Plane crash
5 dead after small plane crashes into soda truck in Haiti
A small plane crashed Wednesday in the bustling Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, killing at least five people and injuring several others, authorities said.
The plane was headed to the southern coastal city of Jacmel when it tried to land in the community of Carrefour and hit a truck transporting soda bottles, said Pierre Belamy Samedi, a police commissioner for that region.
Also read:Search finds 49,000 pieces of plane in China Eastern crash
He told The Associated Press that the truck driver was among the dead.
Samedi said the pilot was taken to the hospital, but his condition was not immediately known. He said a total of five people were aboard the plane.
Haiti’s National Civil Aviation Office identified the plane as a Cessna 207. No further details were immediately available.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry tweeted that he was saddened by the crash and offered his sympathies to the relatives of those who died.
The incident comes nine months after a small private plane also headed to Jacmel crashed near Port-au-Prince, killing six people, including two U.S missionaries.
Also read:No survivors found in China Eastern plane crash
The use of small planes to travel from Port-au-Prince to communities south of it has grown more popular following a spike in kidnappings and gang violence, especially in the Martissant area, which connects the capital to Haiti's southern region.
Search finds 49,000 pieces of plane in China Eastern crash
Chinese officials said Thursday that the search for wreckage in last week's crash of a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 is basically done and that more than 49,000 pieces of debris had been found.
Flight MU5735 plunged from 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) into a mountainside in southern China's Guangxi region, killing all 132 people on board. The impact created a 20-meter- (65-foot-) deep crater, set off a fire in the surrounding forest and smashed the plane into small parts scattered over a wide area, some of them buried underground.
Read: Second 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash
Zhu Tao, the director of aviation safety for the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said at a news conference in the nearby city of Wuzhou that important parts including the horizontal stabilizer, engine and remains of the right wing tip had been recovered after nearly 10 days of searching, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The investigation into the cause of the crash faces several challenges including that the plane plunged without warning, air traffic controllers got no reply from the pilots after it started falling and the pieces of debris are so small.
More than 22,000 cubic meters (800,000 cubic feet) of soil were excavated and 49,117 pieces of the plane found, said Zhang Zhiwen, an official with the Guangxi government. The search was made more difficult by rain and muddy conditions in the remote and steep location.
The two “black boxes” — the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — have been found and sent to Beijing for examination and analysis. Zhu said a preliminary investigation report would be completed within 30 days of the March 21 crash.
A team of U.S. investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and advisors from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration have been granted visas to travel to China to take part in the investigation, under longstanding international agreements.
Read: One 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash
Engine manufacturer CFM will support the investigation but not send anyone to China, the NTSB said, correcting an earlier announcement that company representatives would be part of the traveling team.
The China Eastern flight, with 123 passengers and nine crew members, was headed from the southwestern city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, a major city and export manufacturing hub near Hong Kong in southeastern China.
Second 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash
The second “black box” has been recovered from the crash of a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 that killed all 132 people on board last week, Chinese state media said Sunday.
Firefighters taking part in the search found the recorder, an orange cylinder, on a mountain slope about 1.5 meters (5 feet) underground, state broadcaster CCTV said. Experts confirmed it was the second black box. The impact of the crash scattered debris widely and created a 20-meter- (65-foot-) deep pit in the side of the mountain.
Searchers had been looking for the flight data recorder after finding the cockpit voice recorder four days ago. The two recorders should help investigators determine what caused the plane to plummet from 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) and into a forested mountainside in southern China.
READ: One 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash
The search for the black boxes and wreckage from the plane has been complicated by the remote setting and rainy and muddy conditions. Video posted by CGTN, the international arm of CCTV, showed an official holding the orange can-like object on site with the words “RECORDER” and “DO NOT OPEN” written on it. It appeared slightly dented but intact.
Flight MU5735 crashed Monday en route from the city of Kunming in southeastern China to Guangzhou, a major city and export manufacturing hub near Hong Kong. An air traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane’s altitude drop sharply but got no reply, officials have said.
The cockpit voice recorder, also an orange cylinder, was found two days later on Wednesday. It has been sent to Beijing for examination and analysis.
Hundreds of searchers have been combing the site outside the city of Wuzhou for days with shovels and other hand tools. Construction excavators have been brought in to remove earth and clear passageways to the site, and pumps are being used to drain collected water from the rain.
