General Aviation

Air crash in north-west Russia claims 44 lives

Forty-four people are now reported to have died in an air catastrophe in north-west Russia. Another eight have been taken to hospital with serious injuries. A Tu-134 airliner with 43 passengers and nine crew members on board was forced to make a crash landing near Petrozavodsk in Karelia in Russia’s north-west around midnight on Monday. The plane’s fuselage cracked on impact and burst into flames. The internal airliner was flying ...

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Category: General Aviation

NYC airport collision shows risks of huge planes

A frightening collision between one of the world’s largest airliners and a commuter jet on a dark, wet tarmac at Kennedy Airport is underscoring worries about ground accidents as U.S. airports begin handling a new generation of giant planes. A total of 586 passengers and crew members were aboard the two aircraft Monday night when the left wing of an Airbus A380 operated by Air France clipped a Bombardier CRJ-700 ...

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Category: General Aviation

SpaceX to launch huge new rocket

SpaceX of California says it plans to launch the most powerful expendable rocket since the Apollo era in 2013. The Falcon 9-Heavy is a beefed up version of the vehicle the company will soon use to send a robotic cargo ship to the International Space Station. The new rocket should be capable of putting more than 53 tonnes (117,000lb) of payload in a low-Earth orbit – more than twice that ...

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Category: General Aviation

Boeing didn’t expect 737 cracks so soon

Boeing engineers figured the joints holding the skin in place on their older Boeing 737 jetliners would begin to wear, but only as the planes neared retirement. They never expected it to happen in middle age. Caught off guard when a piece of the fuselage on a Southwest Airlines jet peeled away as it flew over Arizona last week, they are rushing to create inspection and repair instructions for hundreds of similar ...

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Category: General Aviation

Planes land while the air traffic controller sleeps

Federal aviation officials are reviewing air traffic controller staffing at airports around the country after two airliners landed at Reagan National Airport without clearance from the airport tower because they were unable to raise anyone there. CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports that the air control supervisor on duty – the only controller on shift had reportedly fallen asleep around midnight on Tuesday when the incident occurred. Veteran aviation expert ...

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Category: General Aviation

Six dead as An-148 plane crashes in Russia

All six people on board were killed when an Antonov An-148 airplane on a trial flight crashed at 1040 Moscow time Saturday in the village of Garbuzovo in Belgorod region, an emergencies ministry spokesman said.Two test pilots were among the dead. No-one on the ground was killed, according to the local Emergencies Ministry. The aircraft, which belonged to the Voronezh Aircraft Plant, was being tested prior to delivery to Burma, ...

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Category: General Aviation

Air-traffic errors rise 81% over 2007

More than 1,800 errors by air-traffic controllers including 43 most likely to cause a midair collision between planes were reported to the Federal Aviation Administration last year. The agency says that points up the need for greater safety steps. The higher number of air-traffic errors reflects better reporting, the Federal Aviation Administration says. Air-traffic errors that allowed planes to get too close together jumped 81% from 2007 to 2010, according ...

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Category: General Aviation

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