Four dead after plane crash at London's Southend airport
Four people died after a 12-metre-long aircraft crashed "head first into the ground" shortly after take-off from London Southend Airport on Sunday afternoon.
The incident involved Zeusch Aviation's SUZ1 flight, a Beech B200 Super King Air, which had flown from Athens to Pula before heading to Southend and was scheduled to return to Lelystad.
Witnesses described seeing a 'massive fireball' following the crash, with one stating the plane banked heavily and inverted after take-off.
Southend Airport remains closed until further notice, leading to the cancellation of at least ten easyJet passenger flights and affecting around 1,700 passengers.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has launched an investigation into the crash, with a multi-disciplinary team on site.
How Southend airport plane tragedy unfolded as four killed in plane crash
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Daily Mail
31 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Tragic connection between doomed jets: How Air India, MH370 and Germanwings disasters all sparked fears their captains suffered mental health issues - as experts warn not enough is done to help pilots
Investigators probing the crash of Air India Flight 171 have turned their attention to the pilot's medical history amid fears he may have been suffering from mental health issues at the time of the disaster. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, an experienced pilot with more than 15,000 hours flying time, was piloting the Boeing 787 Dreamliner when it plummeted into a residential area in Ahmedabad, killing all but one of the 242 people on board. Switches controlling the fuel flow to the jet's two engines were turned off shortly after take off, a preliminary report released by the Indian authorities has indicated, resulting in a catastrophic loss of power and the aircraft crashing to the ground. The investigation by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), claimed that one pilot asked the other why he cut off the fuel, and the second pilot responded that he had not. The report, coupled with claims that Captain Sabharwal had taken bereavement leave and was suffering with depression following his mother's death, has raised questions over whether enough is being done to assess and safeguard pilots' mental health. Air India's CEO has warned that the investigation into what happened is still far from over, telling staff in an internal memo today that it is unwise to jump to any conclusions. The AAIB said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults and that all required maintenance had been carried out, but also did not offer any conclusions or apportion blame for the June 12 disaster. While the exact cause of the crash is likely to remain unknown for some time, the aviation world is tragically no stranger to man-made catastrophes. These include those triggered by mental health crises - with experts warning that not enough is being done to support pilots and other aviation professionals. Horrifying video showed the moment the Air India jet crashed into a medical college in Ahmedabad on June 12 If included as a category in worldwide air-crash statistics, pilot murder-suicides would be the second biggest cause of fatalities in Western-built aircraft since 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg found in 2022. The most notorious crash attributed to pilot suicide, the 2015 Germanwings disaster, saw 150 passengers killed when their plane crashed into a French mountain. Investigators revealed in the days after the crash that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had locked the flight's captain out of the cockpit to deliberately set the plane on a collision course with a mountainside. It emerged that Lubitz had suffered from depression in the past, but was later deemed fit to fly. He had searched online for ways to end his life, before researching the security of cockpit doors. As prosecutors dug deeper into what had happened, they found that the pilot had suffered from a 'severe' depressive episode before being hired - something the airline was not informed of. Just weeks before the crash, a psychiatrist diagnosed a psychosomatic disorder and possible psychosis, but Lubitz hid his sick notes. Prosecutors believed he became 'virtually obsessed' with an 'unfounded' fear of losing his vision - a condition that would surely end his career as a pilot. The findings led investigators to conclude that Lubitz had deliberately cast the plane down into the mountains in a deliberate attempt to end his own life. Aviation psychologist Marc Atherton said the incident encouraged him to get involved in the area of pilot mental health, which he felt was being overlooked. 'It was painfully obvious that the global industry had a very good process around safety for physical risks, for operational risks and for technical risks, but what seemed to be missing was a coherent approach to the mental health and performance risk of all of the safety-critical groups in the industry,' he said. Surveys of airline pilots have shown that between four and eight per cent have contemplated suicide, roughly in line with the general population. Airline pilots must undergo periodic medical examinations to keep their licences, with the profession one of very few in which employees must disclose all their health information in order to work. Captain Mohan Ranganathan, a leading aviation safety expert in India, told the Telegraph that he had heard from 'several Air India pilots' that Captain Sabharwal had 'some mental health issues.' But, he emphasised, the pilot 'must have been medically cleared by the company doctors [to fly]. They must have given the clearance certificate.' If pilots develop a mental health condition in between the exams and do not disclose it, they can be stopped from flying. This, experts say, means many conceal their health information or avoid mental health checks out of fear of being put out of work. A 2022 study found that 56.1 per cent of the 3,765 US pilots who participated in the survey reported a 'history of healthcare avoidance behaviour' due to the risk of losing their licence. After the Germanwings crash, a US panel warned that there was 'no convincing evidence' that screening for suicidal tendencies would prevent similar disasters. Another possible way to mitigate the risk of a suicidal pilot taking control of the plane away from their co-pilot was to change door designs, preventing them from being locked. The 2013 crash of a Mozambican airliner in Namibia saw pilot Hermino dos Santos Fernandes himself in the cockpit, preventing his co-pilot from entering as he made a 'deliberate series of manoeuvres' causing the crash, investigators said. But authorities have warned against changing the design of doors, saying sophisticated locks are needed to prevent cockpit invasions and hijackings. Pilot suicide was among the countless theories floated in relation to the disappearance of Flight MH370 in 2014. The Malaysia Airlines jet was on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board when it vanished and became one of the greatest mysteries in aviation. No sign of the plane was found in a 46,000-square mile Indian Ocean search zone and the Australian-led search, the largest in history, was suspended in January 2017. In 2020, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott claimed that top Malaysian officials believed the aircraft vanished after veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah intentionally crashed it. 