Officials announced late Saturday that there were no survivors among the 123 passengers and nine crew members. DNA analysis has confirmed the identities of 120 of the people on board, they said. Searchers have found ID and bank cards belonging to the victims.
China Eastern, one of China’s four major airlines, and its subsidiaries have grounded all of their Boeing 737-800s, a total of 223 aircraft. The carrier said the grounding was a precaution, not a sign of any problem with the planes.
The Boeing Co. said in a statement that a Boeing technical team is supporting the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which will lead the investigation into the crash.
One 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash
A Chinese aviation official said Wednesday that one of the two “black box” recorders had been found with its casing severely damaged, two days after a China Eastern flight crashed in the country's south with 132 people on board.
The exterior is so damaged that investigators were not able to tell whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder, said Mao Yanfeng, the director of the accident investigation division of the Civil Aviation Authority of China.
Read:Search at China crash site suspended amid rain
Mao gave no information about the condition of the recording device inside. An all-out effort is being made to find the other box, he said.
Images released by state broadcaster CCTV showed workers placing a bright orange, mud-caked cylinder into a labeled, clear plastic, zip-close bag.
Recovering the so-called black boxes — they are usually painted orange for visibility — is considered key to figuring out what caused the crash.
The search for clues into why the jetliner dove suddenly and crashed into a mountain in southern China was temporarily suspended earlier Wednesday as rain slickened the debris field and filled the red-dirt gash formed by the plane’s fiery impact.
Searchers had been using hand tools, drones and sniffer dogs under rainy conditions to comb the heavily forested slopes for the recorders as well as human remains. Crews also worked to pump water from the pit created when the plane hit the ground, but their efforts were suspended around midmorning because small landslides were possible on the steep, slick slopes.
The black box was found in the afternoon. The flight data recorder captures information about the plane’s airspeed, altitude, direction up or down, pilot actions, and performance of all key systems. The cockpit voice recorder captures sounds including conversations and background engine noise during the flight.
Mao and other officials at a news conference said members of the air crew were healthy, the aircraft had a clean maintenance record, the weather had been good during the flight and the crew had been in regular communication with air traffic controllers prior to going into a dive.
Relatives of passengers began arriving Wednesday at the gate to Lu village just outside the crash zone, where they, along with reporters on the scene, were stopped by police and officials who used opened umbrellas to block the view beyond.
One woman was overheard saying her husband, the father of their two children, had been on board the flight.
“I'm just going in there to take a look. Am I breaking the law?" she said. The woman and a companion were then escorted away and reporters told to stop filming.
Another man, who gave just his surname, Ding, said his sister-in-law had been on the plane. He said he hoped to visit the site but had been told little by the authorities.
“We’re just coming here to have a look," said Ding, adding, “My heart sank all of a sudden," upon hearing about the crash. He too was escorted away.
China Eastern Flight 5735 was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew from Kunming in Yunnan province to Guangzhou, an industrial center on China’s southeastern coast, when it crashed Monday afternoon outside the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region. All 132 people on board are presumed killed.
Investigators say it is too early to speculate on the cause. The plane went into an unexplained dive an hour after departure and stopped transmitting data 96 seconds into the fall.
An air-traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane’s altitude drop sharply, but got no reply, a grim-faced Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said at a Tuesday evening news conference.
Read:No survivors found in China Eastern plane crash
“As of now, the rescue has yet to find survivors,” Zhu said. “The public security department has taken control of the site.”
China Eastern is headquartered in Shanghai and is one of China’s three largest carriers with more than 600 planes, including 109 Boeing 737-800s. China's Transport Ministry said China Eastern has grounded all of its 737-800s, a move that could further disrupt domestic air travel already curtailed because of the largest COVID-19 outbreak in China since the initial peak in early 2020.
The grounding order did not imply any mechanical problems with the fleet, but was an “act of responsibility toward passengers," the chairman of China Eastern's Yunnan province subsidiary said at Wednesday's news conference.
The Boeing 737-800 has been flying since 1998 and has a well-established safety record. It is an earlier model than the 737 Max, which was grounded worldwide for nearly two years after deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.
Monday's crash was China's worst in more than a decade. In August 2010, an Embraer ERJ 190-100 operated by Henan Airlines hit the ground short of the runway in the northeastern city of Yichun and caught fire. It carried 96 people and 44 of them died. Investigators blamed pilot error.
