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Officials and news
reports said U.S. team of investigators inspected the
site of a deadly plane crash on Sunday for clues to what
caused the accident that killed 57 people. A team from
Boeing, which has acquired the aircraft manufacturer
McDonnell Douglas, and from jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney
visited the crash site and met with a Turkish prosecutor
leading the investigation. More...
All 56 people on board a passenger plane which crashed in the early hours in south-western Turkey have died, the airline's chief executive has said. Initial reports from rescue helicopter teams found no survivors, said Tuncay Doganer, head of Atlasjet. The plane was carrying 49 passengers and seven crew on board, he said. More...
An Atlasjet plane crashed shortly before it was to land in central Turkey early Friday, killing all 56 people on board, the airline's chief executive said. A rescue helicopter had reached the wreckage of the plane on a mountainous region near the town of Keciborlu, in Isparta province, and reported back that no one had survived the crash, airline CEO Tuncay Doganer said. More...
A Turkish airliner crashed near the town of Isparta in central Turkey on Friday, killing all 56 people on board, officials said. "Rescue teams have reached the wreckage...There are no survivors," AtlasJet airline's chief executive, Tuncay Doganer, told a televised news conference. Officials said all on board appeared to have been Turkish. More...
An executive jet crashed in a heavily populated neighborhood of Sao Paulo on Sunday, killing at least eight people and turning homes into a pile of smoky rubble just months after the city was the site of Brazil’s deadliest air disaster. More...
Half of the systems to detect potentially dangerous wind shear were not working at the time of a crash at a Phuket airport that killed 89 people on board, officials said Tuesday. Forty-one passengers survived the crash. More...
Two
American pilots facing criminal charges after their executive
jet collided with a commercial airliner over the Amazon
are willing to testify in the case, but will not return
to Brazil, their American lawyer said Thursday. "They
are innocent of any crime, but are completely willing
and eager to tell their story," said Joel R. Weiss. "We
are going to tell our story according to international
treaty." More...
The
French authorities have approached the United States
for help in the recovery of the sound recorder of the
plane which crashed off the French Polynesian island
of Mooera last week. 20 people died when the Air Moorea
Twin Otter fell into the sea on its way to Tahiti. More...
A
small airplane plunged into the sea moments after taking
off from the French Polynesian resort island of Moorea,
apparently killing all 20 people aboard in the territory's
worst-ever plane crash, officials said Friday. Two Australian
tourists, two European Union officials, and a group of
Polynesian environmental and tourism officials were among
those aboard the Twin Otter DHC6 turboprop when it crashed
Thursday, according to the territory's High Commission,
which represents France in French Polynesia. More...
More than 5,000 teary-eyed Brazilians marched Sunday to the site of a plane crash that killed 199 people, blaming the government for the nation's deadliest aviation disaster. At the front of the group was Dr. Mauricio Pereira, who wore a T-shirt with a picture of his 22-year-old daughter, Mariana, a first-year medical student who was aboard TAM airlines Flight 3054 when it sped off a runway and slammed into an air cargo building. "Corrupt and incompetent officials killed my daughter," read a banner Pereira held as he walked six miles from a park to the crash site just outside Congonhas airport, the nation's busiest. More...
Government
staff investigating last summer's deadly Comair plane
crash in Kentucky recommended enhancements in airport
taxiway markings and cockpit map displays Thursday as
a response to the crash. The National Transportation
Safety Board is deliberating the cause of the crash of
Comair Flight 5191, which killed 49 of 50 people on board
after the jet tried to depart from the wrong runway --
a general aviation strip too short for a proper takeoff.
Although NTSB's five board members were to vote on a
cause later in the day, the NTSB's proposed the airport
changes earlier Thursday. More...
The pilots in a jet crash last summer that killed 49 people left the terminal without receiving four important airport advisories, including one that said the normal taxiway to the main runway was closed, a newspaper reported Sunday. The four updates -- called Notices to Airmen -- were missing from the flight dispatch paperwork the pilots received from Comair, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported, citing information the Air Line Pilots Association submitted to the National Transportation Safety Board. More...
One
of the two reverse thrusters on an airliner carrying
186 people that crashed in a fireball was turned off
when the plane landed, the jet’s owner said, as
officials tried to determine why it raced down a runway
instead of slowing down. However, the airline insisted
late Thursday that the thruster, used by jets to slow
down just after touching down, had been deactivated earlier
in accordance with proper maintenance procedures. More...
