An Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet-100 made an
emergency landing and burst into flames just after takeoff from Moscow’s
Sheremetyevo airport killing at least 41 people.
Two children are among the dead. The jet had 73 passengers and five crew
members.
“There are 37 survivors – 33
passengers and four members of the crew,” said Yelena Markovskaya, an
official involved in the investigation of the crash.
A flight attendant was also reportedly killed in the incident. Five people
are in hospital. One witness said it was a “miracle” anyone escaped.
Dramatic video shows passengers using emergency exit slides to escape the
burning Russian aircraft.
Survivors suggest the plane was struck by lightning, but Russia’s national
carrier said only that it returned to the airport for technical reasons.
Initial reports suggested the plane had landed on fire, but sources quoted
by Russian news agency Interfax said the jet caught fire after a very bumpy
landing.
The plane landed with full fuel tanks because the crew lost contact with air
traffic controllers and decided it was too dangerous to dump fuel over Moscow,
Interfax added.
PM Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a special committee to investigate the
disaster.
The aircraft left the airport at 18:02 local time, bound for Murmansk.
Its crew sent a distress signal when “malfunctions” occurred in
bad weather shortly after take-off.
After making an emergency landing at the airport, the aircraft’s engines
caught fire on the runway, Aeroflot said, adding that the crew “did
everything to save the passengers”.
Murmansk’s Acting Governor Andrey Chibis has reportedly said that the
families of those killed in the fire will each receive one million rubles ($15,300),
while the victims being treated in hospital will be given 500,000 rubles
($7,650).
With millions of commercial flights taking place every year, lightning
strikes in the air are relatively common.
Traditional planes, built using aluminum, are usually able to withstand such strikes as the shell or “skin” of the aircraft acts as a cage, distributing the electricity without causing damage and allowing them to continue their journey safely. Some newer aircraft are constructed using lighter materials that have lower electrical conductivity, such as carbon fiber, which need to be protected – often using wire mesh or foil.
Forty-nine people have been killed as a US-Bangla plane carrying 71 passengers and crew crashed on landing at Nepal’s Kathmandu airport, according to police.
Rescuers pulled bodies from the charred wreckage of the plane, operated by the Bangladeshi airline, after a raging fire was put out.
The plane was carrying 67 passengers and four crew members.
It is now known that 33 of the passengers were Nepalis, 32 were Bangladeshi, one was Chinese and one was from the Maldives.
Among the 22 people injured, some are in a critical condition.
US-Bangla Airlines has blamed air traffic control, but the Nepali authorities say the plane made an “unusual” landing.
Flight BS211 veered off the runway while landing on March 12.
One survivor who managed to break through a window says the aircraft gave a violent shake, followed by a bang.
Offering his condolences, Nepalese PM K P Sharma Oli promised an immediate investigation.
The plane, which was flying from the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, was a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprop and was 17 years old.
According to flight tracking site FlightRadar24, the plane landed at 14:20 local time.
Sanjiv Gautam, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, was quoted by the Kathmandu Post as saying: “The aircraft was permitted to land from the southern side of the runway flying over Koteshwor, but it landed from the northern side.
“We are yet to ascertain the reason behind the unusual landing.”
However, US-Bangla Airlines chief executive Imran Asif has blamed Kathmandu air traffic control.
He told reporters at his office in Dhaka: “There were wrong directions from the tower. Our pilot was not at fault.”
Airport general manager Raj Kumar Chettri told Reuters that the plane hit the airport fence before touching the ground.
The pilot told flight controllers that everything was OK soon before landing, but did not reply when told his alignment was not correct, he said.
After a normal take-off from Dhaka, the plane had begun to behave strangely as it approached Kathmandu, he said.
The head of LaMia airline, which was involved in a plane crash last week that killed 71 people, including most of the Brazil’s soccer team Chapecoense, was arrested in Bolivia.
Gustavo Vargas, a retired air force general, has been arrested as part of an investigation into the crash.
The plane, operated by the tiny LaMia airline, was taking Chapecoense team to Colombia when it ran out of fuel.
Bolivian official Celia Castedo says she warned the pilot of the problem before departure.
She has now sought asylum in Brazil, saying she suffered threats and abuse.
Chapecoense were travelling to the city of Medellin to play the first leg of the Sudamericana Cup final against Atletico Nacional.
The British-made Avro RJ85 aircraft ran out of fuel as it approached the airport in Medellin on November 28.
In a leaked tape, pilot Miguel Quiroga can be heard warning of a “total electric failure” and “lack of fuel”.
Celia Castedo says she warned Miguel Quiroga before departure that the long flight between southern Bolivia and Medellin was at the limit of the plane’s maximum range.