No survivors found in China Eastern plane crash
No survivors have been found as the search continued Tuesday of the scattered wreckage of a China Eastern plane carrying 132 people that crashed a day earlier in a forested mountainous area in China's worst air disaster in a decade.
“Wreckage of the plane was found at the scene, but up until now, none of those aboard the plane with whom contact was lost have been found," state broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday morning, more than 18 hours after the crash.
The Boeing 737-800 crashed near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region while flying from Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast. It ignited a fire big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images.
The crash created a deep pit in the mountainside, Xinhua news agency reported, citing rescuers. The report said drones and a manual search would be used to try to find the black boxes, which hold the flight data and cockpit voice recorders essential to crash investigations.
Also read: China Eastern plane crashed with 132 aboard
China Eastern Flight 5735 was traveling 455 knots (523 mph, 842 kph) at around 29,000 feet when it entered a steep and fast dive around 2:20 p.m. local time, according to data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com. The plane plunged to 7,400 feet before briefly regaining about 1,200 feel in altitude, then dove again. The plane stopped transmitting data 96 seconds after starting to fall.
The plane was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said. It was about an hour into the flight, and nearing the point at which it would begin descending into Guangzhou, when it pitched downward.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an “all-out” rescue operation, as well as for an investigation into the crash and to ensure complete civil aviation safety.
At a hotel near the Kunming airport where the plane took off, about a dozen people, some in jackets identifying them as members of China's aviation agency, huddled around tables and read documents. Police and security guards at an airline office near the airport ordered journalists to leave.
State media reported all 737-800s in China Eastern’s fleet were ordered grounded. Aviation experts said it is unusual to ground an entire fleet of planes unless there is evidence of a problem with the model. China has more 737-800s than any other country — nearly 1,200 — and if identical planes at other Chinese airlines are grounded, it “could have a significant impact on domestic travel,” said aviation consultant IBA.
Boeing 737-800s have been flying since 1998, and Boeing has sold more than 5,100 of them. They have been involved in 22 accidents that damaged the planes beyond repair and killed 612 people, according to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network, an arm of the Flight Safety Foundation.
Also read: Crashed plane carried 4 teens who’d been on hunting trip
“There are thousands of them around the world. It’s certainly had an excellent safety record,” the foundation’s president, Hassan Shahidi, said of the 737-800.
The plane was not a Boeing 737 Max, the planes that were grounded worldwide for nearly two years after deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.
China’s air-safety record has improved since the 1990s as air travel has grown dramatically with the rise of a burgeoning middle class. Before Monday, the last fatal crash of a Chinese airliner occurred in August 2010, when an Embraer ERJ 190-100 operated by Henan Airlines hit the ground short of the runway in the northeastern city of Yichun and caught fire. It carried 96 people and 44 of them died. Investigators blamed pilot error.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said a senior investigator was chosen to help with the crash investigation. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which certified the 737-800 in the 1990s, said it was ready to help in the investigation if asked.
Chicago-based Boeing Co. said it was in contact with the U.S. safety board “and our technical experts are prepared to assist with the investigation led by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.” The safety board said engine maker CFM, a joint venture between General Electric and France's Safran, would provide technical help on engine issues.
Crash investigations are usually led by officials in the country where the crash occurred, but they typically include the airplane’s manufacturer and the investigator or regulator in the manufacturer’s home country.
Shahidi said he expects investigators to comb through the maintenance history of the plane and its engines, the training and records of the pilots, air traffic control discussions and other topics.
Headquartered in Shanghai, China Eastern is one of the country’s top three airlines, serving 248 domestic and foreign destinations.
The aircraft was delivered to the airliner from Boeing in June 2015 and had been flying for more than six years. China Eastern Airlines uses the Boeing 737-800 as a workhorse of its fleet — the airline has more than 600 planes, and 109 are Boeing 737-800s.
The CAAC and China Eastern both said they had sent officials to the crash site in accordance with emergency measures.
China Eastern's website switched to a black-and-white homepage after the crash.
The twin-engine, single-aisle Boeing 737 in various versions has been flying for more than 50 years and is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights.
The 737 Max, a later version, was grounded for about 20 months after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. China in December became the last major market to clear the Max to return to service, although Chinese airlines have not yet resumed flying the Max.
The deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737-800 came in January 2020, when Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard accidentally shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight, killing all 176 people on board.
