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TAMPA - Amid the crowds arriving at Tampa International Airport on Monday was a 5-year-old Peruvian girl who arrived here to get a new arm.

She'll get one thanks to the Shriners of Tampa and an international organization called CardioStart.

Luz Estephanie Machiavello, 5, lost her right arm in a moped accident in January. After a 14-hour journey to a hospital from her village in the jungle 300 miles from Lima, Peru, doctors were able to reattach it.

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      Northwest Airlines Corp., the fifth-largest U.S. carrier, canceled at least 240 weekend flights because it didn't have enough crews, the pilots union said.

      "We have been saying for months that there is a staffing problem at Northwest," Monty Montgomery, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, said Monday in an interview. "There are just not enough pilots to fly the schedule as it's designed."

      Northwest had crew shortages due to bad weather and is "proactively canceling flights" to speed rebookings, the Eagan, Minn.-based carrier said in an e-mailed statement. Spokesman Dean Breest wouldn't say how many were canceled.

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How much does Vaughn Cordle know about the state of the U.S. airline industry?

Well, the CEO and chief analyst of AirlineForecasts -- who has 25

years-plus of experience as a pilot for a major airline -- makes a

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SACRAMENTO -- The new, largely experimental supertanker, a wide-body jetliner converted to an aerial firefighting aircraft and placed on call for the state this year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, suffered a near crash Monday evening fighting a blaze in Kern County.

The California Department of Forestry issued a statement that the DC-10 had been grounded and cannot assist in the blazes currently ravaging California until completion of an investigation. Officials provided no timeline for the probe.

Tanker 910 encountered severe turbulence while operating on the White Fire, causing the aircraft to descend and strike the top of several trees.

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WASHINGTON --A group of airline pilots who rode across the country to raise money for memorials to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks awarded $45,000 Monday to each of the three projects.

Thomas Heidenberger, a U.S. Airways pilot whose wife, Michele, was a flight attendant on the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Pentagon, presented checks to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and groups raising funds for the Pentagon Memorial and the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pa.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has raised more than $300 million toward its $350 million goal for a memorial and museum at site where the twin towers stood. The project, which is expected to cost more than $700 million, is under construction and expected to open in 2009.

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