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10 passengers who survived a crash on a Boeing 777 aircraft which occurred near Heathrow airport are to sue the aircraft manufacturer. The flight was travelling between Beijing and London in January 2008. All 152 passengers survived the crash but several suffered injury as a result of the incident.

According to the BBC a report is being conducted by the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (or AAIB) in to the accident but it has yet to be finalised. However, in the interim reports which it has produced on the cause of the crash it appears that both of the vehicles engines suffered from a reduced fuel flow as the plane was coming in to land and there is a belief that it is possible that ice may have accumulated in the plane’s fuel system.

The allegation being put forward by the injured parties is that the vehicle was defective and the expert reports  indicate that the fault may be common to other 777s as well, making it an actual manufacturing deficiency, rather than a one off fault.
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A new fence may have been responsible for the death of a man whose car was hit by a train in North Yorkshire.

According to the BBC, Mr John Power, 54, died when his car went on to the railway tracks at Copmanthorpe in 2006.

An inquest which was being held in York heard how a new fence had been erected near the tracks six weeks prior to the accident and that, not only was the new fence not as visible as the previous fence, it did not indicated that there were railway tracks beyond it.

Mr John Milner, who lived locally and gave evidence at the inquest, also criticised the signage in the area which he felt failed to sufficiently alert drivers to the nearby railway line.
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A hotel in Yorkshire has been forced to temporarily close after staff were found to be suffering from a stomach infection.

According to the BBC, the Middlethorpe Hall Hotel closed on Sunday when as many as 20 staff reported feeling unwell. The staff are all currently being tested to see whether they have been affected by the norovirus illness. It is not known whether any customers at the hotel suffered illness and the decision to close the hotel temporarily has been acknowledged to be a preventative decision made in the interests of staff and customers.
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About 60 people suffered injury at a Christmas lights switch-on event in Birmingham.

According to the BBC, over 20,000 people went to Millennium Point in Birmingham to watch boy band, and X-Factor runners-up, JLS switch on the Christmas lights on Saturday.

However, organisers had only anticipated a quarter of that attendance, with just 15,000 being expected to turn up and see the event.

The event had to be stopped after the crowd surged to get in to the already packed square. Barriers gave way leaving four people in need of hospital treatment.
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What do you guys think; should advertising “no win, no fee” guarantees be banned?

Seems pretty extreme but it is a view which has been taken in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia!

The so called ‘ambulance chasers’ have been banned from advertising their services and it is a ban that Attorney-General John Hatzistergos is campaigning to have blanketed across Australia.
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Maclaren have moved to provide new safety kits for their pushchairs after parents indicated their concerns that children were suffering injuries trapping their fingers in the hinges.

According to the BBC, the company had originally stated that despite issuing the kits in the US, they would not be following suit with a UK equivalent.  However, now the covers, which will be free, will be sent out to parents who request them.

Maclaren’s original decision was based on the fact that the number of injuries suffered in the UK was considerably lower than in the US.
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Two firemen killed by a blast at a fireworks depot might not have died if they had received relevant training, a jury has heard.

According to the BBC, firemen Geoff Wicker and Brian Wembridge died in an explosion at a farm in East Sussex in December 2006. The argument that the training received by the fire-fighters was insufficient was put forward by the defence lawyer for Alpha Fireworks boss Martin Winter and his son Nathan, both of whom denied the charge of manslaughter at Lewes Crown Court.
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The Highways Agency has come in for criticism and faces legal action for failing in its obligations to road users in Cornwall. Although the Agency closed the A30 road between Devon and Cornwall following sheet ice in January of this year, but not before 40 accidents has already occurred.

The allegations put forward are that the Highways Agency, in failing to identify that the particular stretch of road would become dangerous at an earlier stage, fell below the standards expected of it to keep roads clear as much as reasonably practicable. This involves keeping roads free of snow and ice in so much as they might avoid endangering the safety of users or, alternately, acting to minimise the risk through actions such as closing the section of road.
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Everybody thinks of the gym as a place to go to get fit and healthy. However, that wasn’t the case for an employee at a Fitness First gym in Bournemouth. Six fire engines and 30 fire fighters went to the gym in Queens Park South Drive where a male member of staff was overcome by fumes from a chemical leak. A further nine workers were treated at the scene and then taken to hospital.

According to the BBC, Dorset Fire and Rescue Service were at a loss to explain how 25 litres of a hypochloride solution, used to clean pools, had become mixed with sodium bisulphate. The mixture creates two gases, sulphur dioxide, and chlorine gas, the latter of which is toxic and is believed to have been responsible for the injury.
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The clocks have all gone back and whilst we all appreciated the extra hour in bed and the nights are drawing in and it’s that first sign that Christmas is on its way; what is happening out there on our roads?

Every autumn when the clocks have been put back there is an increase in road traffic accidents, but why? We’ve all got headlights on our cars to guide the way in these early evenings and surely our driving skills have not been taken away just over night!

It is often the case that these early evenings suddenly creep up on us and we can all probably admit to jumping in the car after a long day at work and forgetting to turn on our headlights, or being caught out by those slippery leaves all over the roads! 
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