She has now sought asylum in Brazil, saying she is being persecuted.
Her asylum process could take a year to be processed, the authorities in Brazil said.
Bolivian Government Minister Carlos Romero urged the Brazilian authorities to turn her back.
“What she has done is very serious,” Carlos Romero said.
“It’s a way of escaping the judicial system.”
Six people survived the crash. One of them, crew member Erwin Tumuri, said an initial stop for refueling in the northern Bolivian city of Cobija had been dropped by the pilot.
There was no warning to the crew or the passengers that the plane was facing electrical or fuel problems, Erwin Tumuri told Brazil’s Globo TV.
LaMia was originally registered in Venezuela, before moving its headquarters to Bolivia. It only had three planes, but only two of them were operational.
Chapecoense club, from the southern Brazilian city of Chapeco, was only founded in 1973 and had never reached a final of an international tournament.
A day after the tragedy, Atletico Nacional said it wanted to forfeit the title.
On December 5, the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) declared Chapecoense officially champions of the Sudamericana Cup, the second most prestigious continental competition.
For its gesture, Atletico Nacional has been granted CONMEBOL’s special centenary fair play award.
The plane carrying Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense, which crashed in Colombia killing most of the passengers, had run out of fuel, according to a leaked audio recording.
A pilot can be heard repeatedly requesting permission to land due to an electric failure and lack of fuel.
Just six of the 77 people on board the plane survived.
The team, Chapecoense, had been due to play a cup final on November 30. Fans instead have been gathering at their stadium for a memorial event.
The leaked conversations between the flight crew and a Colombian air traffic controller give a glimpse of the frantic, final moments of the doomed plane.
The pilot and can be heard warning of a “total electric failure” and “lack of fuel”.
Image source Getty Images
Just before the tape ends, the pilot says he is flying at an altitude of 9,000ft (2,743m). The plane slammed into a mountainside near the Colombian city of Medellin on November 28.
That there was no explosion when the plane came down also points to lack of fuel, with one Colombian military source telling the AFP agency its absence was “suspicious”.
It is not known why the plane was out of fuel: whether it was due to a leak or because there was not enough on board.
Investigators have yet to announce any single cause for the crash and a full analysis is expected to take months.
Chapecoense team was flying to Medellin for what would have been the biggest match in their history – the final of regional tournament the Copa Sudamericana.
The team lost 19 players in the crash. Twenty journalists were also killed.
Among the survivors, Chapecoense said that two players remained in a critical but stable condition, while the club’s goalkeeper had had one leg amputated and might still lose his other foot.
An injured journalist also remained in critical condition, the club said.
Another survivor, flight technician Erwin Tumiri, said he was still alive because he followed safety instructions.
“Many stood up and started shouting,” he said.
“I put the suitcases between my legs and assumed the brace position.”
Brazil declared three days of official mourning and thousands of fans in the city of Chapeco held a vigil in their home stadium to mark their loss.
Chapecoense directors say they expect up to 100,000 to attend collective funerals once all the bodies have been identified, most likely on December 2 or December 3.
Ice Road Truckers star Darrell Ward has been killed in a plane crash at the age of 52.
Darrell Ward, from Montana, has been one of the featured drivers for the last five of the History Channel show’s 10 seasons.
Ice Road Truckers follows drivers as they battle the elements to deliver supplies to remote communities in northern Canada.
The driver had been traveling from a truck show in Dallas, Texas, to start filming the pilot for new a documentary about the recovery of plane wrecks in Montana, a statement on Darrell Ward’s Facebook page said.
Photo History Channel
The statement said Darrell Ward’s co-pilot, who was unnamed, also died in the crash,
“Trucking has always been a large part of Darrell’s life; from running the harvest rigs with his grandparents and family, to driving trucks from Montana to Alaska and all roads in between,” it read.
“In his free time, you could usually find Darrell giving back to the community any chance he got, he had promoted the most recent food drive to help victims in the Louisiana Floods and was scheduled to appear as the grand marshal for the Truck Convoy for Special Olympics in Nova Scotia.”
The message added: “His motto, <<any road, any load>> fits his personality perfectly.”
A History Channel statement said: “We are saddened by the tragic loss of Darrell Ward, a beloved member of the History family.
“He will be greatly missed and our thoughts are with his family during this difficult time.”
Egyptian investigators have announced that wreckage of the EgyptAir flight that went missing over the Mediterranean on May 19 has been found.
A statement said “several main locations of the wreckage” had been identified.
It added that a deep sea search vessel had also sent back the first images of the wreckage.
Photo Wikipedia
There were 66 people on board flight MS804 when it crashed while flying from Paris to Cairo.
The Airbus A320 plane vanished from Greek and Egyptian radar screens, apparently without having sent a distress call.
