Body parts found among Fossett wreckage October 3, 2008 - 5:13AM MAMMOTH LAKES, California - Authorities in the US say body parts have been found among the wreckage of adventurer Steve Fossett's plane in California's rugged Sierra Nevada mountains.
The discovery comes just over a year after the multi-millionaire vanished on a solo flight, and the craft appears to have hit the mountainside head-on, authorities said today.
Most of the plane's fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found about 60 metres away at an elevation of 2,956 metres, authorities said.
"It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly," said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nevada, who assisted the search.
Crews conducting an aerial search late yesterday spotted what turned out to be the wreckage in the Inyo National Forest near the town of Mammoth Lakes, Sheriff John Anderson said.
They confirmed that the tail number found matched Fossett's single-engine Bellanca plane, he said.
Fossett, 63, disappeared on September 3 last year after taking off in a plane he borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton.
A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator which spanned 51,800 square kilometres.
Teams led by the sheriff's department would continue the search today, while the National Transportation Safety Board was en route to probe the cause of the crash, he said.
Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the NTSB, said the agency has reviewed photographs of the site and after a preliminary look.
"It appears to be consistent with a non-survivable accident."
He also said it was "indicative of a high-impact crash".
The NTSB would bring in a private contractor to help with recovery of the airplane, Rosenker said.
"It will take weeks, perhaps months, to get a better understanding of what happened," he said.
Searchers began combing the rugged terrain on yesterday, two days after a hiker found Fossett's identification. The wreckage was found about 400 metres from where hiker Preston Morrow made his discovery on Monday.
The IDs provided the first possible clue about Fossett's whereabouts since he vanished.
"I remember the day he crashed, there were large thunder heads over the peaks around us," Mono County Undersheriff Ralph Obenberger said, gesturing to the mountains flanking Mammoth Lakes.
Aviators had previously flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 144km south of the ranch, in the search of Fossett but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane.
Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats.
In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.
He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
This is wonderful news foreveryone who knew he had crashed and died but no-one could ever find the plane. I for one am happy the case of the missing Steve Fossett has at last been solved. His family and friends can now be at Peace as can Steve's spirit.
Body in water confirmed as backpacker Britt Paola Totaro | October 11, 2008 - 6:07AM
Police have confirmed that a body found floating in the sea off Dubrovnik on Monday is Britt Lapthorne, the Melbourne girl who went missing from a local nightclub three weeks ago.
DNA testing on the corpse, recovered by Croatian water police on Monday, has confirmed that it is the young traveller despite local police insisting that it was "unlikely to be Britt."
The police held a press conference at police headquarters in Dubrovnik at 7.45pm local time but informed Britt's father, Dale and her brother, Darren, before making the test results public.
The news is a double blow to the family who underwent the terrible rollercoaster ride of being told a body had been found by media on Monday morning and the police announcing just hours later that it could not be Britt because the body was so decomposed.
However Dubrovnik Deputy Chief of Police, Ivan Kukrika, confirmed last night that DNA analysis has now shown conclusively that the body is Britt's.
"DNA analysis has been completed in capital Zagreb. According to the analysis, the body found in the sea on October 6 belongs to the missing Australian, Britt Lapthorne", he said.
The test results are a particularly cruel find as all week, Britt's father, Dale, had been reassured by a detective from Zagreb that it was more than 90 per cent unlikely that the body was that of his daughter. He was told that the corpse was too decomposed to have only been in the water for two and a half weeks and that as Ms Lapthorne, 21, had unusually perfect teeth and no fillings, ruling her out may have been even more simple.
But the Croatian police appear to have made yet another mistake, echoing one three years ago when another tourist disappeared from a nightclub in Porec in the north and was found in the sea. Initial forensic reports suggested that the body had been in the water for more than eight months and police insisted that it could not be the Briton, Peter Rushton. However tests later showed that it was him and he had been beaten, tied up and murdered and his clothes filled with stones.
Two men were later charged with his murder.
The police said that it was too early to tell the cause of Britt's death but further tests would be conducted.
Last night, a receptionist at the Berkeley Hotel where Dale and Darren Lapthorne have been staying said the family was "devastated" but that no further comment would be made.
The body was found at the bottom of a rock face known as Bonino where another young Croatian was found dead exactly 12 months ago after a night out in a nightclub.
