A small plane crash in a remote region of South Sudan on Wednesday resulted in the deaths of at least 18 people, an official confirmed. According to Gatwech Bipal, the minister of information in Unity state, the flight was chartered by the Chinese oil company Greater Pioneer Operating Company and had 21 people on board, including two pilots. The crash occurred as the plane was taking off near an oil field, preparing to head toward Juba’s international airport. Some 70 people killed in attack on hospital in Sudan's Darfur region, WHO chief says The cause of the crash remains unknown, and authorities have yet to disclose the identities of the victims. Local media reports suggest that oil workers were among those on board.

Two people died and 18 were injured Thursday when a small plane crashed through the roof of a sprawling furniture manufacturing building in Southern California where at least 200 people were working, police said. The identities of the people who died, and whether they were in the plane or on the ground, was not yet known, said Kristy Wells, a Fullerton police spokesperson. The plane crashed less than two minutes after taking off from the Fullerton Municipal Airport in Orange County, located just six miles (10 kilometers) from Disneyland, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. Security camera footage from Rucci Forged, a wheel manufacturer across the street, shows the plane was tilted on its side as it dove into the building, causing a fiery explosion and black plume of smoke. Firefighters and police arrived on scene and battled the blaze and evacuated surrounding businesses, Wells said. Chris Villalobos, an airport operations worker, came to the warehouse to see what had happened after receiving a phone call about a plane going down nearby. He said the owner of the aircraft was a regular at the airport and has frequently taken off from there. Read: SKorea to inspect Boeing as it struggles to find cause of plane crash “He has a hangar here and everything,” Villalobos said. Villalobos said that after taking off, the pilot told air traffic control he was going to turn around to make an emergency landing, but it was unclear what the issue with the plane was. The building was occupied by Michael Nicholas Designs, a furniture upholstery manufacturer, according to a sign on a door, and there appeared to be sewing machines and textile stock inside. Ten people were taken to the hospital, while eight were treated and released at the scene, police said. There were two confirmed deaths, according to Wells. The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was a single-engine Van's RV-10, a four-seat aircraft. The airport in Fullerton has one runway and a heliport. Metrolink, a regional train line, is nearby and flanks a residential neighborhood and commercial warehouse buildings. Read more: Kazakhstan Reports 42 Feared Dead in Azerbaijan Airlines Plane Crash Another four-seat plane crashed into a tree a half-mile from the airport last November while making an emergency landing right after takeoff, the Orange County Register reported. Both people on board suffered moderate injuries. Fullerton is a city of about 140,000 people some 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles.

Grieving relatives of the victims of the South Korea plane crash gathered at the site to pay respects to their loved ones on New Year’s Day, as officials said they've extracted data from one of the retrieved black boxes to find the exact cause of the crash. All but two of the 181 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air died when it crashed at Muan International Airport, in southern South Korea, on Sunday. Video showed the aircraft without its landing gear deployed landing on its belly at high speed and then skidding off the end of the runaway into a concrete fence and bursting into flames. The footage showed the plane was experiencing an apparent engine problem in addition to the landing gear malfunction. Investigators say the pilot received a warning from air traffic controllers of possible bird strikes and the plane issued a distress signal before the crash. The Transport Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that it has completed works to extract data from the cockpit voice recorder — one of the two black boxes recovered from the wreckage. It said the data would be converted into audio files. A damaged flight data recorder will be sent to the United States for an analysis, the ministry added. All of the victims were South Korean, except for two Thais nationals, with many returning from Bangkok after Christmas holidays. Romania and Bulgaria celebrate full Schengen membership with ceremonies The bereaved families visited the site on Wednesday for the first time since the crash for an emotional memorial service. They were bused to the site where they took turns laying white flowers. Many knelt and bowed deeply before a memorial table laid with food, including “ddeokguk,” a Korean rice cake soup eaten on New Year's Day. The Transport Ministry said authorities have completed the complicated process of identifying all 179 victims. It said the government has so far handed over 11 bodies to relatives. The country is observing seven days of national mourning following the deadliest disaster in South Korea’s aviation history in decades. The government has begun safety inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800s operated by the country's domestic airlines. On Tuesday, a team of U.S. investigators, including representatives from Boeing, examined the crash site. 10 killed, 30 injured as car drives into crowd in New Orleans Officials have said they will consider whether the airport’s localizer — a set of antennas housed in a concrete fence at the end of the runway designed to guide aircraft during landings — should have been constructed with lighter materials that would break more easily upon impact.