Brazilian
pilots, lawmakers, judges and air traffic controllers
raised alarms for almost a year that Sao Paulo's Congonhas
airport, Latin America's busiest for domestic flights,
was unsafe. Warnings of an imminent crash because of
a short runway, slick conditions and overuse were repeated
with growing urgency before a TAM SA Airbus A320 veered
off the main runway, crossed a highway and slammed into
a cargo handling facility on July 17 killing at least
190 people. More...
Debate
over the cause of Brazil's worst air crash shifted on
Thursday from widespread claims of a faulty runway to
potential pilot error or failure of the plane's braking
systems. Soon after Tuesday's fiery accident at Sao Paulo's
Congonhas airport, which killed all 186 people on board
and more on the ground, many officials and aviation experts
blamed the rain-soaked runway where the Airbus A320 skidded
before slamming into a gas station and cargo terminal. More...
About
200 people are feared dead in Brazil's second major air
disaster in less than a year. Rescue crews have pulled
45 bodies from the wreckage of the Airbus A320 that burst
into flames on Tuesday at Brazil's busiest airport. All
176 passengers and crew aboard the TAM airliner are believed
to have died, along with others on the ground, including
16 workers in a building owned by the airline. More...
The
pilot of an airliner that burst into flames after trying
to land on a short, rain-slicked runway apparently tried
to take off again, barely clearing rush-hour traffic
on a major highway. The death toll rose Wednesday to
189 and could climb higher. The runway at Sao Paulo's
Congonhas airport has been repeatedly criticized as dangerously
short. Two planes slipped off it in rainy weather just
a day earlier. Pilots call it the "aircraft carrier" --
it's so short and surrounded by heavily populated neighborhoods
that they're told to take off again and fly around if
they overshoot the first 1,000 feet (305 meters) of runway. More...
A
TAM A320 skidded off a wet runway at Sao Paulo Congonhas
last night, crashing into buildings and bursting into
flame, and all 169 passengers and six crewmembers onboard
were feared dead, according to Sao Paulo State Gov. Jose
Serra. More...
An
Airbus 320 with 176 people on board skidded off a runway
while landing Tuesday night at the main airport in São
Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, and crashed into
an office building and a gas station across a highway,
setting off a conflagration that took firefighters more
than six hours to bring under control. The governor of
the state of São Paulo, José Serra, who
was at the scene, said that the chances of passengers
and the crew having survived the crash and ensuing explosion
that broke the airplane into at least two pieces were
almost zero, according to the Web site of the local newspaper,
Folha de São Paulo. More...
Two
people were killed and seven were injured, two critically,
when a small plane crashed while attempting to land in
Co Galway this afternoon. The eight-seater Cessna Grand
Caravan plane is understood to have missed the runway
on its approach to Aerfort na Minna at Inverin at around
2.45pm. There were eight people and a pilot aboard at
the time. More...
Five British tourists killed when their sightseeing plane crashed in Malawi have been named. Six people - including the Canadian pilot - were killed when the Cessna plane came down as it travelled from the Malawi capital Lilongwe to the north of the African country at the weekend. More...
Kenya Airways CEO Titus Naikuni confirmed Friday the cockpit voice recorder of Flight 507 that crashed in Cameroon May 5 killing all 114 aboard was uncovered by a joint investigation team at the crash site in Douala. Arrangements were being made over the weekend to bring the recorder to Canada, according to the Associated Press. More...
New details about what may have caused a deadly plane to crash over Lake Michigan. 6 News has learned that a steering system failure may have led to that crash. It killed all six members of an organ-transplant team from the University of Michigan, one of them a flight instructor at Jackson Community College. The pilot did signal an emergency shortly after taking off from Milwaukee, but six minutes later, the plane plunged into the water. Divers searched the area all afternoon, mapping the wreckage and bringing up debris for investigators. More...
A system controlling the pitch of a doomed Cessna Citation II malfunctioned minutes before the jet and the organ transplant team it carried dived nose first into Lake Michigan, the pilot reported in a distress call moments before the crash. Runaway trim, the problem identified Tuesday by National Transportation Safety Board investigator John Brannen, would have severely limited the flight crew's ability to keep the plane horizontal. In a previous instance of runaway trim involving a similar Cessna jet, the crew reported fighting desperately to keep the plane from diving nose down, according to NTSB records. More...
A Cessna Citation twinjet that was carrying donated organs and a medical transplant team crashed in Lake Michigan late Monday afternoon, killing all six people aboard the airplane. The crew had reported an emergency less than five minutes after taking off from Milwaukee and requested a return to the airport, FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro told the Associated Press. More...
