Category Archives: Plane crashes

‘Trying to text and call’: Australian girl, 10, was at sleepover when family died in US light plane crash

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Queenslanders Christian and Misty Kath and their eldest daughter Lily killed when rented Piper Cherokee crashed off coast of Florida on the weekend

An Australian girl was at a friend’s house in Florida when a light plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico on the weekend, killing her parents and older sister.

Queensland man Christian Kath, 42, was piloting the rented Piper Cherokee when it crashed on Saturday night with his wife, Misty, 43, and their eldest daughter, Lily, 12, on board.

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At least 19 people dead after plane crashes into Lake Victoria

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Precision Air plane with 43 people onboard came down in bad weather on its approach to Bukoba airport

At least 19 people have died after a plane plunged into Lake Victoria in Tanzania during bad weather shortly before it was due to land in the north-west city of Bukoba, according to the state-owned Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation.

“There was an accident involving a Precision Air plane which … crashed into water about 100 metres from the airport,” the regional police commander William Mwampaghale told reporters at Bukoba airport.

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Manslaughter trial over 2009 Air France crash begins with cries of ‘shame’

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Anger as airline and Airbus plead not guilty to charge 13 years after flight AF447 crashed, killing 228 people

A manslaughter trial over the 2009 crash of Air France flight 447 has opened in Paris, with the courtroom falling silent as a judge read out the names of 228 passengers and crew who died in the airline’s worst ever accident.

The grief of the victims’ families quickly erupted into anger as the chief executives of Air France and Airbus pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and offered their condolences.

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Old planes, risky skies: fatal crash lays bare Nepal’s air safety record

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The family of the veteran pilot who lost his life in the May crash – along with everyone else on board – joins those calling for updated tech in aircraft

“He used to say, ‘24 hours [in a day] is not enough for me!’”

Bibhuti Ghimire’s voice breaks as she describes her father, a well-respected pilot in Nepal and a multitalented man with a flair for music, who would get bored with playing the piano and move on to the harmonium. “And he loved to fly.”

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China air crash that killed 132 may have been deliberate, says US report

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WSJ sources suggest black box recorders from Boeing 737-800 indicate intentional input from cockpit

A China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March, killing 132 people, appears to have been intentionally flown into the mountainside below by someone at the controls, according to reports.

Analysis by US officials of the black box flight recorders found amid the wreckage suggests deliberate input from the cockpit forced the Boeing 737-800 plane into its catastrophic dive.

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Rescuers search for light aircraft with two onboard missing in Channel

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P-28 plane took off from airfield in Warwickshire and was bound for Le Touquet in northern France

Rescue teams have carried out a search in the Channel after a plane flying from the UK with two people onboard went missing.

The French coastguard told Sky News the aircraft is the “subject of a worrying disappearance” and a search for the plane was carried out “all afternoon”.

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China Eastern Airlines crash: recovery crews find black box recorder

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Officials hope retrieval of one of two onboard flight recorders will shed light on crash in mountainous area of Guangxi

Chinese recovery crews have found one of the two black box flight recorders from the China Eastern Airlines jet that crashed on Monday with 132 people on board, regulators have said.

The domestic passenger plane plunged from more than 20,000ft into a mountainous area of Guangxi, sparking an intense bamboo fire and almost disintegrating on impact. Response officials said the circumstances of the crash meant investigators faced “a very high level of difficulty” in establishing a cause.

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China Eastern Airlines crash: families await grim news as rescuers sift through wreckage

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State media report no survivors after a Boeing 737-800 flight crashed into mountainous terrain with 132 on board

About an hour into its journey from Kunming to Gaungzhou, flight MU5735 fell out of the air. After cruising at an altitude of 29,100ft, it suddenly dropped to about 7,000ft where it briefly ascended before diving again and crashing into remote bamboo forest in the mountains near Wuzhou. The fall appears to have taken around two minutes, according to flight tracking data.

“The plane did not smoke during the fall,” a witness told the Beijing Youth Daily. “The fire started after it fell into the mountain, followed by a lot of smoke.”

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Helicopter crashes into ocean at crowded Miami Beach, injuring two – video

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A helicopter has crashed into the water off Miami Beach, just a few feet away from swimmers in a crowded stretch popular with tourists. A video shared by police captured the chopper descending over the ocean and crashing into the water as sunbathers packed the beach and others swam. Two of the three passengers onboard were taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition, police said, adding that no one else appeared to be injured

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Boeing admits full responsibility for 737 Max plane crash in Ethiopia

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‘Significant milestone’ paves way for families of 157 victims of 2019 crash to seek compensation, say lawyers

Boeing has admitted full responsibility for the second crash of its 737 Max model in Ethiopia, in a legal agreement with families of the 157 victims.

Lawyers for the families said it was a “significant milestone” for families to achieve justice.

