NDIS cuts price caps for 2026
2h ago 2 hours ago Thu 12 Jun 2025 at 7:00am Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Play
Duration: 4 minutes 9 seconds 4 m 9 s
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Fri Fix: Cummins appreciation, big AFL news and more
32m ago 32 minutes ago Fri 13 Jun 2025 at 6:45am Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Play Duration: 14 minutes 54 seconds 14 m
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
What survivors of commercial plane crashes have in common – and only some of it is luck
'Miracle girl' Bahia Bakari, the sole survivor of doomed Yemenia Flight 626, notably survived its 2009 crash into the Indian Ocean by clinging to a piece of aircraft wreckage, something she was able to do because she happened to have been ejected from the Airbus A310 as it crashed. The four survivors of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which killed 520 people after crashing into Mount Osutaka in August 1985, were all seated in the last seven rows of the aircraft. That happened to be the only part that remained intact after impact. Which part of the plane that remains intact in the event of a crash – and if you're in it – may be luck of the draw, but in the case of Japan Airlines Flight 516, a major factor in the survival of all 379 occupants after it collided with a Coast Guard plane at Haneda Airport was its efficient evacuation process. American journalist Amanda Ripley's extensive disaster reporting helped Time win more than one award – and it also formed a strong basis for her book The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes – and why. What Ripley had discovered over the years was how much understanding behavioural psychology was crucial to the survival of humans when disaster strikes, and how much it's been overlooked. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn – if your body knows instinctively what to do, Ripley argues, then it may be able to cut through in times of extreme distress. 'The brain loves body memory,' writes Ripley, who highlights the efficacy of 'dress rehearsals' of fires in house and workplace survival rates. 'It is much better to stop, drop, and roll than to talk about stopping, dropping, and rolling.' Loading In an unfamiliar and somewhat temporary environment like a commercial plane, conducting a disaster drill as a passenger is easier said than done. But Ripley highlights how making a habit of counting the rows between your seat and the nearest emergency exit on every plane you board – should you need to rely on senses other than sight – is essential. Crew, after all, are given a 90-second time limit to evacuate all passengers before flames, and smoke, become fatal for those inside the plane, some of whom may be trapped by their own paralysing fear, or others who are clogging the aisle trying to retrieve their belongings in shock. Not one of Japan Airlines Flight 516's occupants exited with hand luggage. Which is the safest seat on a commercial flight? There is no magic seat that protects individual passengers; however, there is some data to show that there are safer and less safe seats in the event of a crash. Incomplete data from the American Federal Aviation Administration between 1985 and 2000 was analysed by Time, which found that sitting in the back of a plane was generally safer, fulfilling the urban myth that first-class passengers face the brunt of a crash's impact. Middle seats have also been found to have the lowest fatality rate, though there are questions of situational advantage, as in some crashes having an aisle seat can mean a quicker evacuation. It should be noted, however, that not all crash data reports seat numbers against passenger fatalities, so a complete analysis is difficult to perform. Is there a way to tell if an airline is at higher risk of a crash? Despite 2025 being one of the deadliest years on record for civil aviation, commercial aircraft accidents are still considered extremely rare today. Of course, some airlines and countries have a worse record than others, and there are several resources flyers can use. Qantas, recently voted the world's second-safest airline for 2025 on behind Air New Zealand, has never had a fatal jet airline accident. Air India didn't make top 25 list when it was released earlier this year, and currently has an air safety star rating of just four stars out of seven, factoring Friday's mass fatalities. Loading At the time of writing, Air India also does not feature among the banned carriers on the European Union Air Safety List (ASL) – an internationally recognised and frequently updated list of air carriers from non-EU nations banned from operating to, in and from the EU due to not meeting necessary international safety standards. The list was last updated on June 3, before the crash took place. Both the reviews and the ASL can be used as reference guides for flyers. The ASL is a particularly good resource for anyone considering using a foreign carrier for the first time, according to RMIT University aerospace engineering and aviation expert Chrystal Zhang. 'It's definitely one of the very reliable resources for anyone who wants to check the [carrier's] safety performance and capability of the government [to manage] safety performance,' said Zhang. 'It is one of the purposes they developed that list.' The banned or partially banned airlines are determined based on information gathered by aviation safety experts from all the EU member states and the European Commission, including assessment of both the individual airline and its associated governing authorities. 'They would determine whether the carriers have valid, appropriate safety management systems in place to satisfy the EU's requirements … then they would check the capability of the government agency – in [the Yeti Airlines] case the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal – to establish to what extent they're capable of overseeing the overall management system of their aviation sector,' said Zhang. While Australia doesn't have an equivalent ban list in place, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates who gets an Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) to operate safely in Australia. 'This means any Australian airline will be safe,' said University of Sydney aviation expert Professor Rico Merkert. 'Foreign carriers are not permitted to fly into Australian airspace until they receive a Foreign Aircraft Air Operator's Certificate (CASA). As such, I feel in safe hands.' Which airlines are the safest? Air New Zealand is ranked the safest on with Qantas following in an 'extremely close' second place. According to the group, rankings are based on a number of categories, including the number of serious incidents in the last two years, fleet size and age, fatalities, and pilot skills and training. Loading Airlines are balanced in their ranking to ensure that proportionality is considered. 'An airline operating only 100 aircraft experiencing three incidents raises greater concern than an airline with 800 aircraft experiencing six incidents,' said the group. 'Another critical factor is how incidents are managed. While incidents occur daily across the aviation industry, the expertise of pilots and crew often determines whether an event remains an incident or escalates into a tragedy.' The group also said that incidents are sometimes the fault of the plane manufacturer, rather than the airline, and that is taken into consideration. Air India Flight 171 marks the first hull loss for a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner since the type of aircraft began operating in 2011.