South Korea will conduct safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines following a deadly crash on Sunday that killed 179 people. The crash, which is South Korea’s worst aviation disaster in decades, has raised national concerns as the government struggles to address the situation amid a leadership vacuum. New acting President Choi Sang-mok led a task force meeting on Monday, instructing authorities to review the country’s aircraft operations systems. “The essence of a responsible response would be renovating the aviation safety systems on the whole to prevent recurrences of similar incidents and building a safer Republic of South Korea,” Choi, also the finance minister, said. The Boeing 737-800, operated by Jeju Air, had aborted its first landing attempt for unclear reasons. During its second attempt, it received a bird strike warning before the pilot issued a distress signal. The plane landed without its front landing gear deployed, overshot the runway, hit a concrete fence, and burst into flames. Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines, stated the Boeing 737-800 is a “proven airplane,” unlike the Boeing 737 Max, which was linked to fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. South Korea's Transport Ministry announced it would inspect all 101 Boeing 737-800s in the country, focusing on Jeju Air, which operates 39 of these planes. Representatives from the US National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing are set to join the investigation. Officials are also reviewing the design of Muan airport's localizer, a concrete fence with antennas meant to guide planes during landings. The Transport Ministry confirmed similar structures exist at other airports in South Korea, as well as in the US, Spain, and South Africa. Warrant to detain impeached South Korean President Yoon sought Video footage of the crash indicated a possible hydraulic failure, with the pilots failing to deploy flaps or slats to slow the plane. Retired pilot John Cox said the aircraft was still under control, and the close proximity of the barrier likely worsened the damage. Another Jeju Air 737-800 experienced a landing gear issue earlier on Monday but returned to Seoul as a precaution. Authorities are also investigating potential communication problems between the pilot and air traffic controllers during the crash. The crash, which is South Korea’s deadliest since 1997, has prompted a seven-day national mourning period. The Transport Ministry has identified 146 bodies and continues to collect DNA and fingerprint samples from the remaining 33 victims.

