An international flying student did an "exceptional job" landing unhurt with a dead engine and missing a wheel after a fatal mid-air collision.

The student pilot who died after a mid-air collision with another plane in Feilding yesterday has been named.

The student pilot killed in yesterday's flight school crash was in her 60s and from the Kapiti Coast area, police said this morning.

One plane landed safely after a mid-air collision in Feilding this afternoon, while the other crashed, killing the flying instructor and student occupants.

The flying instructor badly injured in Monday's plane crash near Palmerston North has shown promising signs of recovery.

The flying instructor who survived an air crash has had surgery for bleeding to his brain but doctors hope to bring him out of a coma today.

Two men were lucky to survive an air crash that left their plane balanced precariously on the side of a cliff during a delicate three-hour rescue.

Two men are "pretty banged up" after their plane crashed in the Ruahine Ranges this afternoon.

A mother who lost a son in the Air NZ Airbus crash off France is saddened to see blame being meted out to the people involved.

Air NZ has hit out at an aviation safety specialist's interpretation of what went on before an Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean off France in 2008.

Air New Zealand crew encouraged the pilots of an Airbus 320 to carry out tests minutes before the plane crashed off the coast of France, a specialist said.

Experts for French prosecutors probing the crash of an Air NZ jet in 2008 agree with air safety investigations which blame human error.

All seven people aboard an Airbus A320 test flight died when it crashed in 2008. Air NZ said it could not confirm a report that an announcement would be made tonight regarding the crash.

Engineers will need to carve a road through rugged, heavily forested mountains to retrieve the bodies of the six Australian mining executives killed in a plane crash.

The search for a plane carrying one of Australia's richest men and the entire board of one of the country's mining companies resumed last night.