Olympic gold medallist Valerie Adams escaped a possible aircraft crash after a plane she was on started skidding off a runway in Tonga.

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.

Crash experts say doomed AirAsia flight dropped almost vertically into the water as if being thrust down by a giant hand.

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

Such was the self-congratulatory tone of an industry proud of a declining trend in crashes. Just at the moment, however, there is much less cause for back-patting.

First Air, a Canadian airline flies across some of the most remote and sparsely populated areas on the continent - its planes are often beyond the reach of conventional radar.

Indonesian search officials have now confirmed they have located the fuselage of AirAsia flight 8501 on sonar radar, upside down on the sea floor.

Pilot who discovered the debris from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 describes seeing three of the bodies holding hands in the water.

Summer Herald: The Corner Office - Jetstar NZ Head, Grant Kerr. My overall business philosophy is to be honest; honest to myself and to everyone I interact with.

Pilot of Virgin transatlantic flight forced to perform an emergency landing on broken landing gear.

Warship sent to take oil sample as air traffic control chief reveals pilot's request came just minutes before plane disappeared.

Airbus has rushed two specialists to Jakarta to assist in the investigation of the disappeared A320 airliner operated by AirAsia, the budget carrier that rose from almost nothing in 2001 to be its biggest customer.

An Indonesian official last night said objects had been spotted in the sea by a search plane hunting for the missing AirAsia jet.

The billionaire CEO of AirAsia has described the disappearance of flight QZ8501 as his "worst nightmare", as the search for the missing plane resumes.

Flight attendant onboard missing AirAsia flight had tweeted a message of support to families of those lost in MH17 disaster just months before his own plane disappeared.

This year began with the aviation industry celebrating a century of passenger flights - it ends with a jet with 162 aboard missing while flying from Indonesia to Singapore.

Air New Zealand's flights to Buenos Aires will be more than a third filled with passengers from Australia, an analysis of the service says.

Fearful friends and relatives of passengers on board the missing AirAsia flight have gathered at emergency centres awaiting news of the search and rescue operation.

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

Two jets at New York's LaGuardia Airport have got a little too close for comfort, with one ripping the wingtip off the other.

Legendary Kiwi airman and "genuinely nice guy" Trevor Thomas (TT) Bland will be given a spectacular send-off at Ardmore Airfield today.

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

A lawyer says an Employment Court ruling allowing two Kiwi airline pilots to continue flying until the age of 65 is ground-breaking.

Four Air New Zealand flight attendants have left the airline under a cloud after a booze-fuelled night.

Jetstar has pumped $25,000 into the Christmas Day lunch annually for three years. Airline staff also help by serving the festive meals.

Holiday travellers have had their plans disrupted after a Jetstar IT glitch delayed transtasman flights for up to an hour and a half today.

The family of a British student who died on MH17 has revealed there are still 700 fragments of human remains to be identified in the Netherlands.

As part of its 75th anniversary celebration, Air NZ has a special exhibition opening at Te Papa this weekend. Video / Mark Mitchell

A "clear combination of events" led to an air tragedy in which three people died, a coroner says.