
An automated system that helps train wheels grip the tracks failed on one of the trains that crashed head-on in mid-Wales on 21 October, investigators have revealed. The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said the westbound train involved in the collision in Talerddig, near Llanbrynmair, in Powys, was fitted with a system to discharge sand automatically on to the rails should the wheels slide when braking.
The system, however, did not appear to work in the crucial moments when the train was braking before the crash. The RAIB said an inspection of the train after the accident showed that the sanding hoses on the leading vehicle of the train were “blocked and apparently unable to discharge sand”.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/05/cause-of-fatal-train-crash-in-wales-revealed
img: Rail Accident Investigation Branch, OGL 3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3, via Wikimedia Commons
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IT and security teams at Wirral University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust worked around the clock following a major cyber incident, with services disrupted with initially, no timeline for resolution.
The cyber attack, which initially came to light on Monday 25 November, is believed to have affected all clinical activity at multiple sites including Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge Hospitals. The Trust was forced to cancel surgical procedures and turn away outpatients, although emergency care remained up and running.
img: Rodhullandemu, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report paints a horrifying picture of failures in the construction industry and officialdom – but justice is some way off. The report of the public inquiry into the causes of the Grenfell Tower fire has been published – and it forms a devastating verdict on the incompetence, dishonesty and greed that made possible a disaster in which 72 people died.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report chronicles failures in the construction industry, the council, regulators and central government. “The simple truth is the deaths that occurred were all avoidable,” Moore-Bick said at the report’s launch.
img: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grenfell_Tower_fire_%28wider_view%29_%28cropped%29.jpg, author: Phoenix7777, licensed under CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
More than 1,000 planned operations and over 3,000 outpatient appointments have been postponed amid disruption caused by a cyber attack that impacted London hospitals.
Synnovis, an agency which manages labs for NHS trusts and GPs in south-east London, was the victim of a data hack on 3rd June 2024.
New figures, external from NHS England show that since then, 3,396 appointments and 1,255 elective procedures have been postponed.
In a statement, the chief executives of two affected trusts said they were continuing to manage the attack as a "critical incident".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw0y49g8vy9o
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An air ambulance service said it has experienced some near-collisions involving drones. Wiltshire Air Ambulance pilots say that the trend of drone collisions is going up and they are seeing more people fly drones over accident sites. During one incident in Bath, they only narrowly avoided a drone as they were coming in to land. Matt Wilcock, chief pilot at Wiltshire Air Ambulance, said: "When you hit one of those [drones] doing 150mph, they will come through the wind screen and they can injure the crew. If you injure the pilot, we all see where that would end." He added: "When we come into landing sites, often what's happening is there's commotion on the ground, there's lights and people want to pop a drone up and have a look at what is going on.
"We come in and, while drones are at 400ft and most aviation traffic is at 500ft, the exception is when we come in to land. "This hasn't happened too often, but the trend is on the up." He added that when coming in to land at an accident site in Bath, his crew suddenly caught something coming against the aircraft. "We realised it was a small drone. "Had we hit that, it could have damaged us."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3rdx4ypvdxo
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