'My very clear understanding from the very top levels of the Malaysian government is that from very, very early on here, they thought it was murder-suicide by the pilot,' he told Sky News. 'I'm not going to say who said what to whom but let me reiterate, I want to be absolutely crystal clear, it was understood at the highest levels that this was almost certainly murder-suicide by the pilot - mass murder-suicide by the pilot.' Zaharie's family have long strongly rejected such claims as baseless, while Malaysia's prime minister at the time of the tragedy also said there was 'no conclusive proof'. Captain Dave Fielding, chair of the International Peer Assist Aviation Coalition (IPAAC), has long campaigned for the improved monitoring of mental health among all aviation workers - from pilots to cabin crew and engineers. 'Big picture-wise, pilot mental health and performance is the new front on flight safety, and is where we should be focusing our efforts,' he said in an interview with the British Safety Council last September. The Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) last year published a paper on the challenges mental health issues, and the lack of support available for them, continue to pose to the aviation industry globally. Publishing the report, RAeS chief executive David Edwards said: 'Whilst the industry is doing more to support staff who are already facing mental health issues, there remains a lack of psychosocial risk management systems to prevent the development of mental health issues in the first place.' While the report has generated a significant response from around the world, industry experts agree that there is still work to be done to encourage airline pilots and other aviation professionals to come forward with mental health concerns. 'There has been much good work done across the world in this area,' Captain Fielding told MailOnline. 'But it is in its infancy and a lot more needs to be done.' IPAAC, which he chairs, is a not-for-profit which develops peer support programmes to help 'provide a vital method for safety-critical personnel in aviation to seek help for mental health and wellbeing issues.' In a statement to MailOnline, the organisation said: 'The mental health and wellbeing of all safety-critical personnel in aviation is a safety issue. 'The role of Peer Support Programmes is more critical than ever in assisting our colleagues when they need support from a friendly and confidential co-worker, trained to give specific assistance.' For help and support, call the Samaritans for free from a UK phone, completely anonymously, on 116 123 or go to
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Kew Garden: Palm House set for major renovation
It's a makeover on a massive scale - it involves moving 1,300 plants, replacing 16,000 panes of glass and cleaning up hundreds of tonnes of is the ambitious £50m plan to renovate the world-famous Palm House, which sits at the heart of the Royal Botanic Gardens hot and humid conditions inside have taken their toll on the building, which opened in 1848 and houses a tropical will also use the refurbishment – which will see the glass house closed for five years from 2027 – to reduce emissions from the Palm House to net zero. The planning permission for the project has now been submitted, and some of the plants that make up the indoor tropical rainforest have started to be relocated. "This is probably the plant that I worry about moving the most," says Thomas Pickering, head of standing next to one of Kew's most precious specimens: a plant called Encephalartos altensteinii, which is a type of growing in a pot, and at 250 years old, it's older than the Palm House itself. It's also enormous - weighing more than a tonne and standing about 4m tall."It's the sheer size of it. It has a huge weight in that root ball, but also this incredibly long stem, which is very old because they're incredibly slow-growing plants," says horticulturists will use scaffolds, supports and braces to protect the plant when the time comes for it to be moved. Other plants, that are a bit easier to shift, have already been taken to a temporary greenhouse. "It's going to be a long term project," explains Pickering."And over the next two years, it's going to be a process of selecting which plants we need to containerize (place in pots) and keep, which ones we need to propagate - and also some of the plants will be felled because we won't be able to move them." The Palm House was built more than 175 years ago and was a wonder of the Victorian had ever constructed a glass house on that scale before and the engineers borrowed techniques from the shipping industry to build the huge was last renovated in the 1980s, but now the iron is heavily rusting in places, so it will be stripped back to the bare metal work, repaired and of the thousands of single glazed panes of glass will be replaced and tests are underway to find the best type of glass to provide maximum insulation. Maintaining the Palm House's temperature at 21C uses a lot of energy, but now gas boilers will be replaced with air source and water source heat pumps."This is an incredibly challenging building to make net zero," said Rachel Purdon, head of sustainability at Kew."We can do a huge amount with things like sealing the glass and improving the heating systems to massively reduce the carbon footprint and improve the sustainability of the Palm House without impacting the aesthetics."The Water Lily House, which is located next to the Palm House, will also be made over as part of the renovation. The public will still be able to visit both for the next two years before they're closed for the works. The team at Kew acknowledges this will be a big undertaking that will have a temporary impact on people coming to their botanic gardens. But they say the results will be worth it."The really important aspect of this is to try and ensure that the structure can last as long as possible, before we have to do another refurbishment," says Rachel Purdon.