The Egyptian investigation committee said that investigators on board the John Lethbridge search vessel, which has been contracted by the Egyptian government, would now draw up a map of the wreckage distribution.
Search teams said signals from one of the “black box” flight recorders had been detected.
Signals emitted by the recorders are expected to expire by 24 June, experts have warned.
The cause of the crash remains a mystery.
A terror attack has not been ruled out but no extremist group has claimed the downing of the plane.
Analysts say human or technical error is also a possibility. Electronic messages sent by the plane revealed that smoke detectors went off in the toilet and the aircraft’s electrics, minutes before the plane’s signal was lost.
According to Greek investigators, MS804 turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right, dropping from 37,000ft to 15,000ft and then 10,000ft before it was lost from radar.
First pictures of items found during the search in the Mediterranean Sea for missing Egypt Air flight MS804 have been released by the Egyptian Armed Forces.
Photos show life vests, parts of seats and objects clearly marked EgyptAir.
The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard when it vanished from radar early on May 19.
Investigators have confirmed smoke was detected in various parts of the cabin three minutes before it disappeared, but say the cause is still not known.
Speaking on May 21 after meeting relatives of victims, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said “all theories are being examined and none is favored”.
The search has also reportedly found body parts and luggage.
The main body of the plane and the two “black boxes” which show flight data and cockpit transmissions have not yet been located.
While no bodies have been recovered, memorials have been taking place for the victims.
A service was held in a Cairo church on May 21 for air hostess Yara Hani, who was aboard the doomed plane.
International teams are continuing to search for EgyptAir plane that disappeared over the Mediterranean.
Military units from Greece, Egypt, France and the UK are taking part in the operation near the Greek island Karpathos.
Flight MS804 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew when it vanished on May 19.
Greece said radar showed the Airbus A320 had made two sharp turns and dropped more than 25,000ft before plunging into the sea.
Egypt says the plane was more likely to have been brought down by a terrorist act than a technical fault.
Most of the people on board Flight MS804 were from Egypt and France. A Briton was also among the passengers.
Photo Wikipedia
So far, no wreckage or debris from the aircraft has been found.
Initial reports on May 19, based on Egyptian officials’ comments that wreckage had been found, later proved unfounded.
Greece’s lead air accident investigator Athanasios Binis said items including lifejackets found near Karpathos were not from the Airbus A320.
“An assessment of the finds showed that they do not belong to an aircraft,” he said.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered the country’s civil aviation ministry, army-run search-and-rescue centre, navy and air force to take all necessary measures to locate the wreckage.
The French air accident investigation bureau has dispatched three investigators, along with a technical adviser from Airbus, to join the Egyptian inquiry.
In France, the focus is on whether a possible breach of security happened at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport.
Security was already tight, and under review, after last November’s attacks by ISIS in Paris.
Since then, some airport staff have had security clearance revoked over fears of links to Islamic extremists.
Flight MS804 left Paris at 23:09 local time on May 18 and was scheduled to arrive in Cairo soon after 03:15 local time on May 19.
On the plane were 56 passengers, seven crew members and three security personnel.
According to Greek aviation officials, air traffic controllers spoke to the pilot when he entered Greek airspace and everything appeared normal.
They tried to contact him again at 02:27 Cairo time, as the plane was set to enter Egyptian airspace, but “despite repeated calls, the aircraft did not respond”. Two minutes later it vanished from radar.
Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told reporters: “The picture we have at the moment on the accident as it emerges from the Greek air force operations centre is that the aircraft was approximately 10-15 miles inside the Egyptian FIR [flight information region] and at an altitude of 37,000 feet.
“It turned 90 degrees left and then a 360-degree turn toward the right, dropping from 37,000 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost at about 10,000 feet.”
Egypt’s Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said: “Let’s not try to jump to the side that is trying to identify this as a technical failure – on the contrary.
“If you analyze the situation properly, the possibility of having a different action, or having a terror attack, is higher than the possibility of having a technical [fault].”
A FlyDubai plane has crashed in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, killing all 55 passengers and seven crew on board, officials say.
The plane, a Boeing 737-800, coming from Dubai, missed the runway as it attempted to land at 03:50 local time on March 19.
It is not clear what caused the crash but poor visibility and high winds are being considered as a factor.
CCTV footage showed an explosion and a huge flash after the plane crashed.
The Investigative Committee of Russia said on its website: “The aircraft hit the ground and broke into pieces.”
Reports say the plane abandoned its initial attempt to land and circled for two hours before crashing at the second attempt.
It came down about 800ft short of the start of the runway in Rostov, some 600 miles south of Moscow.
Most of the passengers on board flight FZ981 were Russian, the regional governor said. Another official said three foreigners were on the passenger list, according to Reuters.
