Portugal has declared a national day of mourning after an iconic railway cable car crashed in Lisbon, killing at least 17 people and injuring about 20 others.
The 140-year-old Glória funicular, which is popular with tourists, derailed and crashed into a building near Liberty Avenue at around 18:15 local time (17:15 GMT) on Wednesday 3rd September 2025.
Foreign nationals are among those killed, authorities said, although the identities of the victims have not been confirmed. Some of the injured are in a serious condition. Lisbon's mayor Carlos Moedas called it a "tragic day for our city". Footage shared on social media showed the crumpled yellow funicular overturned in the cobblestone street and people running from the area as smoke filled the air. Several passengers trapped in the wreckage had to be freed by emergency responders, authorities said.
Officials have not confirmed what caused the crash, but eyewitness reports suggested that the braking system on the cable-hauled funicular failed, sending it hurtling down the steep street and into a building. A witness told Portuguese TV channel SIC that the funicular, which can carry around 40 people, "hit a building with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box; it had no brakes".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1jzlgj915no
img: ID 38285338 © Dennis Van De Water | Dreamstime.com
The catastrophic crash of an Air India Dreamliner flight in June killed 241 passengers and crew members. However, the tragedy also told a remarkable story of survival – a lone passenger who defied near-impossible odds to walk out of one of the deadliest aviation disasters in recent history with minor injuries.
The survivor, 41-year-old Viswashkumar Ramesh, was in seat 11A next to an emergency exit, and managed to jump out of the aircraft after it crashed into a hospital compound near Ahmedabad airport in western India.
The news stirred a familiar, global obsession: Which seat is the safest in a crash? The question surfaces whenever there is a single survivor, or a handful of survivors, in devastating crashes. A Reuters analysis shows there is no universally “safe seat” or section of an aircraft, at least in extraordinary cases of survival, and who lives often depends on a complex mix of factors.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/AVIATION-SAFETY/lgpdaagabvo/
img: public domain
The body running courts in England and Wales has been accused of a cover-up, after a leaked report found it took several years to react to an IT bug that caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear lost.
Sources within HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) say that as a result, judges in civil, family and tribunal courts will have made rulings on cases when evidence was incomplete.
The internal report, leaked to the BBC, said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had impacted cases, as it had not undertaken a comprehensive investigation.
It also found judges and lawyers had not been informed, as HMCTS management decided it would be "more likely to cause more harm than good".
HMCTS says its internal investigation found no evidence that "any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues".
However, the former head of the High Court's family division, Sir James Munby, told the BBC the situation was "shocking" and "a scandal"
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwye2q00k51o.amp
img: ID 74559547 | Justice Statue © Tupungato | Dreamstime.com
Report on substation fire which closed Heathrow
Neso has just published the final report on the North Hyde 275kV substation fire which impacted over 70,000 thousand customers, including Heathrow Airport resulting in a decision to close the airport.
According to the report by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), switches in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's cockpit that controlled fuel moved to a "CUTOFF" position.
It said: "Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of one second.
"The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off."
There was then confusion in the cockpit. In the voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he "cut off". The other pilot responds that he did not do so.
The 15-page report did not identify which comments were made by the flight's captain and which were made by the first officer. One of the pilots made a "mayday, mayday, mayday" call just before the crash.
Both pilots were experienced, with around 19,000 flying hours between them, including more than 9,000 on the 787.
img: Prime Minister's Office (GODL-India), GODL-India <https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/Gazette_Notification_OGDL.pdf>, via Wikimedia Commons
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