A jetliner skidded off a runway, slammed into a concrete fence and burst into flames Sunday in South Korea after its landing gear apparently failed to deploy. All but two of the 181 people aboard were killed in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters, officials said. The Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air plane arrived from Bangkok and crashed while attempting to land in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul. Footage of the crash aired by South Korean television showed the plane skidding across the airstrip at high speed, evidently with its landing gear still closed, and slamming into the wall, triggering an explosion and generating plumes of thick, black smoke. The crash killed 179 people, the South Korean fire agency said. Emergency workers pulled two crew members to safety. They were conscious and did not appear to have any life-threatening injuries, health officials said. The chief of the Muan fire station, Lee Jeong-hyeon, told a televised briefing that the plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly still recognizable in the wreckage. Officials were investigating the cause of the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds, Lee said. The control tower issued a warning about birds to the plane shortly before it intended to land and gave the crew permission to land in a different area, Transport Ministry officials said. The crew sent out a distress signal shortly before the crash, officials said. Investigators retrieved the jet's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, said senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan. He said it may take months to complete the probe into the crash. The runway will be closed until Jan. 1, the ministry said. Video of the crash indicated that the pilots did not deploy flaps or slats to slow the aircraft, suggesting a possible hydraulic failure, and they did not manually lower the landing gear, suggesting they did not have time, said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and CEO of Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida. Despite that, the jetliner was under control and traveling in a straight line, and damage and injuries likely would have been minimized if not for a barrier being so close to the runway, Cox said. “It’s all in one piece. Everything is coming along fine until it hits that wall, at which point it disintegrates into a catastrophe,” he said.   Another aviation expert said videos showed the aircraft had used up much of the runway before touching down. With little braking ability, the aircraft skidded atop its engine cowlings, said Ross “Rusty” Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts. “It's basically like skidding on ice,” he said. The Boeing 737-800 is a "proven airplane" that belongs to a different class of aircraft than the Boeing 737 Max jetliner that was linked to fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, added Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines and now a consultant. More than 4,500 of the planes are in service around the world, according to the aviation analytics company Cirium. One of the survivors was being treated for fractures to his ribs, shoulder blade and upper spine, said Ju Woong, director of the Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital. Ju said the man, whose name was not released, told doctors he “woke up to find (himself) rescued.” Details on the other survivor were not immediately available. The passengers were predominantly South Korean and included two people from Thailand. Officials identified 88 of them in the hours after the crash, the fire agency said. Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed condolences to the families of those aboard the plane in a post on X. Paetongtarn said she ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance. Boonchuay Duangmanee, the father of a Thai passenger, told The Associated Press that his daughter, Jongluk, had been working in a factory in South Korea for several years and returned to Thailand to visit her family. Putin apologizes for 'tragic incident' but stops short of saying Azerbaijani plane shot down "I never thought that this would be the last time we would see each other forever,” he said. Kerati Kijmanawat, the director of Thailand's airports, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 departed from Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of anything abnormal aboard the aircraft or on the runway. Jeju Air in a statement expressed its “deep apology” over the crash and said it will do its “utmost to manage the aftermath of the accident.” In a televised news conference, the company's president, Kim E-bae, bowed deeply with other senior company officials as he apologized to bereaved families and said he feels “full responsibility” for the crash. He said the company had not identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations. Family members wailed as officials announced the names of some victims at a lounge in the Muan airport. Boeing said in a statement on X that it was in contact with Jeju Air and was ready to support the company in dealing with the crash. The crash happened as South Korea is embroiled in a political crisis triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment. South Korean lawmakers on Friday impeached acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, leading Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over. Choi, who traveled to the site in Muan, called for officials to use all available resources to identify the dead as soon as possible. The government declared Muan a special disaster zone and designated a weeklong national mourning period. Ukrainian drone attack linked to Azerbaijani plane crash, says Russian aviation chief Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, presided over an emergency meeting between senior presidential staff to discuss the crash and reported the details to Choi. Yoon expressed condolences to the victims in a Facebook post. In Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said he joined in “prayer for the survivors and the dead.” U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States was ready to offer “any necessary assistance.” The Muan crash is one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airlines plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crash-landed in San Francisco, killing three and injuring about 200. Sunday’s accident was also one of the worst landing disasters since a July 2007 crash that killed all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground when an Airbus A320 slid off a slick airstrip in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and hit a nearby building, according to data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group aimed at improving air safety. In 2010, 158 people died when an Air India Express aircraft overshot a runway in Mangalore, India, and plummeted into a gorge before erupting into flames, according to the safety foundation.