China Eastern plane crashed with 132 aboard
A China Eastern Boeing 737 with 132 people on board crashed in the southern province of Guangxi on Monday, officials said.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement the crash occurred near the city of Wuzhou in Teng county. The flight was traveling from Kunming in the western province of Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast, it added.
There was no immediate word on numbers of dead and injured. The plane was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, the CAAC said, correcting earlier reports that 133 people had been on board.
The CAAC said it had sent a team of officials, and the Guangxi fire service said work was underway to control a mountainside blaze ignited by the crash.
Satellite data from NASA showed a massive fire just in the area of where the plane went down at the time of the crash.
Calls to China Eastern offices were not immediately answered. State media said local police first received calls from villagers alerting the crash around 2:30 p.m.
Read:Crashed plane carried 4 teens who’d been on hunting trip
Shanghai-based China Eastern is one of China’s top three airlines, operating scores of domestic and international routes serving 248 destinations.
The flight that crashed appeared to be Flight No. MU5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou, according to data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24. It showed the Boeing 737-89P rapidly lost speed after 0620 GMT before entering a sharp descent.
The plane stopped transmitting data just southwest of the Chinese city of Wuzhou.
The aircraft was delivered to China Eastern from Boeing in June 2015 and had been flying for more than six years.
The twin-engine, single aisle Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights.
China Eastern operates multiple versions of the common aircraft, including the 737-800 and the 737 Max.
The 737 Max version was grounded worldwide after two fatal crashes. China’s aviation regulator cleared that plane to return to service late last year, making the country the last major market to do so.
China’s last deadly crash of a civilian jetliner was in 2010.
Plane crash kills 2, burns homes in California neighborhood
A twin-engine plane that killed at least two people and left a swath of destruction in a San Diego suburb nose-dived into the ground after repeated warnings that it was flying dangerously low, according to a recording.
The Cessna 340 smashed into a UPS van, killing the driver, and then hit houses just after noon Monday in Santee, a suburb of 50,000 people. The pilot also is believed to have died, and at least two people on the ground were hurt, including a woman who was helped out the window of a burning home by neighbors.
An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board was expected to be at the scene Tuesday morning, according to an agency tweet.
Read: Light aircraft crashes in Russia
The plane was heading in to land at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport in San Diego when it crashed. Shortly before, when the plane was about a half-mile from the runway, an air traffic controller alerted the pilot that the aircraft was too low.
“Low altitude alert, climb immediately, climb the airplane,” the controller tells the pilot in audio obtained by KSWB-TV.
The controller repeatedly urges the plane to climb to 5,000 feet, and when it remains at 1,500 feet warns: “You appear to be descending again, sir.”
KGTV-TV, an ABC affiliate, posted video the station said it received from a viewer showing the plane arcing in the sky and then plunging into the neighborhood in a burst of flames.
The plane was owned by Dr. Sugata Das, who may have been piloting the aircraft and died in the crash.
He worked at Yuma Regional Medical Center in Arizona, the hospital's chief medical officer said.
Das, a licensed pilot, lived in San Diego and commuted back and forth to Yuba, according to a website for a non-profit organization he served as director. He leaves two young sons.
United Parcel Service of America Inc. confirmed one of its workers died, although the employee's name wasn't immediately released.
Read: Tourist helicopter crashes in Russian crater lake; 8 missing
People a block away from the scene said their homes shook from the thunderous crash.
Neighbors ran to help and helped rescue a couple believed to be in their 70s from one burning home.
Michael Keeley, 43, ran barefoot outside and saw flames engulfing the UPS truck and a home on the corner. He joined two neighbors at the burning home in calling through an open window.
With thick smoke inside the home and flames licking the roof, Keeley reached through the window to grab a woman’s arm and help her climb out. Her forearms were burned, and her hair was singed, he said.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to go inside with my bare feet,” said Keeley, a probation officer.
At the same time, other neighbors knocked down the couple’s fence to rescue the woman’s husband from the backyard.
Keeley said after the couple escaped to the sidewalk, the woman pleaded for help for her dog that was believed to be inside the home.
“She kept saying, ‘My puppy, my puppy,’ ” he said.
Read:28 feared dead in plane crash in Russia’s Far East
But moments later, there were explosions inside the home. The group helped the couple walk a safe distance away until paramedics arrived.
Andrew Pelloth, 30, lives across the street from the couple and was working from home when he heard a whirring and then a huge boom.
“My initial thought was that it was a meteorite coming down,” he said. “I could hear it falling, and then some kind of explosion.”