Six of the crew were non-Russians, a Russian emergency ministry statement said, the news agency reported.
About 700 rescue workers were sent to the site of the crash and the fire was extinguished, media reports said.
A search is under way for the plane’s flight recorders and an investigation has been opened into the cause of the crash.
Other flights have been diverted away from the airport.
In a statement on its Facebook page, the airliner confirmed the “tragic accident” and said an emergency response has been put in place.
Boeing said on Twitter its team was working to gather more details.
FlyDubai, a low cost carrier launched in 2009 with a hub in Dubai, operates flights to some 90 destinations.
According to Indonesian officials, a faulty component was a “major factor” when an AirAsia plane crashed into the Java Sea in December 2014, killing 162 people.
The first major report into the crash found that actions by the crew in response to the malfunction also contributed to the disaster.
The Airbus A320-200, going from Surabaya to Singapore, was 40 minutes into the flight when contact was lost.
The report is the result of a year-long investigation.
Investigators had initially indicated that bad weather was a major factor in the crash.
However, the new report has found that the soldering on a tiny electronic part in the system that controlled the rudder was cracked, causing it to send four warning signals to the pilots.
Photo AP
The crew tried to fix the problem by resetting the computer, but this disabled the autopilot. They then lost control of the plane.
The AirAsia plane then entered “a prolonged stall condition that was beyond the capability of the flight crew to recover,” said Indonesia’s national transport safety committee.
Maintenance crews were aware of the problem as it had occurred 23 times in 2014, and resetting the system was one of several methods used previously to address it, the report said.
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes thanked investigators on Twitter and added that “there is much to be learned here for AirAsia, the manufacturer and the aviation industry”.
“We will not leave any stone unturned to make sure the industry learns from this tragic incident.”
The plane’s wreckage was found days after the crash at the bottom of the Java Sea near Borneo.
Most of the passengers were Indonesian, and others on board included a Frenchman, a Singaporean, a Malaysian, a Briton, and three South Koreans.
Only 106 bodies have been retrieved so far.
The AirAsia crash capped a year of major air disasters including the disappearance of MH370 and the shooting of MH17- both flights operated by Malaysia Airlines.
A Russian plane with more than 220 people on board has crashed in central Sinai, the office of Egypt’s prime minister has confirmed.
The Airbus A-321 had just left the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, bound for the Russian city of St Petersburg.
The plane wreckage has been found in the Hassana area. It disappeared from radar screens when travelling at 31,000ft, Egyptian officials said.
Egyptian officials said most on board are likely to have died.
The plane was operated by the small Russian airline Kogalymavia, based in western Siberia.
Russian authorities say it was carrying 217 passengers, 17 of them children, and seven crew. Most were Russian tourists.
Initially there were conflicting reports about the fate of the plane, some suggesting it had disappeared over Cyprus.
The office of Egyptian PM Sharif Ismail confirmed in a statement that a “Russian civilian plane… crashed in the central Sinai”.
It added that Sharif Ismail had formed a crisis committee to deal with the crash.
Media reports say at least 40 ambulances have been sent to the scene.
The Russian aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said in a statement that flight 7K 9268 left Sharm el-Sheikh at 06:51 Moscow time and had been due into St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport at 12:10.
The authority added that the aircraft failed to make scheduled contact with Cyprus air traffic control 23 minutes after take-off and disappeared from the radar.
Egypt’s civilian aviation ministry said the plane had been at an altitude of 31,000ft when it disappeared.
Live flight tracking service Flight Radar 24’s Mikail Robertson confirmed the altitude.
A centre to help relatives of the passengers has been set up at Pulkovo airport, Tass news agency quoted St Petersburg city officials as saying.
Two pilots from Tom Cruise’s new film crew have been killed in a plane crash that left a third man severely injured on September 11.
American Alan Purwin and South American Carlos Berl died when their small plane crashed in the Colombian Andes.
Another American, Jimmy Lee Garland, survived Friday’s accident.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to the crew members and their families at this difficult time,” said Universal Pictures, distributor of Doug Liman’s film Mena.
Tom Cruise will appear in the movie as an American drug runner recruited by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) in the 1980s to help it capture cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Jimmy Lee Garland had been working as a flying double for Tom Cruise, whose spokesperson has yet to comment on the crash.
In a statement on its website, Alan Purwin’s company Helinet Technologies remembered him as “a great man, a world-renowned aviator and a brilliant entrepreneur”.
“There are no words that can express our heartache for we have lost one of the world’s greatest helicopter pilots,” wrote its CEO, Steve Gatena.
It is not known what caused the crash, though bad weather has been cited as a possible factor.