No one was believed to have survived the crash of a small plane that was carrying a six-member organ transplant team and their cargo of donor organs, authorities said Tuesday. Searchers found human remains during a search in Lake Michigan, about six miles northeast of Milwaukee, a Coast Guard official said Tuesday. The team's lifesaving mission -- carrying unspecified organs from Milwaukee for transplant to a patient in Michigan -- was cut short Monday when the Cessna Citation went down in 57-degree water shortly after the pilot signaled an emergency. More...
The
manufacturer of an executive jet involved in Brazil's
deadliest air disaster said Tuesday that there was no
indication a device used to communicate the aircraft's
position had malfunctioned. Frederico Fleury Curado,
president of Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, or
Embraer, told a congressional commission that a federal
police report concluded "there was no equipment
failure" in the transponder before the crash that
killed 154 people last year. More...
A
federal judge indicted two U.S. pilots and four Brazilian
air traffic controllers on manslaughter-related charges
Friday in Brazil's worst air disaster, court officials
said. Judge Murilo Mendes accepted the charges filed
by a prosecutor last week in a federal court in Sinop,
a small city near the Amazon jungle site where a Boeing
jetliner last year plunged into the rain forest after
a collision with an executive jet. All 154 people aboard
the jetliner died, while the executive jet landed safely. More...
A
court spokesman says two American pilots have been indicted
on manslaughter-related charges in Brazil's worst-ever
airline crash. The two pilots, from Long Island, were
involved in a September 29, 2006 collision between an
executive jet and a Gol Airlines Boeing 737. The crash
killed 154 people. More...
Two Long Island pilots involved in a September midair collision over the Amazon rain forest were never lost before impact and were trying to figure out an onboard entertainment system -- not the critical flight-management computer, as previously indicated, the voice cockpit recorder on their jet shows. Nearly eight months after the accident in which 154 died, the full transcript of the cockpit recorder has surfaced, and the 112 pages give a very different impression of the pilots' competence compared to leaked excerpts in the Brazilian media in February. More...
South Africa has sent a team of pathologists to help identify victims of the recent Kenya Airlines crash which killed all 114 people on board, the government said on Sunday. The team of six pathologist led by South African Police Services expert, Inspector Leone Ras, left Johannesburg on Saturday for Cameroon's commercial capital Douala and it is expected to begin work immediately, the foreign ministry said in a statement. More...
Families of 16 out of 114 victims of the Kenya Airways plane that crashed last Saturday near Douala arrived here Thursday night. "We are in Douala to individually confirm the death of our people, and possibly to return home with their remains," said an Ivorian woman who lost her husband in the crash. More...
A former Brentford, Chiswick and Isleworth reporter has been killed after his plane came down in dense African rainforest. Anthony Mitchell, who worked on the Richmond and Twickenham Times, was among 114 people on board the Kenya Airlines jet when it crashed on Saturday. Four other Britons, all aid workers, also died in the accident. More...
An
international pilots association criticized a federal
police recommendation that two American pilots be prosecuted
in connection with Brazil's worst air disaster. "The
International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations
(IFALPA) is outraged to learn that the Brazilian Policia
Federal have recommended prosecution of Joseph Lepore
and Jan Paladino," the federation said in a statement
issued late Thursday. More...
A
congressional commission investigating Brazil's troubled
air traffic control system said Thursday it will ask
two American pilots involved in the South American country's
deadliest air disaster to testify. Lawmakers want to
question Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, both of New
York, who were flying an Embraer Legacy 600 executive
jet when it collided with Gol airlines Boeing 737 over
the Amazon rain forest on Sept. 29. More...
After
almost eight months since the largest airplane accident
in Brazilian skies, the Federal Police deputy, Renato
Sayão, responsible for the investigation, closed
it after preparing the police investigation's final report
and having sent it to Sinop's Federal Police, placing
responsibility on the American pilots Joseph Lepore and
Jan Paul Paladino. "The pilots were indicted as
guilty of negligent misconduct, when in fact we feel
that they should have been indicted as guilty of willful
misconduct," states Rosa Gutjhar, Rolf Gutjhar's
widow. More...
Federal investigators have concluded that two American pilots of an executive jet were responsible for a collision with an airliner that killed 154 people, Brazilian news media reported Wednesday. The Gol airlines Boeing 737 and an Embraer Legacy 600 jet clipped each other Sept. 29 over the Amazon jungle. The Gol airlines jet crashed, killing all aboard, while the Legacy jet owned by New York-based ExcelAire landed safely. More...
U.S. aviation experts conferred with their Kenyan and Cameroonian counterparts Wednesday in an effort to determine what caused a Kenya Airways jet to crash into a central African swamp, killing all 114 people on board. A team from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was meeting with the African experts, said Lonnie Kelley, the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Cameroon. British experts and officials from Boeing, which made the 737-800 that crashed Saturday, also were expected to arrive later Wednesday. More...
