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 captain of TransAsia Flight GE235 complained of "engine abnormalities" but was rebuffed when he asked for an urgent inspection of the plane shortly before its final take-off.

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

A couple and their toddler who survived the crash of a TransAsia Airways plane in Taiwan changed seats just before the plane took off.

"This pilot decided to land in a narrow river without buildings because there is a residential area nearby. He did all he could do."

The captain of the AirAsia jet that crashed in December was out of his seat conducting an unusual procedure when his co-pilot apparently lost control of the plane.

A helicopter that crashed into Lake Rotorua during a scenic flight lost power due to an engine malfunction, it has been determined.

Salvage teams have begun trying to raise the fuselage of AirAsia Flight 8501 from the sea bed.

Civil Aviation Authority investigators have yet to find an obvious cause of a fatal microlight accident which killed two people in Timaru on Friday.

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.

A Hawke's Bay pilot who illegally carried passengers has admitted causing a catastrophic plane crash - and says his flying days are over.

The families of two New Zealanders who died in a gliding crash in a remote area of Namibia yesterday have paid tribute to two "wonderful men and experienced pilots".

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