Russia’s aviation chief, Dmitry Yadrov, has stated that a Ukrainian drone attack was underway in the Russian region where an Azerbaijani airliner was originally destined before it diverted and crashed earlier this week.  The Azerbaijan Airlines flight, en route from Baku to Grozny, the Chechen capital, changed course toward Kazakhstan and crashed during an attempted landing, killing 38 people and injuring all 29 survivors. Azerbaijani lawmaker Rasim Musabekov and some aviation experts have suggested Russian air defenses may have been involved, though Yadrov did not address these claims.  Azerbaijan Airlines blamed the crash on unspecified “physical and technical interference” and suspended flights to several Russian airports without elaborating further. Survivors reported hearing loud noises on the plane over Grozny. Flight attendant Aydan Rahimli recounted, “After one loud noise, the oxygen masks automatically released.” Another crew member, Zulfugar Asadov, said the sounds seemed to come from outside the plane.  Rashad Nabiyev, Azerbaijan’s minister of digital development and transportation, said the aircraft suffered external damage while flying over Grozny. “The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined by investigators,” he told Azerbaijani media.  Kazakhstan Reports 42 Feared Dead in Azerbaijan Airlines Plane Crash Musabekov claimed the plane was fired on over Grozny and demanded an apology from Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment, stating, “The air incident is being investigated, and we don’t believe we have the right to make any assessments until conclusions are reached.”  Yadrov noted the plane encountered heavy fog while attempting to land in Grozny, where Ukrainian drones were reportedly targeting the area, prompting airspace closure. After two failed landing attempts, the captain opted to divert to Aktau, Kazakhstan. “The situation in the area of Grozny airport was quite difficult,” Yadrov said.  Experts have pointed to damage in the plane’s tail suggesting possible fire from Russian air defenses. Investigators from Azerbaijan are collaborating in Grozny.  Azerbaijan Airlines and other carriers, including FlyDubai and El Al, have suspended or adjusted flights to Russian cities amid ongoing concerns about airspace safety.Source: With inputs from wires

An Azerbaijan Airlines plane has crashed in the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, with Kazakhstan’s emergency ministry stating that 42 people are feared dead. In a statement released on Telegram on Wednesday, the ministry reported that the aircraft had 67 people on board, including five crew members. Preliminary assessments indicate that 25 passengers survived the crash, with 22 of them hospitalised. 21 dead as Mozambique erupts in violence after election court ruling Azerbaijan Airlines confirmed that the Embraer 190 jet made an emergency landing at Aktau airport.

Two Italian air force pilots were killed Tuesday during an exercise when the light aircraft they were flying collided mid-air and crashed to the ground, Italy’s air force said in a statement. The two U-208 aircraft crashed near the Guidonia military airport, located around 25 kilometers (15 miles) northeast of Rome. No injuries on the ground were reported. Also Read: Philippine plane crash kills 2, another carrying 6 missing One of the planes crashed into a car on a narrow residential street lined with apartment buildings; the other landed in a field. Premier Giorgia Meloni expressed her condolences to the pilots’ families and colleagues.

All five people aboard a medical transport flight, including a patient, were killed in a plane crash Friday night in a mountainous area in northern Nevada. The Lyon County Sheriff’s office said authorities began receiving calls about the crash near Stagecoach, Nevada, around 9:15 p.m. and found the wreckage two hours later. Stagecoach, a rural community home to around 2,500 residents, is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Reno. Care Flight, which provides ambulance service by plane and helicopter, said the dead included the pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient’s family member. Barry Duplantis, president and CEO of the company, said Saturday afternoon that relatives of all five victims had been notified, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. “We send our deepest condolences to their families,” Duplantis said. The crash occurred amid a winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service in Reno for large swaths of Nevada, including parts of Lyon County. The weather service said it was expecting heavy snow, wind gusts of up to 65 mph (105 kph) and periods of whiteout conditions between 4 a.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Sunday. “It’s a pretty mountainous region,” Lyon County Sgt. Nathan Cooper said. “Especially with the weather being the way it is right now, it’s not very good.” Also Read: Flight data, voice recorders retrieved from Nepal site after deadly plane crash The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday morning on Twitter that it is sending a seven-member team of investigators to the crash site. The NTSB is expected release more information Sunday at a news conference. Care Flight identified the downed aircraft as a Pilatus PC-12 airplane. Federal Aviation Administration records show the aircraft was manufactured in 2002. The company said in a statement that it is halting flights to focus on helping responding agencies, team members and the families.

