently in Sylva Animal Hospital in critical condition with a severe head injury. At time of writing, "Pepper" had not yet regained consciousness and was suffering multiple seizures.

Upon arriving at the residence, the Frontier Technician was told by the resident, John Rarick to "Please wait while I put my dogs away" Instead of waiting as requested, "the Frontier Technician walked around the side of the cabin to where Pepper was restrained on her lead, bent over and viciously clubbed the tiny dog with a test phone about the size and weight of a dumbbell," according to a neighbor who was an eye witness to the bludgeoning of the dog, This occurred in full view of the Rarick's 4 year old son, who was raised with the 8 year miniature schnauzer.

"Pepper" is a friendly, family pet who was property leashed and represented no threat to the young, 6ft tall Frontier Technician. According to witnesses, the Frontier Technician was clearly "Looking for a dog" when he disregarded the resident's request that he "wait until I put my dogs up" and went around to the side of the cabin.

"This was not a startle reaction" said a witness to the assault on Pepper. "The Frontier Technician clubbed that little dog as hard as he could like this" stated the witness, making the motion of rising his arm into the air and striking downward in a forceful cross body blow. "The dog was at the end of her lead and the Frontier Technician had to bend over to hit her."

At no time after the incident did the Frontier Technician appear upset, or even concerned about the animal he'd just beaten unconscious. His face showed no visible affect at all, and his voice was flat and unemotional ...until AFTER he found out he would be charged with "Cruelty to an Animal".

Radiation level rises faster than expected in Fukushima absorption machine

Tokyo - The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant said on Saturday it had suspended an operation to clean up radioactive water only hours after it had begun because radiation levels rose dramatically.

Tokyo Electric Power Company had undertaken the operation at the plant, disabled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, to avert spillage into the sea of large, growing pools of radioactive water.

A statement issued by the company, known as TEPCO, said the suspension, five hours after the operation began, was prompted by a sharp rise in radiation in a part of the system intended to absorb cesium.

"At the moment, we haven't specified the reason," a TEPCO spokesman told a news conference. "So we can't say when we can resume the operation. But I'd say it's not something that would take weeks."

The official said teams working at the plant believed the radiation rise could be linked to sludge flowing into the machinery intended to absorb cesium. Another cause could be pipes surrounding it.

Six gray seals have been killed on Cape Cod, Mass., beaches over the past five weeks, all of them shot and "suffering greatly," a federal official investigating the deaths said.

No arrests have been made in the killing of the seals, which are protected under federal law. The most recent dead gray seal was found shot in the head Friday, one day after federal officials said they were investigating the five previous killings.

"It's obviously very unsettling. This is tough for our team that is out there responding and trying to save these animals 24/7," said Michael Booth, the communications officer for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

Tsuruga - Three hundred miles southwest of Fukushima, at a nuclear reactor perched on the slopes of this rustic peninsula, engineers are engaged in another precarious struggle.

Miwako Ogiso, part of a Fukui Prefecture group against nuclear power, calls the Monju project "Japan's most dangerous reactor." It has a history of safety problems and lies on an active fault.

The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor - a long-troubled national project - has been in a precarious state of shutdown since a 3.3-ton device crashed into the reactor's inner vessel, cutting off access to the plutonium and uranium fuel rods at its core.

Engineers have tried repeatedly since the accident last August to recover the device, which appears to have gotten stuck. They will make another attempt as early as next week.

A grieving mother said yesterday that she drew comfort at her son's funeral yesterday after learning that a pod of dolphins had kept a vigil on his body after his fatal accident in Australia.

Shaun McBride, from Co Donegal, died in a tragic accident less than two weeks ago in Dampier, Western Australia, when scaffolding collapsed into the water beneath him.

A law enforcement source told CBS News that the man detained in the discovery of a suspicious car found outside the Pentagon Friday morning was carrying a notebook that contained the phrases, "al Qaeda," "Taliban rules" and "Mujahid defeated croatian forces."

Despite the references to the terror organization that organized the 9/11 attacks, the group fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the Arabic word for "holy warrior," the source said the man is not thought to have been involved in a terrorist act or plot, CBS News investigative producer Pat Milton reports.

"It seems to be washing out at this point, but it is still being drilled down on," the source told Milton.

The source said the man's backpack also contained 20 spent 9 mm shell casings and three cans of black spray paint.

FBI Special Agent Brenda Heck, who heads the bureau's counterterrorism division in its Washington field office, told reporters that a non-explosive material was also found in the backpack.

A law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity said officials found what appeared to be an unknown quantity of ammonium nitrate. The official, who was not authorized to release the information, said nothing else was found that would have enabled an explosion. The official said tests were being done to determine the substance and the exact concentration.

The lasting impact of the raid on Gary Adams' home became clear in a comment from his 3-year-old granddaughter during a recent trip to the pharmacy.

"She said, 'Granddad. Police. Hide,' " Adams, 57, of Bellevue recalled Wednesday while discussing the federal lawsuit he filed against the officers who burst into his home March 3.

Led by FBI Special Agent Karen Springmeyer, about a dozen officers used a battering ram to enter Adams' rented Orchard Street home in a search for Sondra Hunter, then 35. But Hunter hadn't lived at that address for almost two years, while Adams and his family had been living there for more than a year, according to the lawsuit filed by Adams and 10 other family members.

The family crowded into a Downtown conference room with their lawyer, Timothy O'Brien, to discuss the case.

An FBI spokeswoman referred all calls to the U.S. Attorney's Office, where a spokeswoman declined to comment.

The lawsuit says that officers knew, or should have known, that Hunter no longer lived there. By executing an arrest warrant at a residence that wasn't Hunter's, they violated the family's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, and their Fifth Amendment right to due process, the lawsuit says.

Heading to Starbucks 25 minutes after robbing a bank to sip a latte and act like nothing happened is probably not the most brilliant of ideas.

But to go to a Starbucks just around the corner from the bank in question and sit there reading a newspaper might be an even worse decision.

A 52-year-old transient from Southern California is expected of doing exactly that when he allegedly walked into a California Bank and Trust, located at 700 E. El Camino Real in Mountain View, at 9:09 a.m. on Friday and walked away with $1,100 in cash, after threatening a teller with a gun.

A little after 9:30, an officer found a man who matched the description of the robber sitting at a Starbucks around the corner, reading a newspaper.