Staff and families were shocked when the Fugro Cessna crashed after take off with five Nautronix personnel on board, one of whom died leaving the remaining occupants in stable but critical conditions.
In the Indian tragedy, two survivors have been found along with 22 bodies from the 29 on board.
The markets also commanded attention with a number of companies experiencing more trade than they have seen for, in some case, years.
Shares in junior Queensland gas producer, Sunshine Gas Ltd, rose 45% in morning trade on Thursday, to reach an all time high of 33 cents.
The share price run of the long-ignored Amadeus Energy has been sustained, with the stock continuing its run to post its highest price since August 1999 when it almost reached 25c.
Another junior to go for a run on the markets has been Perth Basin bridesmaid, Empire Oil, which this week reached its highest levels for months - topping 0.8 cents for the first time since the disappointment of the Eclipse well early this year.
Encouraging signs from the Moose-1 well in Papua New Guinea have helped to push the InterOil share price up from its ceiling of $1.80 to around $3.40 in the past week.
Kimberley Oil shares have doubled in price in recent days on strong volume as management thinks the market is starting to warm to the coal bed methane concept.
A shellshocked NZ exploration industry is now calling for the waiving of petroleum royalties to urgently encourage further activity now that Shell has virtually pulled the plug on New Zealand and which also confirmed that Patea-1, which is possibly its last exploratory well drilled in New Zealand, was a fizzer.
The six international companies interested in taking over from Genesis Power as operator of the offshore Taranaki Kupe field have been busy visiting Genesis' Auckland data room, with Santos being named as a possible contender.
United States explorer Swift Energy has recorded record production levels for the second quarter of this year, helped significantly by its New Zealand assets.
The New Zealand Court of Appeal has ruled against Contact Energy in its $NZ2.25 million dispute with the government regarding the price of its Maui gas.
It seems partners Woodside and BHP Billiton have latched onto a live one with their Atwater Valley Block 574, in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, following reports that the Neptune-5 appraisal well has encountered a gross hydrocarbon column of around 1,200ft, with more than 500ft of net oil pay.
Partners of the PNG Moran oil field have extended its size after the NW Moran ST3 exploration well had oil shows in the Toro and Digimu objective sections.
Petsec Energy has started drilling the first of two Gulf of Mexico exploration wells to test for a combined total unrisked mapped potential of 10bcf to 16bcf of natural gas.
Arc Energy and Origin Energy have completed the Hovea 8 production well and Century Resources' Rig 24 is being released to drill the nearby Jingemia 2 appraisal well.
Offshore and up the coast, the Harriet Joint Venture has had an up-and-down week, recording hydrocarbon shows in the Gipsy-3 well while having to plug and abandon Felicia-1 while spudding the Pedirka-1 well.
The news gets worse in the Japanese maintenance fraud scandal. Nippon Oil was forced to close its second-largest refinery at Mizushima late last week, following an explosion and subsequent fire. The incident happened just days after Nippon was forced to close two of its smaller refineries at Osaka and Marifu following revelations that the company had falsified safety inspection documents between 1998 and 2002.
Australian Worldwide Exploration has finalised its deal to buy 50% of the Casino gas field in Vic/P44 from Strike Oil.
Looking north and the Surat Diggers Race Club rides again thanks to Mosaic Oil which has stepped in with sponsorship, avoiding some planned cutbacks to the racing card.
The WA government is fulfilling its part of the bargain with the start of a $137 million infrastructure construction program on the Burrup Peninsula which is timely given the Methanex board in Canada has given interim approval for its $US500 million methanol project and is working closely with global engineering and construction giant Aker Kvaerner over final EPCM details.
The cashed up Wesfarmers, with another record profit under its belt, and Australian Pipeline Trust are both circling the stricken Dampier to Bunbury pipeline (DBNGP), with cheque books poised if the pipeline's banking syndicate decide to walk away from the pipeline.
In the CBM world, Arrow Energy has moved closer to becoming a major supplier of gas in Queensland after securing up to $12.03 million in funding from CS Energy while Kimberley Oil obtained Sardinian regional government approval for its Sulcis CBM project in Italy to commence.
