All six crew members aboard the commercial diving vessel Conception were asleep at the time fire broke out aboard the 75-foot commercial diving vessel Sept. 2. One crew member and all 33 passengers perished when the ship sank in Platts Harbor off Santa Cruz Island. Those stark facts are in the preliminary report issued yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on the incident, which occurred on the last night of a three-day diving trip to the Channel Islands.

The Trump administration yesterday repealed an Obama-era rule that requires landowners to obtain federal permits before developing or polluting navigable waterways. The 2015 rule clarified the Clean Water Act - also known as Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule. It has been the target of lawsuits by farmers, the mining industry and business interests, who claim it restricts development and infringed on property rights. Environmental groups, however, say its expansive definition of navigable waterways is vital in ensuring the safety of wetlands, streams and ponds that feed into larger waterways.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) just got to check off three more items on its 2019-2020 Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements. The latest three, intended to improve pipeline safety, call for improved inspection programs, better records and documentation of natural gas systems, and procedures to mitigate risks identified during management of change operations.

Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. of Steeleville, Illinois has been cited by OSHA for six safety violations including three willful after two maintenance employees conducting welding operations sustained serious burns to their upper bodies as the result of an explosion within a dust collector at the company's pasta manufacturing plant on Oct. 6, 2011. The incident occurred as the two employees were repairing a hole in the side of a metal trough.

Health experts are cheering President Trump’s vow to ban flavored e-cigarettes, which they say are a major reason for the sharp rise in youthful vaping in the U.S. Trump made the announcement on Wednesday, noting “We can’t have our youth be so affected.” A half dozen recent deaths and hundreds of cases of lung disease across the country appear to be related to vaping, although the cases are still under investigation.

Traffic signals in the sky? Not quite, but federal agencies are developing a traffic management system that will allow drones to safely fly at low altitudes (below 400 feet) in airspace where Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic services are not provided – without interfering with other air traffic. In demonstrations conducted recently as part of a pilot program, the FAA, NASA and partners, drones conducted a variety of operations at three test sites.

A workplace dispute apparently led to a violent attack this morning at a Florida construction supply company in which an employee stabbed five people – four of them co-workers. The fifth victim was reportedly at the Dyke Industries Tallahassee distribution center for a job interview. All of the victims were transported to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare for treatment and are expected to survive. They are reportedly in conditions ranging from serious to good.

A grant program is helping small- to medium-sized employers in Ohio integrate their occupational safety and health (OSH) efforts with workplace wellness programs, reports the September Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. At least of half of employers participating in the Workplace Wellness Grant Program (WWGP) achieved some level of integration between their OSH and workplace wellness programs within the first year.

Two employees of a granite and marble business in suburban Detroit were fatally crushed Monday afternoon when multiple slabs of granite fell on them. Sterling Heights Fire Chief Chris Martin said it appeared that the workers were using an overhead crane to move granite slabs – each weighing more than 1,000 pounds. When slabs were lifted off their storage rack, others shifted, causing slabs to fall on the men.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued a Safety Recommendation Report as part of its ongoing investigation of the fatal, March 23, 2018, crash of a Tesla in Mountain View, California. In its report the NTSB issued a safety recommendation to the California State Transportation Agency calling upon the organization to develop and implement a corrective action plan that guarantees timely repair of traffic safety hardware and includes performance measures to track state agency compliance with repair timelines.