Nepalese authorities on Tuesday began returning to families the bodies of plane crash victims and were sending the aircraft's data recorder to France for analysis as they try to determine what caused the country's deadliest air accident in 30 years. The flight plummeted into a gorge on Sunday while on approach to the newly opened Pokhara International Airport in the foothills of the Himalayas, killing at least 70 of the 72 people aboard. Searchers found the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder on Monday, and combed through debris scattered down the 300-meter-deep (984-foot-deep) ravine in search of the two missing, who are presumed dead. One body was found earlier Tuesday. The voice recorder would be analyzed locally, but the flight data recorder would be sent to France, said Jagannath Niraula, spokesperson for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority. The aircraft’s manufacturer, ATR, is headquartered in Toulouse. The French air accident investigations agency confirmed it is taking part in the investigation, and its representatives were already on site. The twin-engine ATR 72-500t, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was completing the 27-minute flight from the capital, Kathmandu, to the resort city of Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west. It’s still not clear what caused the crash, less than a minute’s flight from the airport in light wind and clear skies. Aviation experts say it appears that the turboprop went into a stall at low altitude on approach to the airport, but it is not clear why. Read more: Flight data, voice recorders retrieved from Nepal crash site From a smartphone video shot from the ground seconds before the aircraft crashed, one can see the ATR 72 “nose high, high angle of attack, with wings at a very high bank angle, close to the ground,” said Bob Mann, an aviation analyst and consultant. “Whether that was due to loss of power, or misjudging aircraft’s energy, direction or the approach profile, and attempting to modify energy or approach, that aircraft attitude would likely have resulted in an aerodynamic stall and rapid loss of altitude, when already close to the ground,” he said in an email. The aircraft was carrying 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals and four crew members. The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France. Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a popular hiking trail in the Himalayas. On Tuesday afternoon, over 150 people gathered at Tulsi Ghat, a cremation ground on the banks of the Seti River in Pokhara, to mourn Tribhuwan Paudel, a 37-year-old journalist and editor at a local newspaper, who died in the crash. As a priest lit the funeral pyre, close friends of Paudel came together to reminisce. Rishikanta Paudel said Paudel always celebrated his successes. “He would cry with happiness whenever I did something good ... I still feel like he might call me any time now and ask how I am." Bimala Bhandari, the chairperson for the Federation of Nepali Journalists in Kaski district, described Paudel as driven and passionate about the development of Pokhara. “He was dearest to all journalists here because of his nature,” said Badri Binod Pratik, a friend and journalist who taught Paudel. “The accident has taken him away from us ... I am crumbling since the day of the crash.” Read more: Nepal begins national mourning after 68 killed in deadly plane crash Funerals for other victims, many of whom were from the area, are expected in the coming days. They include a pharmaceutical marketing agent who was traveling to be with his sister as she gave birth, and a minister of a South Korean religious group who was going to visit the school he founded. On Monday evening, hundreds of relatives and friends were still gathered outside a local hospital. Many consoled each other, while some shouted at officials to speed up the post mortems so they could take the bodies of their loved ones home for funerals. Aviation expert Patrick Smith, who flies Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft and writes a column called “Ask the Pilot,” cautioned that a lot of details are still not known about the crash, but said that the plane “appears to have succumbed to a loss of control at low altitude.” “One possibility is a botched response to an engine failure,” he told The Associated Press in an e-mail. The man who shot the smartphone footage of the plane’s descent said it looked like a normal landing until the plane suddenly veered to the left. “I saw that and I was shocked … I thought that today everything will be finished here after it crashes, I will also be dead,” said Diwas Bohora. The type of plane involved, the ATR 72, has been used by airlines around the world for short regional flights since the late 1980s. Introduced by a French and Italian partnership, the aircraft model has been involved in several deadly accidents over the years. In Taiwan, two accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircrafts in 2014 and 2015 led to the planes being grounded for a period. Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains including Mount Everest, has a history of air crashes. Sunday’s crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it plowed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu. Read more: 68 confirmed dead as passenger plane with 72 on board crashes near Pokhara airport According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946. The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak safety standards. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continues to demand administrative reforms.