WHile the Bonino rock below which Britt was found on Monday, is known as the Dubrovnik suicide spot, there is no evidence to suggest that she was depressed.
Police said that investigations and interviews with backpackers and friends who were with Britt on the night of her disappearance are continuing and more and more information is emerging from Interpol.
Fuel prices No rationale ... experts says motorists are being ripped off to the tune of 20 cents a litre by big oil companies.
MOTORISTS are being ripped off by up to 20c a litre at the fuel bowser as petrol companies exploit the plunging oil price.
The Daily Telegraph today debunks the major oil companies' often-used excuse that the declining Australian dollar offsets any savings from the steep fall in crude.
Expert analysis reveals the cost of oil in Australian dollars has dropped more than 20 per cent since the start of September - yet petrol prices have risen more than 5 per cent.
University of NSW competition professor Frank Zumbo said petrol industry data showed motorists buying at the top of the retail cycle on Wednesdays were being gouged between 15c to 20c a litre extra.
"Retail and wholesale margins are historically higher than in the past, and retailers have been pocketing the fall in prices rather than passing savings on to motorists," Professor Zumbo said yesterday. "Motorists are being ripped off and the savings haven't been passed on as quickly as they should have been."
Professor Zumbo said there were growing fears prices could increase further if the Australian currency continued to fall below US70c.
With the cost of petrol plunging in the US to about $A1.15 a litre, Sydney motorists continue to be slugged some of the highest fuel prices in Australia, with unleaded peaking at 159.9c a litre yesterday.
NRMA president Alan Evans said the price gouging was about 8c a litre, but "probably higher".
Price-monitor Fueltrac's spokesman Chris Kable said because wholesale margins for unleaded had fallen over the past week, oil companies were recouping that cost by increasing their retail margins.
The chance of action by the Federal Government or competition regulators seemed remote last night.
Australia's new petrol commissioner Joe Dimasi was unavailable yesterday and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission declined to discuss the petrol issue.
While it's true the Australian dollar has shed about 30 per cent of its value since mid-July, from 98c to 69c now, the oil price has dived 50 per cent - from more $US140 a barrel to barely $70 yesterday. Caltex said changes in retail prices were consistent with oil in currency fluctuations.
Accident ends carefree childhood October 19, 2008 - 6:34AM
BEENLEIGH schoolgirl Jazzi Pybus has maturity that belies her age but, at 10, she has taken a lot on her young shoulders.
While most youngsters enjoy a stress-free existence, for nearly two years Jazzi has helped care for her family, including her one-year-old brother, Jedhi, who was born with Down syndrome and is deaf.
In December 2006, a bus hit Jazzi and her mother, June Hintz, as they used a pedestrian crossing.
Jazzi received only a nasty bump to the head but her mother went to hospital with a broken jaw, fractured arm and affected hearing.
Jazzi's father, Calvin Pybus, has suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome after seeing the accident,
Mr Pybus gave up his job as an operations manager.
He experiences days of depression when he does not want to get out of bed or communicate.
Ms Hintz works full-time for the Main Roads Department and relies on Jazzi to keep the household running.
''I get dad up in the mornings and sometimes that's really hard because he just won't get out of bed,'' Jazzi said.
''When I get home from school I do stuff with him so he doesn't get depressed and I make sure he takes his medicine.
''My brother's deaf so I'm teaching him how to sign and I help bathe him and look after him a lot of the time.''
Other jobs she fits in around homework include the washing, taking out the rubbish, doing the dishes and tidying the house.
When he is well enough, Mr Pybus looks after the baby with Jazzi's help; otherwise the boy stays with his grandmother, or Ms Hintz takes him to work while Jazzi attends a nearby primary school.
''If I can't play with my friends because I have to help at home I just tell them it's because my family comes first,'' Jazzi said.
Through the internet, Jazzi has developed a network of South-East Queensland friends whose parents suffer mental illness or have drug problems. Parents concerned that their young children do not have the usual social networks because of the time spent caring for relatives have set up a support group, Smart Art Clubs.
The group is part-funded by the Federal Government.
Ms Hintz said the club's database included 400 underage carers, many of whom got together each week to chat and paint.
''The networks and clubs help young carers talk about their experiences and cope with problems that young kids usually don't have,'' she said.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics says about 2.5 million people aged 15 and over care for someone at home because of a disability or old age.
Carers Australia says 6.6 per cent of carers are aged under 18. Jazzi said she had hoped to attend next month's 2008 Young Carers Forum in Canberra.
