The disaster French Alps has raised questions about how pilots are evaluated and how airlines can be sure that such a horrifying event won't recur.

Media reports tell of a disturbed young man in relationship crisis as friends say he was happy in job.

Police investigating the Germanwings crash said they had made a 'significant discovery' at the home of pilot Andreas Lubitz.

Germanwings last night would not confirm reports one of the two pilots on its doomed flight was locked out of the cockpit before the plane crashed in the French Alps.

One of the two pilots on the doomed Germanwings flight was apparently locked out of the cockpit before the plane crashed in the French Alps.

All that could be heard outside Joseph-Konig Gymnasium high school was birdsong and the quiet sobbing of pupils who had lost friends and classmates.

As the search and rescue helicopters descended from the high peaks, hope faded even of finding intact bodies from the Barcelona-Dusseldorf flight.

The shocked families of the dead stood vigil in Barcelona airport all day, in tears, leaving only after night fell and police ushered them out.

Too often Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has had to inform the nation of deaths in horrific circumstances overseas.

Dozens of military personnel were injured when an RAF transport plane nose-dived 4,400ft after the captain's camera became lodged alongside the aircraft's joystick.

An experienced helicopter pilot who died after hitting a power line in Marlborough last week is being described as “a big-hearted man” with a passion for flying.

One person has been killed after a helicopter crashed into the sea in French Pass.

It took nearly a week to find the plane that slammed into Mt Ruapehu in 1948, killing 13 people. Now the tragedy is to be relived as an episode in an upcoming TV series.

Indiana Jones star recovering after crashing vintage plane into golf course. Kiwi actor Temuera Morrison says Ford is a "rugged" nice guy who'll be all right.

A support group for the families of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 is holding a remembrance day in Kuala Lumpur this weekend.

A scene examination at the site of a helicopter crash near Queenstown, which killed two men and led to the country’s largest aircraft grounding, will wrap up tomorrow.

Representatives of a helicopter company which employed two men who died in a crash on Thursday are due to be interviewed by specialist investigators today.

The wife of Steve Combe, the Wanaka pilot killed in a helicopter crash, says her husband was 'larger than life'.

Aviation bosses have ordered the biggest grounding of aircraft in the country's history amid fears a helicopter fault may be behind the deaths of two men.

The Civil Aviation Authority has grounded a series of helicopters after a fatal crash this week.

Prime Minister John Key has paid a personal tribute to one of two men who died in a helicopter crash near Queenstown yesterday.

The act of generosity claimed Chris Lau's life when flight GE235 crashed into a river in Taipei 12 days ago.

A helicopter has crashed at speed into a paddock near Te Awamutu, injuring a passenger.

Chilean mountaineers have found the wreckage of a plane that crashed in the Andes 54 years ago.

The family of a NZ citizen co-piloting the plane that crashed into a bridge and river in Taiwan are due to arrive back in the country this week, as new information is revealed.

The firefighting pilot who escaped a helicopter crash unscathed says he's happy nobody was hurt and doesn't think mechanical failure or pilot error caused the crash.

The co-pilot of the crashed TransAsia Airways plane was a New Zealand citizen who learned to fly in Auckland.