Three parachutists made a desperate bid to exit a blazing aircraft seconds before it plunged into a field in southern Belgium, killing 11 people.

A plane carrying five Americans and a Panamanian on an anti-drug mission has crashed n a remote part of northern Colombia, killing four of the occupants.

The instructor in yesterday's helicopter training crash has been praised for his quick actions in averting a double fatality.

Two pilots had a lucky escape yesterday when their helicopter crashed during a training flight near the Waimakariri River in Canterbury.

A new twin-engined air force helicopter will need all its rotors repaired or replaced, at a cost of millions of dollars, after being hit by lightning.

Two New Zealanders are dead after their plane crashed in South Africa while flying in formation with two other aircraft filled with tourists on safari.

The aircraft was reportedly caught in a strong gust of wind and crashed into mountains in Mpumalanga, near Durban.

A friend of speedwing flyer Sean Kerridge has told an inquest he believes the thrill-seeker may've felt pressure to undertake the flight that killed him.

Emergency services are responding to a mayday call from an aircraft in rural Canterbury.

A Christchurch headmaster who was caught up in the San Francisco air crash drama initially thought it was a terrorist attack.

The trainer assigned to guide a pilot who crash-landed an Asiana Airlines plane in San Francisco was on his first day in the job.

An expert in product harm says the public feels the need to quickly apportion responsibility for plane accidents.

At least one person died and 10 more were critically injured when a Boeing 777 slammed tail-first into a runway at San Francisco airport this morning, reports say.

Divers have recovered the bodies of two Maryland police officers, a day after their two-seater aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

A 50-year-old tall tale about how a table saved a man from death in the worst air disaster on New Zealand soil has been quashed by his widow.

The sole survivor of the Anzac Day 2010 military helicopter crash today launched his court bid to seek criminal prosecutions for his air force superiors.

Three Canadian men who were in a plane that crashed into one of Antarctica's highest mountains have officially been pronounced dead by a NZ coroner.

Part of an airliner carrying about 130 people caught fire as it was landing in Moscow, and passengers evacuated the plane by jumping off one of its wings and shooting down an evacuation slide.

The Civil Aviation Authority has called for a report from the pilot of a helicopter that took off without him, at Tarras, on April 10.

Helicopter pilot Peter Maloney saw a warning light and within seconds knew the aircraft was going down.

A helicopter which went down in Auckland's Waitemata Harbour was the first of its kind and was due to feature in a helicopter expo in Russia in a few days.

A relieved Air Force flight lieutenant says he is still "haunted'' by a helicopter crash on Anzac Day 2010 that killed three crewmen and seriously injured a fourth.

A military tribunal has heard from more than a dozen pilots that the actions of a lead pilot on the morning of a fatal air crash were reasonable.

A military tribunal has been told an Air Force helicopter squadron treated standard orders like guidelines that gave good "generic guidance" rather than absolute orders to obey before a fatal crash three years ago.

A co-pilot in a formation involved in the fatal crash of an Iroquois helicopter three years ago has a case to answer, a military tribunal has decided.

A co-pilot in a formation involved in the Anzac Day crash says a "good proportion" of 3 Squadron pilots were outside standard orders when flying into rough weather.

An Air Force squadron was warned before a fatal helicopter crash on Anzac Day three years ago that the practice of flying under low cloud contravened Air Force rules, a tribunal was told today.

A pilot leading a formation of Air Force helicopters during the Anzac Day tragedy was following his training in flying below low hanging cloud, a tribunal has been told.