Divers have retrieved a black box from the crashed AirAsia flight from the bottom of the Java Sea, officials say.

The pilot of a skydiving plane which suffered a suspected engine failure over Lake Taupo was on his first day of flying unsupervised when he made the call to abandon the aircraft.

Skydive instructor on his escape from the plane that nosedived into Lake Taupo this week - and how he felt jumping out of a plane today.

A survivor of the Taupo plane crash has described watching the plane crash into the lake as she floated to the ground as one of the "most surreal moments" of her life.

'I survived a fricking plane crash. Nope, not even kidding.' One of the survivors of the Taupo skydive plane crash is glad to be alive.

The first official Indonesian report on the AirAsia crash says the accident was caused by "icing" that damaged the plane's engines - a finding experts immediately doubted.

A report of a light plane crash at a Northland beach was a false alarm.

Every day more than 8 million people travel in planes, taking around 50,000 flights. For an activity that's so commonplace, flying engenders a lot of fear and superstition.

A temporary break in poor weather yesterday failed to help the search for wreckage from AirAsia Flight QZ8501.

Tributes are flowing for the brave pilot who made a split-second decision to slam into water instead of crash-landing among hundreds of beach-goers at Raglan.

Woman on board small plane that spluttered and crashed into Raglan harbour yesterday, narrowly avoiding hundreds of holidaymakers.

The father of a Jordanian pilot captured by Isis after his plane crashed pleaded for his son's release, as reports emerged that the jihadists were preparing to publicly execute him.

A light plane plane has crashed into water off Raglan Beach and sunk.

A former airline boss claims the US shot down flight MH370 because the military feared it had been taken over by hackers.

A pilot who flew his homemade bi-plane into the sea in a deliberate attempt to take his own life was possibly inspired by the missing Malaysian Airline flight MH370, a coroner has found.

Investigators searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 say they could finish scouring the priority zone by May, more than a year after it vanished.

Investigators seeking the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean are widening their search area to cover the chance the aircraft fell from the sky at a shallower angle than expected.

Two men miraculously survived a helicopter crash north of Auckland yesterday - the second time one of the pilots has crashed in 19 months.

Two people have been injured following a helicopter crash in Rodney, north of Auckland.

A flight formation ended the funeral in Auckland today of pilot Ann Barbarich, who died after suffering a suspected brain aneurysm at the controls of a plane after landing in Perth.

A top Malaysia Airlines executive who is in NZ this week is urging relatives of those lost aboard MH370 to be patient as the carrier works to pay compensation.

Two people were seriously injured after a light plane crashed yesterday afternoon.

Air NZ will send its third and final flight to Mt Erebus this month - upsetting family members who have missed out.

Trailblazer for women flyers had just landed new Air NZ jet when she suffered suspected aneurysm.

A terrifying roller coaster ride in the sky turned Fuzzy Maiava's life upside down. Six years later, the ride goes on.

Two men had lucky escapes after separate accidents in the skies.

Malaysia Airlines says a compensation offer of US$50,000 to the families of MH370 victims is only "part of" the final payment it intends to make.

The widow of Kiwi MH370 victim Paul Weeks has rejected a compensation offer of $64,000 from Malaysia Airlines.