Crash
investigators in Cameroon have found one of the black
box data recorders from the Kenya Airways plane which
crashed on Saturday. It is thought the recorder may help
determine the cause of the crash which is believed to
have killed all 114 people on board, including five Britons.
The investigation has so far concentrated on the theory
that the jetliner lost power in both engines and tried
to glide back to the airport before plunging into thick
mangrove swamps 12 miles from Douala airport. More...
Weather, engine failure, even
sabotage among many theories
Whatever happened on Kenya
Airways Flight 507 that caused the new Boeing 737-800 to crash in an African
jungle over the weekend could open a new chapter in jetliner accident investigations.
If the crash turns out to have been caused by mechanical failure, it would be
the first involving several newer jetliner models from The Boeing Co. and Airbus
that have exceptional safety records. But the accident also could have been weather-related,
pilot error or even sabotage, an aviation expert said. More...
None of the 114 people aboard a Kenya Airways flight survived its crash into a thick mangrove swamp over the weekend, an official said Monday after returning from the water-filled crater he said the plane left. Asked whether anyone survived, Luc Ndjodo, a local government official in charge of the recovery effort, said: "No." More...
A plane carrying foreign peacekeepers across the Sinai desert crashed Sunday near a stretch of highway where it had tried to make an emergency landing, killing eight French soldiers and a Canadian, officials said. Capt. Mohammed Badr, a police officer in Sinai, said the plane went down 50 miles from the nearest major town, el-Nakhl. More...
Rescuers in southern Cameroon have resumed searching for a Kenya Airways airliner thought to have crashed on Saturday with 114 people aboard. The flight, which originated in Ivory Coast, is believed to have come down in dense jungle after taking off in heavy rain from Douala en route to Nairobi. Searchers using helicopters are focusing on the Lolodorf area after reports of an explosion there. More...
A Kenya Airways jet with 114 people aboard crashed early Saturday in a dense forest in the West African nation of Cameroon, government officials said, and efforts to reach the wreckage were hampered by heavy rainfall. There was no information on survivors. More....
A Kenya Airways jet with 114 people on board crashed early Saturday after sending out a distress signal over a remote rainforest in southern Cameroon, officials said. Nearby villagers reported hearing a loud boom. The Nairobi-bound jet went down near the town of Lolodorf, about 155 miles south of the coastal city of Douala, where it had taken off after midnight, said Alex Bayeck, a regional communications officer. More...
LI pilots' collision
with jet that killed 154 leads federal safety agency
to recommend new warning devices
In response to the
September midair collision over the Amazon that claimed 154 lives, the National
Transportation Safety Board yesterday recommended improvements in the collision-avoidance
system on jets to make warnings more noticeable to pilots. While investigations
in Brazil with assistance of the NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration are
ongoing, the board said it was clear the collision-avoidance system, known as
a TCAS, on the Legacy jet owned by ExcelAire of Ronkonkoma was not operating
and its pilots, both from Long Island, were unaware of it. It called the current
system where pilots are warned only by fixed white lettering on the cockpit display
inadequate. More...
The NTSB, in a letter Wednesday to the Federal Aviation Administration, said pilots need to be aware about the circumstances of the mid-air collision in April between a Boeing 737-800 operated by Brazil's Gol airlines, and an Embraer legacy 600 business jet. All 154 people on the 737 were killed. The other plane was able to land despite damage. More...
The operator of the Embraer Legacy 600 business jet involved in a midair with a Gol Airlines Boeing 737-800 over the Amazon jungle is blaming the accident on Brazilian air traffic controllers, according to the Associated Press. All 154 people aboard the 737 were killed when the jets collided over the Amazon jungle in late September; the seven aboard the Legacy owned and operated by New York-based ExcelAire survived. More...
ExcelAire said faulty Brazilian air traffic control was to blame for a middair collision between one of the U.S. company's executive jets and a commercial airliner that killed 154 people in Brazil's deadliest air disaster. The Gol airlines Boeing 737 and an ExcelAire Legacy 600 jet clipped each other Sept. 29 over the Amazon jungle. The Gol airlines jet crashed, killing all aboard, and the Legacy jet landed safely. More...
Chairman of the National Committee on Transportation Safety, or KNKT, Tatang Kurniadi Monday denied his reported statement on the recent plane fire that the accident was caused by differences between pilot and co-pilot. "There is no such a statement. They made up the story," Tatang was quoted by Antara news agency as saying. More...
The pilots of a Garuda airliner that crashed in Indonesia, killing 21 people including 5 Australians, were arguing moments before the accident, a senior Indonesian investigator has said. Garuda Airlines Boeing 747-400 caught fire after overshooting the runway at Yogyakarta airport in Indonesia on March 7. More...