''I had about $1000 saved up for something special and really wanted to go but they [organisers] said I was too young,'' she said.
The Federal Opposition spokesman for disabilities and carers, Senator Cory Bernardi, said the Government should investigate how many children were acting as carers and how the community could support them.
She looks a lot older than 10, with the blonde streaks in her hair etc.
Come to think of it... your hair colour adds YEARS to your face, Dara. It makes you look at least 35.
CONTINUES TONIGHT! 6.30pm eVSC Fan Favourites 7.00pm eVSC Grand Finale : Compilation 7.12pm eVSC Grand Finale : Results #1 & #2 All times in AEDST. Air times and/or dates subject to delays.
Police could lay criminal charges over claims year 12 students from one of Melbourne's most exclusive schools romped through the streets like an angry Lord of the Flies mob.
Students of Xavier College in Kew are accused of jumping on cars and frightening residents in the prosperous inner-east suburb.
One woman, identified only as Chris, said she saw two students wearing Xavier socks jumping on her car roof and bonnet, while others cheered around them.
Police estimated damage to the car at $5,000 and said criminal damage charges could be laid if the culprits were found.
All 250 year 12 students from the 130-year-old private Catholic school on Tuesday were suspended from the last three days of classes before VCE exams following their misbehaviour at their end-of-year muck-up day.
But the misbehaviour allegedly continued after their suspension, when Chris said she saw about 40 students parading down her road about 7pm (AEDT).
"They were just like a mob, you know like Lord of the Flies," she said referring to the fictitious tribe of wild teenage boys in William Golding's classic novel.
Chris said the mob was angry, aggressive and noisy.
"I was inside and there was this awful noise, lots of singing, beer songs, saying: 'Here we go, here we go,'" she told reporters.
She said the mob gathered around her car and two boys jumped on top of the roof while others cheered them on.
"I spoke to my neighbour and a wheelie bin was thrown at her car when she was driving past," she said.
"There were bottles smashed all down the street."
One of the students wrote to the Herald-Sun website, admitting his classmates were destructive.
"Our year level has always had a bit of a lust for wanton destruction with the types of guys who think car jumping is a fun pastime," he wrote.
The boy, who described himself as the King of Xavier, also accused the Jesuit school of being more interested in its appearance than caring for difficult students.
Acting Senior Sergeant Rod Phillips said police were working with schools to identify who damaged the car.
Police responded to several calls from Kew residents on Tuesday, with one reporting about 100 students in the street and another reporting students setting off fireworks at a train station.
"A muck-up day is a muck-up day, but if a crime actually occurred we will be following up," Snr Sgt Phillips said.
He said each time police arrived at problem scenes, dozens of students fled.
The students were suspended after a ball game left a boy in hospital with leg fractures and three students streaked through assembly wearing school ties as g-strings.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Xavier College director of development Graham Sharp said students had been told to finish the school year in a "positive and effective way", but had instead "exhibited unacceptable behaviour".
Principal Chris McCabe wrote to parents on Tuesday, saying the behaviour of the students in the ball game was "reckless" after being warned against such behaviour.
"We deemed it necessary to take decisive and unpopular action to ensure year 12 students committed to their studies could use the remaining day effectively without distraction," Mr McCabe wrote in the letter published on The Age website.
"In addition students at other levels need to understand that irresponsible behaviour will not be tolerated."
Victorian Premier John Brumby said the school had acted appropriately.
Xavier College has more than 2,000 students across three campuses, with year 11 and 12 fees reaching $20,000 a year.
The only thing that bothers me is...
THEY'VE HAD MUCK UP DAY ALREADY?!?!?! WE HAVE A WHOLE MONTH TO GO! (+damn NSW/VIC for getting like a month off before exams)
We have a whole week after exams! I dunno :S Pick up exam results, graduation, last chance to be in classes.. :S
i'm over it though, in ipt we went outside and slept/talked (whole class, hey did you know we've gone from 8 girls to 3 :O ) no one is working, too........ bleh
lol. sounds like what we were doing all year haha.
our exam results get sent out via mail around christmas time by ssabsa so theres no real reason for us to stay after exams basically everything is done.
Could Peter File please make his way to the EVSC Thread, check out the entries, and then give 12, 10, and 8 points to my entries!
Logged
what's the point in even going to the school after exams XD