Tom Cruise previously worked with Doug Liman on his 2014 blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow and is set to work with him again on sci-fi movie Luna Park, according to reports.
Parts of a suspected Russian missile system have been found at Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash site in Ukraine, international investigators say.
Investigators in the Netherlands say the fragments, possibly from a Buk surface-to-air system, are “of particular interest” and could help show who was behind the crash.
However, they say they have not proved their “causal connection” with the crash.
MH17 crashed on land held by Russian-backed rebels in July 2014, killing all 298 on board.
It had 283 passengers on board, including 80 children, and 15 crew members.
About two-thirds of those who died were Dutch nationals, with dozens of Malaysians and Australians among the rest.
Ukraine and many Western countries have accused pro-Russian rebels of shooting down the plane, saying they could have used a Buk missile system supplied by Russia.
Russia and the rebels deny any responsibility and say the Ukrainian military was to blame.
The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) said in a joint statement with the Dutch Safety Board that the parts had been “secured during a previous recovery mission in eastern Ukraine”.
“The parts are of particular interest to the criminal investigation as they can possibly provide more information about who was involved in the crash of MH17. For that reason the JIT further investigates the origin of these parts,” the statement said.
“At present the conclusion cannot be drawn that there is a causal connection between the discovered parts and the crash of flight MH17.”
The investigators would now enlist the help of weapons experts and forensic specialists to examine the parts, the statement added.
The JIT comprises representatives of the Netherlands, Ukraine, Belgium, Malaysia and Australia.
They are meeting in The Hague to discuss a draft report on the causes of the crash, the final version of which is expected to be published by the Dutch Safety Board in October.
The statement comes two weeks after Russia vetoed a draft resolution to set up an international tribunal into the disaster, triggering widespread outrage.
Moscow described the Malaysian initiative as “premature” and “counterproductive”.
Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was brought down on July 17, 2014, in Donetsk region.
A Colombian mother and her one-year-old son have been found alive five days after their plane crashed in the jungle of western Colombia.
A Colombian Air Force chief described their survival as “a miracle”.
Maria Nelly Murillo, 18, and her baby were found by rescuers near to where their small Cessna plane crashed in Choco province.
She had some injuries and burns while her baby appeared to be in good health.
The twin-engine Cessna plane, which was carrying fish and coconuts, had been flying from the town of Nuqui on the Pacific coast to Quibdo, the capital of Choco.
It disappeared from the radar of the civil aviation authorities 20 minutes into the flight.
When the pilot did not respond to any calls, officials knew something was wrong and dispatched a plane to search the area.
It took the search team two days until they finally spotted a white dot in the dense jungle, which turned out to be the remains of the Cessna.
The plane had crashed, for reasons not yet known, in the Alto Baudo region.
When the search team reached the Cessna, they found its pilot, Carlos Mario Ceballos, dead in the cockpit.
There was no trace of Maria Nelly Murillo or her baby, Yudier Moreno, which the passenger list said had been on board.
According to Col. Hector Carrascal of the Colombian Air Force, rescuers took hope when they noticed that the cabin door was ajar.
“It could have opened on impact, but it could have been opened from the inside,” he said.
“But that’s when we started to worry. We didn’t have a clue what had happened to them: they could be lost in the jungle trying to survive or they could have died already.”
Then the rescuers found clues which led them to believe Maria Nelly Murillo and her baby could still be alive.
Coconut shells near the plane and a discarded flip flop in the jungle lifted their hopes.
They also found the baby’s birth certificate near a tree, which convinced them that Maria Nelly Murillo was trying to leave a trace of her path through the jungle.
Part of the search party scoured the jungle on foot while others flew over the area in a helicopter using a loudspeaker to shout Maria Nelly Murillo’s name and urge her to return to the crash site.
For two days their search yielded no results.
Finally, on June 24, they located Maria Nelly Murillo about 1600ft from the site of the crash in a ravine on the banks of a river.
“It’s a miracle. It is a very wild area and it was a catastrophic accident,” Col. Hector Carrascal said.
Of the baby, he said: “His mother’s spirit must have given him strength to survive.”
The mother and her baby were airlifted to a hospital in Quibdo.
Maria Nelly Murillo told medical staff that she had managed to open the cabin door and run into the jungle as fire was spreading in the cabin.
She then reportedly went back for her baby, at which time she sustained burns to her face, an arm and a leg.
Afraid the plane might explode, she walked into the jungle along the bank of a small river.
Details of how the woman survived are still sketchy, but local media said she came across a couple of indigenous people who helped her.
Maria Nelly Murillo was also able to drink coconut water from the coconuts the plane had been carrying, local media said.
She reportedly heard the calls over loudspeaker from the rescue helicopter which prompted her to make her way back to the crash site.
