When the carving knife slides off the plate

don't try to catch it. ('s okay, just a little slice)

Mountain death may have been averted

SYDNEY school student Nicholas Delaney died only hours before a two-day police search located him and his five companions in rugged bushland, but if the group had been carrying a personal locator beacon they could have been found much sooner.

I only heard about this tragic accident today. When I heard the story I got goosebumps.

Perhaps they could have been found sooner had they carried the EPIRB, but they didn't, and it was in the Blue Mountains - and their location should have been reasonably easy to pinpoint as they had let people know where they were.

However, EPIRB disregarded, I'm sure that they would have been found sooner if the volunteer members of the state rescue associations had been asked to assist in the search. These volunteers are available at any time for activities like these. They happily assist in searches of every kind. As a resource they should have been used. The group was missing for more than two days before the volunteer searchers were called out.

I'm sure the NSW Coroner will get to the bottom of this... I'll be interested to read the report.

More reports here.

Union demands government action

The Rail, Tram and Bus union has demanded that heavy and dangerous goods, like petrol, not be transported by truck after these two accidents in NSW.

What doesn't seem to fit into this plan is that the state governments have been shutting down and ripping up the railways for years. So many rail lines have been abandoned and ripped up because they were unviable (this was decided on many branch lines when stats were given for the line from the branches' head rather than for the branch).

More about the Rail, Tram and Bus union demand here.

The first comments are interesting with many people agreeing and demanding that the trucks be taken off the roads or are taxed out of existance to make them unviable. They don't realise that the rail doesn't go everywhere and quite often in transporting goods it is much cheaper to load onto a truck and move it from A to B rather than the current necessity using rail to use truck, rail and truck again, which increases transport costs because of the multiple load/unloads (particularly with cattle for example). Who do they think will have to pay for these increased costs of fuel transport? They're not thinking, are they?

One sensible person said:

The majority of accidents involving trucks and cars are the fault of the car driver. This has been proven in many studies of car / truck accidents.

During holidays we have tired drivers, out of their normal environment, distracted and dangerous. But, at the end of the day that's a risk we are more prepared to blame Truckies rather than use the facts.

Interesting that this call has come out before the fault of these latest accidents is even established.

I haven't had a chance to read all the comments. Apparently these days road transport is less expensive than rail transport.

And of course, the Rail, Tram and Bus union wouldn't have a vested interest in the transport of goods being moved from raod to rail.

How long until Australia suffers a large-scale air crash?

Judging from this episode, not long.

For a few terrifying moments, those on duty in the airport's control tower had no way of knowing the fate of Emirates Airlines flight 407 after it limped into the air and flew low over houses in the densely populated suburb of Keilor on March 20.

The Emirates plane, bound for Dubai, struggled to take off and then gain altitude after one of its pilots wrongly calculated the weight of the aircraft by 100tonnes.

The tail of the plane hit the runway five times before the captain ordered full thrust at the last minute to lift the Airbus over the airport perimeter fence, knocking out a strobe light and an antenna on the way.

First deaths from Global Warming? Gaia fights back?

The two men had ignored safety barriers and warnings and had approached the face of the Fox glacier on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island to take photographs late on Thursday afternoon.

more

These young men were intelligent, one was an aerospace engineer...

I suppose that reading and obeying precautionary safety signs wasn't their strong point. Now I suppose there will be a better fence assembled to protect fools.