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Eight killed after plane crashes into Milan office building

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Small private plane crashed near a suburban subway station, killing all onboard

A small single-engined plane carrying six passengers and a crew of two has crashed into the side of an empty two-storey office building in a Milan suburb, killing everyone onboard.

Investigators opened an inquiry into what caused the private plane to crash shortly after take-off from Milan’s Linate airport en route to Olbia airport on the Italian island of Sardinia. A thick column of dark smoke rose from the crash site and was visible for miles. Several parked cars nearby went up in flames.

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‘I am full of feelings of revenge’: families of flight MH17 victims demand justice

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Relatives of 298 people killed when Malaysia Airlines plane shot down in 2014 give their testimonies at trial of suspects

The families of 298 people killed when flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in 2014 have demanded justice from Russia as they testified in the Dutch trial of four suspects.

People who lost close relatives in the crash of the Malaysia Airlines plane said they could not truly say goodbye to their loved ones until those responsible had been brought to account.

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Philippines: at least 45 people die in military plane crash – video

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At least 45 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a Philippine military aircraft carrying troops crashed and burst into flames after missing the runway in the south of the country, officials have said. Ninety-two people, most of them recent army graduates, were onboard the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft when the crash happened as the plane tried to land on Jolo island in Sulu province at about midday on Sunday.

Photos taken by the local media outlet Pondohan TV and posted on Facebook showed the wrecked body of the plane engulfed in flames. A plume of thick black smoke rose above houses near the crash site

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At least 45 people die in military plane crash in Philippines

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At least 50 injured people pulled from burning wreckage of C-130 Hercules after it crashed when it missed runway

At least 45 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a Philippine military aircraft carrying troops crashed and burst into flames after missing the runway in the south of the country, officials said.

Three of those who died were on the ground.

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Indonesia plane crash: Sriwijaya Air jet throttle may have been faulty, says report

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Automatic throttle may have caused Sriwijaya Air jet pilots to lose control of Boeing 737-500

A malfunctioning automatic throttle may have caused the pilots of a Sriwijaya Air jet to lose control, leading to the Boeing 737-500’s plunge into the Java Sea last month, Indonesian investigators have said.

National transportation safety committee investigators said on Wednesday they were still struggling to understand why the jet nosedived into the water minutes after taking off from Jakarta on 9 January, killing all 62 people on board.

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Indonesia plane crash relative: ‘I said I would pray for her’

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As divers search for black boxes in Java Sea, families recall last-minute messages

Rafik Yusuf Alaydrus’s wife, Panca Widia Nursanti, messaged him on WhatsApp as she sat on board the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 flight. The weather in Jakarta was bad, she said. It was raining heavily and the flight, bound for Pontianak on Borneo island, had been delayed for an hour by the poor conditions.

As she waited for takeoff on Saturday, Panca told him she had a bad feeling, and asked him to pray for her. “I tried to calm her down, saying that I would pray for her, and asked her to pray during flight. Inshallah she would be safe,” he said.

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Divers search for black boxes in debris of Sriwijaya Air flight 182 – video

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Footage released by the Indonesian Navy showed divers searching for the black boxes of Sriwijaya Air flight SJ 182 among suspected debris from the downed flight.

Authorities pinpointed the area where the black boxes may be located after they lifted chunks of the Boeing 737-500 fuselage off the sea bed. Rescuers have also found human body parts and personal effects.

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Indonesia plane crash: divers to retrieve black boxes from Sriwijaya Air flight 182

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Authorities located data recorders on Sunday from jet that crashed off Jakarta carrying 62 people

Indonesian divers will try to retrieve the data recorders of a Sriwijaya Air jet on Monday after it plunged into the sea two days ago with 62 people on board minutes after take off from Jakarta’s main airport.

Flight SJ182 was headed to Pontianak on Borneo island, about 740 km (460 miles) from Jakarta, on Saturday before it disappeared from radar screens four minutes after take-off and crashed into the Java sea.

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Indonesia plane crash: authorities locate black boxes among wreckage

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Sriwijaya Air flight carrying 62 people crashed after taking off from Jakarta on Saturday

Indonesian authorities have located the black boxes of the Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the sea soon after taking off from the capital Jakarta, as human body parts and suspected pieces of the plane were retrieved.

The Boeing 737-500 with 62 passengers and crew was heading to Pontianak in West Kalimantan on Saturday when it disappeared from radar screens four minutes after takeoff.

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Plane crash deaths rose in 2020 despite pandemic

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Dozens more died in large commercial plane crashes despite 42% drop in flights worldwide

The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes rose in 2020 to 299 worldwide despite a sharp decline in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic, a Dutch consulting firm has found.

In 2020 there were 40 accidents involving large commercial passenger planes, five of which were fatal, resulting in 299 fatalities. In 2019 there were nearly double the number of accidents – 86 – eight of which were fatal, resulting in 257 fatalities, said aviation consulting firm To70.

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