Maria Nelly Murillo is being treated for her injuries in hospital. Her baby son is said to be unharmed.
Titanic and Braveheart composer James Horner has died in a plane crash near Santa Barbara aged 61.
James Horner’s death was confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, who is identified on the composer’s film music page as his assistant.
“We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent,” Sylvia Patrycja wrote on Facebook on June 22.
“He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road.”
James Horner is reported to have been alone aboard a two-seater single-engine plane which crashed about 60 miles north of Santa Barbara on Monday morning.
The two-time Oscar winner worked on three James Cameron films, as well as A Beautiful Mind, Troy and Apollo 13.
James Horner won one Oscar for James Cameron’s Titanic film score and one for its theme song.
His score for Titanic sold a whopping 27 million copies worldwide.
James Horner’s fruitful partnership with James Cameron also netted him Oscar nominations for original score for the blockbusters Aliens (1986) and Avatar (2009). The pair reportedly were also at work on Avatar sequels.
A single engine plane has crashed onto a metro Atlanta interstate shortly after takeoff, killing all four people onboard.
The aircraft burst into flames, but none on the ground was hurt although the plane nearly stuck a vehicle.
“It’s a miracle, literally a miracle, that no other cars were hit,” DeKalb Fire Capt Eric Jackson said.
The Piper PA-32 crashed minutes after taking off from DeKalb Peachtree Airport on May 8.
Photo AP
Rescue workers shut down Interstate 285 in both directions so investigators could determine what happened. The closure created traffic problems through the city.
Authorities did not immediately release the names of the victims.
The plane officially took off at 9:59 a.m. and was scheduled to land just before 11 a.m. CT in Oxford, Miss., according to FlightAware, flight-tracking service. It arrived around 9:15 a.m. from Asheville, N.C., where the plane apparently was based.
The plane was clearly in distress, said witnesses, many who slammed on their brakes to avoid what was developing.
All lanes in both directions of I-285 are blocked at the scene, and Georgia Department of Transportation officials say the interstate will be closed for at least eight hours and are telling all travelers to take alternate routes and avoid the area for the rest of the day.
Harrison Ford has been injured after his WW2 small plane crashed in California.
Harrison Ford, 72, reported engine failure and crash-landed his vintage plane on a Venice golf course.
The actor was breathing and alert when medics arrived and took him to hospital in a “fair to moderate” condition, a fire department spokesman said.
Harrison Ford’s son Ben, a chef in Los Angeles, later tweeted from the hospital: “Dad is OK. Battered but OK!”
The actor’s publicist said: “The injuries sustained are not life threatening, and he is expected to make a full recovery.”
The nature of Harrison Ford’s injuries have not been disclosed but website TMZ, which first reported the story, said he suffered “multiple gashes to his head”.
Shortly after take-off from Santa Monica Airport, he said he was having engine failure with his 1942 Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR and was making an “immediate return”.
Harrison Ford was unable to reach the runway and landed on the golf course, where onlookers pulled him from the plane fearing it could explode.
Officials said the plane had been flying at about 3,000 feet and hit a tree on the way down.
“There was no explosion or anything. It just sounded like a car hitting the ground or a tree or something. Like that one little bang, and that was it,” Jeff Kuprycz, who was playing golf told the Associated Press.
“He ended up crashing around the eighth hole.”
Christian Fry of the Santa Monica Airport Association said it was “an absolutely beautifully executed emergency landing by an unbelievably well-trained pilot”.
Film producer Ryan Kavanaugh witnessed the accident from his office near the airport where Harrison Ford had taken off.
He told The Hollywood Reporter: “He literally had five seconds, and 99 per cent of pilots would have turned around to go back to the runway and would have crashed – it would have stalled, gone nose first and crashed.”
“Harrison did what the best pilots in the world would do,” he continued.
“He made the correct turn that the plane was designed for with an engine out.”
After crash-landing, Harrison Ford was initially treated by two doctors who happened to be at the golf course.
Fire Department spokesman Patrick Butler said the LAFD received a 911 emergency call at 14:20 local time and attended to a “medium-to-high impact” plane crash at the Penmar Golf Course.
There have been calls from local people to close Santa Monica airport, which is situated in a residential district, because of concerns about safety and noise.
According to Indonesian investigators, the co-pilot of AirAsia Flight QZ8501, French national Remi Plesel, was controlling the plane before it crashed.
Authorities said this information came from the flight data recorder, which was retrieved along with the cockpit voice recorder earlier this month.
The plane was carrying 162 people from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore when it crashed into the Java Sea on December 28.
Only 70 bodies have been recovered.
