On the morning of 21 Feb 17, I was climbing the external stairs at a large transport depot in the suburb of Melbourne Airport when I saw a heavy plume of black smoke rising to the south-east. With a long-standing interest in aviation, I knew it was in the general direction of Essendon Airport. I had previously taken Air Force Cadets to Essendon for visits to the Victoria Police Air Wing, Air Ambulance Victoria, a commercial aviation operator and the control tower. I also had

On 11 Nov 22, a formworker fell nearly 3.85 metres from a bridge abutment at a construction site in Huntley, New South Wales, while stripping formwork. The worker was positioned on the top of the southern abutment, using an extension ladder to attach wire chains between a 26-tonne excavator and form soldiers, and was not wearing a harness because the steel available for anchoring was on the opposite side of the abutment. Image generate for visual effect. The incident resulted

The recent District Court outcome in NSW, where $250,000 in combined fines were ordered against a skydiving operator and its sole director following a double fatality, is not a “high-risk industry” curiosity. It is a straight application of duty, risk, and control failure. The hazard was a modified aircraft step that introduced a snag point. The failure was allowing that condition to exist without engineering assurance, inspection, or an effective control set. The consequence