An inquiry into a fatal mid-air collision has revealed a huge increase in dangerous close calls in the skies - and sparked pleas for change from grieving families.

The manufacturers of the Bombardier say yesterday's Blenheim incident was the third one of its kind worldwide in less than a week.

A plane with 46 passengers on board has crash landed at Woodburn airport near Blenheim tonight.

TAIC is investigating the standard of pilot training in NZ after a sharp rise in fatalities and near misses involving training aircraft.

A man killed in a microlight aircraft crash at Tauranga Airport has been named. Counselling is being offered to witnesses of the accident.

Flight-deck error, inadequate training and a maintenance slip caused the crash of an Air NZ jet, France's air safety board has determined.

Days after her partner died in last Saturday's tragedy, Dido Eden found a poem from him asking her to marry him.

A Labour MP has revealed he'd been skydiving three times with Rodney Miller, who died in Saturday's plane crash in Fox Glacier.

Skydive NZ's John Kerr says he's "absolutely devastated and numbed" by the Fox Glacier crash that claimed the lives of more than a third of his staff.

Transport accident investigators are confident they will find "most, if not all", of the reasons for the Fox Glacier plane crash, despite fire causing massive damage to the aircraft.

The deaths of five local men and four overseas tourists makes it one of New Zealand's deadliest plane crashes.

A fiery plane crash that killed nine people in Fox Glacier today happened just metres from the town's chief fire officer's house.

The sister of the Kiwi sole survivor of Tuesday's plane crash in PNG says she felt "utter disbelief" when she heard he was alive.

The New Zealand man who was the only survivor of a plane crash in Papua New Guinea in which four died has been named.

A mid-air explosion forced a Qantas' 747 jetliner carrying 230 people to make an emergency landing.