Mardjono Siswosuwarno, head investigator of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSB), said the flight data recorder had provided a “pretty clear picture” of what happened in the flight’s last moments.
Capt. Remi Plesel was in charge from take-off until the cockpit voice recording ends, he said, adding that this was common practice.
Investigators said the plane ascended sharply before dropping, rising from 32,000ft to 37,400ft within 30 seconds, then dipping back to 32,000ft. The process took about three minutes.
Mardjono Siswosuwarno said the plane was “flying before the incident within the limits of its weight and balance envelope” and that the flight crew all had correct licenses and medical certificates.
A preliminary report has been submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organization, but has not been made public. The full report is likely to take about seven months, said the committee’s chief Tatang Kurniadi.
Earlier this week, the military announced it was stopping attempts to retrieve the fuselage from the seabed. Authorities had believed earlier that most of the missing bodies were still in the wreckage but now believe it is empty and too fragile to move.
The civilian National Search and Rescue Agency said on January 28 that it would continue search operations but their efforts could also end by next week if no more bodies are found.
A 7-year-old girl has walked to a home in Kentucky to report that her plane had crashed, police say.
The plane was found later with the pilot and three other passengers dead.
The girl was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Associated Press quoted the Federal Aviation Administration as saying air traffic controllers had lost contact with the Piper PA-34 after the pilot reported engine problems.
About 30 minutes after the plane lost contact, a resident of Lyon County called police to say the girl had walked to his home to report the crash.
Sgt. Dean Patterson of the Kentucky state police told Associated Press: “This girl came out of the wreckage herself and found the closest residence and reported the plane crash. It’s a miracle in a sense that she survived it, but it’s tragic that four others didn’t.”
He said the plane had been heading for Illinois from Florida and had crashed in a wooded area near a lake.
The girl’s relationship with those on the plane was not immediately known.
AirAsia flight QZ8501 is likely to be at the bottom of the sea, the head of Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency has said.
Bambang Soelistyo said the hypothesis was based on the co-ordinates of the plane when contact with it was lost.
The search is continuing for the aircraft, a day after it disappeared with 162 people on board, but no trace has been found so far.
The Airbus A320-200 was on a flight to Singapore.
The pilots had requested a course change because of bad weather but did not send any distress call before the plane disappeared from radar screens.
“Based on the co-ordinates given to us and evaluation that the estimated crash position is in the sea, the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea,” Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, told a news conference in Jakarta.
As the search resumed on December 29, Indonesia air force spokesman Hadi Tjahnanto said it was being focused on an area where an oil spill had been spotted but it was not clear if it had been caused by the plane.
Meanwhile the Associated Press news agency quoted an Indonesian official as saying that objects had been spotted in the sea near Nangka island by an Australian search plane. Again, it was not clear if they had come from the missing aircraft.
Bambang Soelistyo said Indonesia was providing 12 ships, three helicopters and five military aircraft.
Malaysia was to deploy a C-130 plane, along with three ships, with Singapore lending a C-130 and Australia also providing help.
Indonesian officials said any ships in the area could help in the search. Vice-President Jusuf Kalla told journalists that “even fishermen” were being asked to join in.
AirAsia’s share price fell 7% in morning trading on December 29 in Kuala Lumpur.
Flight QZ8501 had left Surabaya in eastern Java at 05:35 on Sunday, December 28, and was due to arrive in Singapore at 08:30.
The pilot radioed at 06:24 local time asking permission to climb to 38,000ft (11,000m) to avoid the dense storm clouds.
Indonesian officials said the request could not be immediately approved due to traffic, but the plane disappeared from the radar screens before the pilots gave any further response.
The AirAsia Indonesia plane was delivered in 2008, has flown 13,600 times, completing 23,000 hours, and underwent its last maintenance in November.
The captain, Iriyanto, had more than 20,500 flight hours, almost 7,000 of them with AirAsia. The co-pilot is French national Remi Emmanuel Plesel.
The AirAsia group has previously had no fatal accidents involving its aircraft. The airline has set up an emergency line for family or friends of those who may be on board. The number is +622 129 850 801.
Special centers were set up at both Singapore’s Changi airport and Juanda international airport in Surabaya.
There were 155 passengers on board: 137 adults, 17 children and one infant. Most were Indonesian but also one UK national, a Malaysian, a Singaporean and three South Koreans.
Two pilots and five crew were also on board – one French, the others Indonesian.
Criminal negligence caused the plane crash at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport that resulted in the death of Total CEO Christophe de Margerie, Russian investigators have said.
Christophe de Margerie died along with three crew members when his corporate jet collided with a snow plough.
Federal investigators said that the driver of the snow plough was drunk.
Investigators also said that “negligent” managers at the airport had failed to co-ordinate the actions of their employees.