The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
What survivors of commercial plane crashes have in common – and only some of it is luck
'Miracle girl' Bahia Bakari, the sole survivor of doomed Yemenia Flight 626, notably survived its 2009 crash into the Indian Ocean by clinging to a piece of aircraft wreckage, something she was able to do because she happened to have been ejected from the Airbus A310 as it crashed. The four survivors of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which killed 520 people after crashing into Mount Osutaka in August 1985, were all seated in the last seven rows of the aircraft. That happened to be the only part that remained intact after impact. Which part of the plane that remains intact in the event of a crash – and if you're in it – may be luck of the draw, but in the case of Japan Airlines Flight 516, a major factor in the survival of all 379 occupants after it collided with a Coast Guard plane at Haneda Airport was its efficient evacuation process. American journalist Amanda Ripley's extensive disaster reporting helped Time win more than one award – and it also formed a strong basis for her book The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes – and why. What Ripley had discovered over the years was how much understanding behavioural psychology was crucial to the survival of humans when disaster strikes, and how much it's been overlooked. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn – if your body knows instinctively what to do, Ripley argues, then it may be able to cut through in times of extreme distress. 'The brain loves body memory,' writes Ripley, who highlights the efficacy of 'dress rehearsals' of fires in house and workplace survival rates. 'It is much better to stop, drop, and roll than to talk about stopping, dropping, and rolling.' Loading In an unfamiliar and somewhat temporary environment like a commercial plane, conducting a disaster drill as a passenger is easier said than done. But Ripley highlights how making a habit of counting the rows between your seat and the nearest emergency exit on every plane you board – should you need to rely on senses other than sight – is essential. Crew, after all, are given a 90-second time limit to evacuate all passengers before flames, and smoke, become fatal for those inside the plane, some of whom may be trapped by their own paralysing fear, or others who are clogging the aisle trying to retrieve their belongings in shock. Not one of Japan Airlines Flight 516's occupants exited with hand luggage. Which is the safest seat on a commercial flight? There is no magic seat that protects individual passengers; however, there is some data to show that there are safer and less safe seats in the event of a crash. Incomplete data from the American Federal Aviation Administration between 1985 and 2000 was analysed by Time, which found that sitting in the back of a plane was generally safer, fulfilling the urban myth that first-class passengers face the brunt of a crash's impact. Middle seats have also been found to have the lowest fatality rate, though there are questions of situational advantage, as in some crashes having an aisle seat can mean a quicker evacuation. It should be noted, however, that not all crash data reports seat numbers against passenger fatalities, so a complete analysis is difficult to perform. Is there a way to tell if an airline is at higher risk of a crash? Despite 2025 being one of the deadliest years on record for civil aviation, commercial aircraft accidents are still considered extremely rare today. Of course, some airlines and countries have a worse record than others, and there are several resources flyers can use. Qantas, recently voted the world's second-safest airline for 2025 on behind Air New Zealand, has never had a fatal jet airline accident. Air India didn't make top 25 list when it was released earlier this year, and currently has an air safety star rating of just four stars out of seven, factoring Friday's mass fatalities. Loading At the time of writing, Air India also does not feature among the banned carriers on the European Union Air Safety List (ASL) – an internationally recognised and frequently updated list of air carriers from non-EU nations banned from operating to, in and from the EU due to not meeting necessary international safety standards. The list was last updated on June 3, before the crash took place. Both the reviews and the ASL can be used as reference guides for flyers. The ASL is a particularly good resource for anyone considering using a foreign carrier for the first time, according to RMIT University aerospace engineering and aviation expert Chrystal Zhang. 'It's definitely one of the very reliable resources for anyone who wants to check the [carrier's] safety performance and capability of the government [to manage] safety performance,' said Zhang. 'It is one of the purposes they developed that list.' The banned or partially banned airlines are determined based on information gathered by aviation safety experts from all the EU member states and the European Commission, including assessment of both the individual airline and its associated governing authorities. 'They would determine whether the carriers have valid, appropriate safety management systems in place to satisfy the EU's requirements … then they would check the capability of the government agency – in [the Yeti Airlines] case the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal – to establish to what extent they're capable of overseeing the overall management system of their aviation sector,' said Zhang. While Australia doesn't have an equivalent ban list in place, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates who gets an Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) to operate safely in Australia. 'This means any Australian airline will be safe,' said University of Sydney aviation expert Professor Rico Merkert. 'Foreign carriers are not permitted to fly into Australian airspace until they receive a Foreign Aircraft Air Operator's Certificate (CASA). As such, I feel in safe hands.' Which airlines are the safest? Air New Zealand is ranked the safest on with Qantas following in an 'extremely close' second place. According to the group, rankings are based on a number of categories, including the number of serious incidents in the last two years, fleet size and age, fatalities, and pilot skills and training. Loading Airlines are balanced in their ranking to ensure that proportionality is considered. 'An airline operating only 100 aircraft experiencing three incidents raises greater concern than an airline with 800 aircraft experiencing six incidents,' said the group. 'Another critical factor is how incidents are managed. While incidents occur daily across the aviation industry, the expertise of pilots and crew often determines whether an event remains an incident or escalates into a tragedy.' The group also said that incidents are sometimes the fault of the plane manufacturer, rather than the airline, and that is taken into consideration. Air India Flight 171 marks the first hull loss for a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner since the type of aircraft began operating in 2011.