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
More than 150 farms in England caught illegally using local water
More than 150 farms in England have been caught illegally taking too much water from rivers, lakes and underground sources, a BBC analysis mid-2022 there have been nearly 200 breaches of permits allowing farmers to use water from local sources, according to Environment Agency data obtained through a freedom of information these incidents, 141 threatened environmental damage - but just one farmer has been Environment Agency said in response that it carried out 3,000 licence inspections each year, with prosecution a "last option for persistent offenders". River campaigners said the breaches of so-called abstraction licenses were "the tip of the iceberg" and England's current enforcement system had "no deterrent effect".The violations date from the beginning of the record-breaking hot spell of 2022, which put pressure on water supply, to this spring, which has been the UK's sixth driest spring since records began in National Farmers' Union (NFU) has been approached for comment by the England, water is abstracted by water companies for public supply, by industry and for use in electricity generation, such as power station agriculture often needs large volumes from local sources for irrigation, particularly for water-intensive crops like potatoes in prolonged dry of water, particularly during a drought, can severely impact river levels and adversely affect fish and other wildlife and their habitats as well as intensify pollution the Water Resources Act 1991, the licensing system is in place to control how much water is taken and a licence is needed by anyone taking more than 20,000 litres a day. 'No deterrent effect' The Environment Agency inspects and monitors farms for any licence breach, which can be a prosecutable a request under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), BBC News found that, of the 199 breaches committed by 154 farms between 2022 and June this year, 141 incidents were category one, two or three breaches, all classed as having a foreseeable impact on "human health, quality of life or the environment".But only one farmer was prosecuted and one was given a fine as a civil sanction while 137 were simply given warnings or advice and no action was taken against are currently 12 ongoing farms breached their licences during the first five months of this year.A further four farms were found to be abstracting water without the necessary licence at figures come after a report last week by green watchdog The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) found that some licence-holders would only be inspected once in 20 years and, in 2023/24, 84% of licences were not being Justin Neal, from the river campaign group Wildfish, said the number of farm over-abstractors uncovered was "the tip of the iceberg"."With a minimal risk of being caught and few prosecutions, there is absolutely no deterrent effect."That means taking too much water is now an acceptable occupational risk," he added that the exemption that allows farmers to take up to 20,000 litres a day without a licence meant no-one could be sure how much water was being abstracted by farms across is now calling for more inspections and a new enforcement strategy with less focus on advice and greater use of "suitable sanctions" for those who break the law. 'Proportionate approach' The Environment Agency said it would be improving inspections using technology such as satellite monitoring to detect how much water is being put on fields and crops, and making better use of intelligence to identify the highest risk abstraction.A spokeswoman for the Agency said that it took its role as a regulator of how the country's water resources are used "extremely seriously"."If sites are found to breach their abstraction licence, we take an advice-led and proportionate approach with prosecution as a last option for persistent offenders," she month, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) announced the number of farm inspections would increase to 6,000 a year by June, the Environment Agency also published its five-year National Framework for Water Resources, which sets how water companies, farms, businesses and the public should best manage water usage into the set out plans to make all water abstraction environmentally sustainable, with particularly sensitive areas, such as chalk streams, given greater recognised the impact of water shortages on food production but said it would work with farmers to identify how they can become more resilient by sharing water resources and building jointly-owned reservoirs.