An Indonesian passenger jet that crashed this month killing 21 people was coming in to land at a higher than normal speed, the chief investigator said on Saturday. The Garuda Indonesia aircraft with 140 people on board overshot the runway in the central Java city of Yogyakarta and burst into flames on March 7. Five Australians were among those killed. More...
Australians have expressed interest in retaining an American law firm which is considering taking legal action over the crash of a plane in Yogyakarta in Indonesia 10 days ago. The San Francisco-based law firm, Lieff Global, specialises in representing the survivors and families of victims who have died in international aviation and maritime accidents. More...
Relatives of the passengers injured or killed in three major air crashes involving local airlines Mandala Air, Adam Air and, most recently, Garuda Indonesia are lining up to sue the manufacturers of the ill-fated aircraft and their components for alleged product defects. More...
Relatives of passengers injured or killed in three major air crashes involving local airlines -- Mandala Air, Adam Air and, last week, Garuda Indonesia -- are lining up to sue the makers of the planes and their components, the Jakarta Post reported today. "We have filed a law suit in a US court on the behalf of the families of the 75 victims of the Mandala Air accident in Medan, and 11 victims of the recent Adam Air accident," Indonesian advocate David Abraham said. More...
Relatives of two passengers killed in last week's Indonesian plane crash have expressed interest in joining a class action against the manufacturers of the doomed plane and its parts. Relatives of passengers injured or killed in three major air crashes involving local airlines – Mandala Air, Adam Air and, last week, Garuda Indonesia – are lining up to sue the makers of the planes and their components, The Jakarta Post reported today. More...
Transcripts of conversations between the airport control tower and the pilots of an aircraft which crashed last week, have revealed they were unaware of any malfunction with the plane. The Garuda Boeing 737 was carrying 133 passengers and seven crew when it crashed and burst into flames after a scheduled flight from Jakarta last Wednesday. More...
The remains of five Australians killed in the Indonesian jet crash have arrived back in Australia. The Royal Australian Airforce Hercules carrying the remains has touched down at Canberra's Fairbairn airbase. More...
Indonesian police yesterday questioned the pilots of an airliner that crash landed in central Java last week as a transport expert raised questions about rescue efforts. Garuda Indonesia flight GA200, which had 140 people on board, overshot the runway in Yogyakarta on Wednesday and burst into flames in a paddy field, killing 21 people including five Australians. More...
The Indonesian police today confirmed no element of sabotage was found in the Garuda aircraft which crashed upon landing at Yoyakarta on Wednesday, killing more than 20 people while another 112 passengers were injured. In a statement issued today, the police said this was based on the findings by several quarters, including police forensic experts, the Indonesian National Commission on Transportation Safety and interviews with the pilots. More...
Aviation experts say human error is to blame for the great majority of crashes around the world, but some suggest that in this case it could have been a technical malfunction. While Indonesian airlines have a poor safety record, Garuda hasn't had a major crash in 10 years. More...
Six Boeing 737-300 aircraft operated by Indonesia's Adam Air have been grounded for safety inspection a day after the fuselage of one aircraft cracked during a hard landing, an airline official said. The incident is the latest to hit the budget airline which last month lost one of its aircraft carrying 102 passengers and crew. More...
Indonesia All seven Boeing 737-300 airplanes operated by Indonesian budget airline Adam Air have been grounded by the Indonesian government.
The grounding came after a plane buckled during a hard landing, forcing a temporary airport closure. More...
January 2, 2007
Associated
Press, "Officials Deny Indonesian Jetliner
Found"
Relatives waiting for news about a missing jetliner
broke down in tears Tuesday after learning that senior
Indonesian officials erroneously reported the Boeing
737's charred wreckage had been found and that a dozen
people may have survived.
The
Adam Air plane carrying 102 people sent out two distress
signals in stormy weather Monday halfway through its
two-hour journey from Indonesia's main island of Java
to Manado, on the northern tip of Sulawesi, one of the
largest islands in the sprawling archipelago. Three of
those aboard were American citizens, the U.S. Embassy
said. A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board team
was to arrive Friday to offer assistance. It was unclear
if any other foreigners were on the plane.
Rescue and
search teams hiked slippery forest paths in heavy rain
for more than 10 hours Tuesday but found nothing, calling
off their search along Sulawesi's mountainous western
coast as darkness fell and vowing to set off again at
dawn Wednesday .Bambang Karnoyudo, the head of the National
Search and Rescue Agency, said the search would be expanded
to include the nearby Makassar Strait.
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