The Investigations Committee of Russia, a federal agency which answers to President Vladimir Putin, is investigating the crash.
“It is already obvious that the cause of the events was not at all a horrific tragic confluence of circumstances, which is how representatives of the airport are trying to present it, but criminal negligence by officials who could not ensure the coordinated actions of airport employees,” said committee spokesman Vladimir Markin.
Several officials at the airport were likely to be suspended, according to Vladimir Markin.
Criminal negligence caused the plane crash at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport that resulted in the death of Total CEO Christophe de Margerie
Russia’s transport regulator is also investigating the crash, which it said happened in “bad visibility”.
Christophe de Margerie’s jet had been due to fly to Paris from Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport.
Vnukovo is located south-west of Moscow and is used by President Vladimir Putin and other government officials.
Pictures from the scene show the driver of the snow plough looking shocked, but walking unaided and without any obvious serious injury.
Christophe de Margerie, 63, had been chief executive of Europe’s third largest oil company since 2007. He was highly regarded within the oil industry.
According to Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper, Christophe de Margerie had met Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev at his country residence outside Moscow to discuss foreign investment in Russia.
Total is one of the biggest foreign investors in Russia and is planning to double its output from the country by 2020.
A private jet on a flight from New York to Florida crashed off Jamaica on September 5 after the two people on board apparently lost consciousness.
The Jamaican Defense Force said the plane went down about 14 miles north-east of Port Antonio.
Two F-15 fighter jets were launched from a US base to investigate the aircraft, after it veered from its flight path and was detected over the Caribbean.
The two people known to be on board have been named as Larry Glazer, a property developer from Rochester, New York, and his wife Jane. Larry Glazer was the CEO of Buckingham Properties.
Larry and Jane Glazer were both licensed pilots.
The plane’s pilot had indicated there was a problem and twice asked to descend to a lower altitude before permission was granted, according to a recording of the radio conversation with US traffic controllers.
Contact with the plane was lost a short time later.
Major Basil Jarrett of the Jamaican Defense Force told reporters that an oil slick had been spotted about 14 miles north-east of the coastal town of Port Antonio but there was no sign yet of any wreckage.
He said search and rescue teams were scouring the waters for possible survivors.
Larry and Jane Glazer were both licensed pilots
As darkness fell, Jamaica suspended the search until first light on September 6.
The plane, a Socata TBM-700 built in 2014, took off from Rochester at 08:26 en route to Naples, Florida.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was alerted to the unresponsive plane about an hour into its flight and sent two fighter jets to monitor it.
A spokesman said it was not possible for the fighter pilots to see inside the plane as the windows were frosted or fogged over.
A tweet from NORAD suggested the pilot or pilots could have been be unresponsive due to “possible hypoxia” – oxygen deprivation.
On a recording made by LiveATC – a website that monitors air traffic control recordings – and quoted by the Associated Press, the pilot can be heard saying: “We need to descend to about (18,000 feet). We have an indication that’s not correct in the plane.”
A controller replies: “Stand by.”
After a pause, the controller tells the pilot to fly at 25,000ft.
“We need to get lower,” the pilot responded.
“Working on that,” the controller says.
Controllers then clear the plane to descend to 20,000ft and the pilot acknowledges the command.
Minutes later a controller asks the plane to identify itself. There is no response.
According to FlightAware, the plane never carried out the last descent to 20,000ft.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo paid tribute to the couple.
“The Glazers were innovative and generous people who were committed to revitalising downtown Rochester,” he said.
The couple’s three children said in a statement they were “devastated”.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said it co-operated with Cuba air traffic control in monitoring the plane, despite the countries not having full diplomatic relations for more than half a century.
Cuba said it had authorized the US military to fly a C-130 cargo plane and two fighter jets over its airspace to investigate the incident.
A Massachusetts Air National Guard F-15 jet has crashed in Virginia, near the town of Deerfield, but the fate of the pilot is unknown, military officials say.
Witnesses near the crash site reported hearing a loud noise and seeing a large plume of smoke in the sky.
Officials lost contact with the Massachusetts Air National Guard F-15 shortly before the crash, police said.
No injuries on the ground have been reported and rescue workers have been dispatched to the area, police added.
The Massachusetts Air National Guard F-15 jet has crashed in Virginia (photo Wikipedia)
Major Matthew Mutti, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Air National Guard, said the single-seat aircraft had been on a routine training exercise and had no munitions on board.
Augusta County Sheriff’s office said the plane went down at around 09:00 local time.
Jenny McNeal, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, said the crash site was in a rural area near Deerfield town in George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.
The US Air Force currently has 249 F-15 jets in operation and they have been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.
The type that crashed in Virginia was an F-15C, which costs $30 million.
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