Pelloth looked outside and saw the UPS truck on fire. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and then joined other neighbors who pulled the boards off the couple’s fence to rescue the woman’s husband.
Erik Huppert, 57, who ran down to help after his house shook, said he saw the man walking in the backyard after they pulled off the boards.
“Both were definitely in shock, but at least they were alive,” said Huppert, a military contractor.
No one was home at the other house that was destroyed, which sold only a month ago, Pelloth said.
28 feared dead in plane crash in Russia’s Far East
A plane carrying 28 people crashed Tuesday, apparently as it came in for a landing in bad weather in Russia’s Far East, and everyone aboard was feared dead.
Wreckage from the An-26 was found on a coastal cliffside and in the sea near the airport in the town of Palana, according to officials. The plane was on approach for a landing in fog and clouds when it missed a scheduled communication and disappeared from radar, officials from the Kamchatka region said.
Read:Plane with 28 on board missing in Russian Far East region
The plane “practically crashed into a sea cliff,” which wasn’t supposed to be in its landing trajectory, according to Sergei Gorb, deputy director of the company that owns the aircraft, Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise.
The plane was in operation since 1982, Russian state news agency Tass reported. Alexei Khabarov, director of Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise, told the Interfax news agency that the aircraft was technically sound before taking off from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
According to Russian media reports, none of the six crew members or 22 passengers on board survived. The head of the local government in Palana, Olga Mokhireva, was among the passengers, spokespeople of the Kamchatka government said.
However, no bodies were found yet, and there was no official confirmation of the reports.
Russia’s state aviation agency, Rosaviatsiya, said that parts of the plane were found about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the airport’s runway. Part of the fuselage was found on the side of a mountain, Russia’s Pacific Fleet told news agencies, and another part was floating in the Okhotsk Sea.
Read:Philippine military plane crashes, 31 dead, 50 rescued
A criminal investigation was opened, as is typical.
A search-and-rescue mission was underway in the mountainous area, but the work was suspended after night fell, the governor of Kamchatka, Vladimir Solodov, said.
“The site itself is difficult to access, a helicopter can’t land there,” Solodov said in video posted on the regional government’s website. “Because of adverse weather conditions, high waves, the rescue operation had to be temporarily suspended. It will resume tomorrow morning.”
Authorities plan to deploy professional divers and rescuers trained for working in mountainous terrain.
Read:Philippine military plane crashes, 17 dead, 40 rescued
Solodov added that a group of government officials including Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev will head to Palana on Wednesday.
In 2012, an An-28 plane belonging to Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise crashed into a mountain while flying the same route as Tuesday’s flight. A total of 14 people were on board and 10 of them were killed. Both pilots, who were among the dead, were found to have alcohol in their blood, Tass reported.
Plane with 28 on board missing in Russian Far East region
A plane with 28 people on board went missing in the Russian Far East region of Kamchatka on Tuesday, local officials said.
An Antonov An-26 plane with 22 passengers and six crew members, flying from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the town of Palana, missed a scheduled communication, local emergency officials said. The plane also disappeared from radar, the local transport ministry.
Read: Philippine military plane crashes, 31 dead, 50 rescued
The plane belonged to a company called Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise. The plane has been in operation since 1982, Russian state news agency Tass reported. The company’s director, Alexei Khabarov, told the Interfax news agency that the plane was technically sound.
An investigation has been launched, and a search mission is underway. Media reports have suggested the plane may have crashed into the sea, but there has been no official confirmation of that yet. Two helicopters and an airplane have been deployed to inspect the missing plane’s route, local officials said.
The state RIA Novosti news agency reported that several ships have also been searching for the plane. The town of Palana is located on the coast of the Okhotsk Sea.
The plane was on approach for landing when contact was lost about 10 kilometers (six miles) away from Palana’s airport. The head of the local government in Palana, Olga Mokhireva, was aboard the flight, spokespeople of the Kamchatka government said.
Read: Philippine military plane crashes, 17 dead, 40 rescued
In 2012, an Antonov An-28 plane belonging to Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise crashed into a mountain while flying from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsk and coming in for a landing in Palana. A total of 14 people were on board and 10 of them were killed. Both pilots, who were among the dead, were found to have alcohol in their blood, Tass reported.
10 killed in South Sudan plane crash
Ten people were killed in a commercial plane crash in South Sudan's Jonglei state on Tuesday evening, a senior government official said Wednesday.