This week on 60 Minutes: 13 February 2011

Sunday, February 13 at 7.30pm on Nine

Captain Fantastic

Qantas has long been revered as the safest airline in the world. But its reputation has taken a beating of late.

Literally. In November last year, an engine on one of its massive A380s exploded in mid-air. A lot of things went wrong that day. In fact, the flight crew had to deal with more than 60 separate system failures. But as you’ll see on Sunday night, a lot of things also went right, thanks largely to the man at the controls. Only his cool head and keen instincts got that plane down safely. And when you hear the full story, you’ll be amazed at how he did it.

 

Torn Apart

Occasionally in this job, you hear a story that is so gut-wrenchingly tragic that you wonder where people find the strength to get out of bed each day. That’s how Michael Usher felt when he met Stacey Keep and her husband, Matthew. They lost their 23-month-old daughter, Jessica, during the Queensland floods. The raging water literally ripped the little girl out of Stacey’s arms. There’s nothing you can say or do to make things better. So we just listened. And we cried bucket-loads. And we tried to focus on the little miracles of that dreadful day.

 

Enemy of the State

If the life story of Julian Assange was ever made into a movie, it would play like a cross between “Conspiracy Theory” and “Revenge of the Nerds”. Assange started out as a geeky teenage computer hacker in Melbourne. Twenty years later, he’s gleefully embarrassing corporations and countries, including Australia, through his website – WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks posts highly confidential information online for anyone to read. You can see why the establishment hates him. But he’s had his wings clipped of late. Right now he’s holed up in England waiting for the courts there to decide whether to extradite him to Sweden on rape charges. And if the Swedes luck out, the US government might take a crack at him on espionage charges. Steve Kroft of American

60 Minutes spoke to the man who can’t and won’t keep a secret.

About the author

  • julie

    watching the program tonight my heart went out to stacey and matthew and their children,to loose a child like that is unimaginable, a mother myself i was lost in tears and heartbreak. I believe Stacey did everything she possibly could to try and save little Jessica, but to discover that they still had one another and their other 2 children is to say the least.. bloody amazing in the situation they were in. I wish this hearbroken family all the very best and the government owes alot of explaing for the many other loses and broken families

  • Christine Mead

    Our Day Club on Phillip Island, would like to send a donation to this poor family, and I missed the contact address, is there a way we could send a cheque to them.

    sincerely Christine Mead Coordinator