New hunt for Amelia Earhart plane

20 March 2012 Last updated at 20:17 GMT  Earhart "embodied the spirit of an America coming of age", Hillary Clinton said Explorers are to begin a new push to find the remains of famed aviator Amelia Earhart's long-lost plane.

Analysts say an old photo shows part of her doomed Lockheed Electra, and a July search is set for Nikumaroro island, part of Kiribati in the Pacific.

The search will be privately funded, but the US state department helped negotiate with Kiribati.

Earhart attempted to circumnavigate the globe along the equator in 1937, but disappeared in July of that year.

She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, left Papua New Guinea on a flight to Howland Island and were never seen again.

Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar), which will be organising the search, said the new evidence was "circumstantial" but "strong".

Previous searches for remains of the plane - and for Earhart and Noonan - have returned empty-handed, and many historians believe the plane crashed into the ocean.

'Unlikely heroine'

Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the wreckage of the Titanic and the Bismarck, is advising the Kiribati search.

He told the Associated Press that the photo allowed the search area to be narrowed from tens of thousands of square miles down to a small area.

Tighar - which has mounted several expeditions to the island in recent year - found bones on Nikumaroro during an earlier search, but lab tests were inconclusive on whether they were human bones.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among those showing their support at the official announcement of the new bid.

Continue reading the main story Born in Kansas in 1897First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic OceanHelped form the Ninety-Nines, a professional aviation group for women, and became their first presidentHeld multiple speed records"Amelia Earhart may have been an unlikely heroine for a nation down on its luck, but she embodied the spirit of an America coming of age and increasingly confident, ready to lead in a quite uncertain and dangerous world," Mrs Clinton said.

"She gave people hope and she inspired them to dream bigger and bolder."

While the Obama administration takes no position on the evidence, Mrs Clinton noted that her department and other federal agencies had actively supported Earhart's quest.

"Even if you do not find what you seek, there is great honour and possibility in the search itself," she said.

Kurt Campbell, an assistant secretary of state for the region, took interest in the Kiribati search after his own trip there.

He said the department was optimistic but was not betting on finding the remains.

The United States is "encouraging, hoping, but frankly we don't know," Mr Campbell said.

View the original article here

Read More

Airbus: Plane numbers to double

19 September 2011 Last updated at 15:48 GMT The A380 superjumbo is Airbus' flagship model The number of passenger planes worldwide will more than double over the next 20 years, planemaker Airbus has predicted.

The number of planes made by all manufacturers of more than 100 seats will grow from 15,000 this year to 31,000 by 2030, it forecast.

China, the US and Germany are predicted to generate the greatest demand.

"Over the next 20 years, Asia-Pacific will account for 34% of demand, Europe 22% and North America 22%," it said.

Airbus, speaking at its annual global forecast meeting, predicted that the number of low-cost airlines will make up around 19% of all air traffic by 2030, compared with around 5% currently.

Middle-class growth

It claims the number of middle-class people - traditionally more likely to fly - will grow from 1.84 billion this year to almost 5 billion by 2030.

Airbus's forecast also includes 900 newly built freighter aircraft for commercial use. Two thirds of the world's cargo planes have been converted from conventional passenger planes.

The European firm, which makes the giant double-decker A380 superjumbo, believes long-haul air traffic will grow three-fold over the next 20 years.

It could even launch an extra-large version of the A380 by the end of this decade, it said.

View the original article here

Read More

Angola plane crash kills generals

14 September 2011 Last updated at 21:49 GMT A plane crash in Angola has killed 30 people, including three army generals, a military official has said.

Government official Luis Caetano, a spokesman for Huambo authorities, told the BBC the military aircraft crashed after leaving Huambo city airport.

He said six people had survived the crash, including the pilot and co-pilot.

Correspondents say the aircraft was a relatively new Embraer jet purchased by the army to transport top officials.

Wreckage split

Initial reports said that there were 36 passengers on board, but Mr Caetano told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme the number was 32.

Angola has one of Africa's largest armies and air forces

He said the aeroplane divided when it crashed and 26 bodies - 20 men and six women - had initially been recovered from wreckage.

People in the front of the aircraft survived, but those passengers in the back died as that section caught fire, he said.

A photograph issued by state-run news agency Angop showed the plane had broken into two pieces upon impact.

A hospital official said five of the injured suffered second degree burns and one passenger was in a serious condition with third degree burns, AFP news agency said.

The plane's pilot said he did not know what had gone wrong.

"I don't know what happened, the plane was fine during taxi and takeoff, and then I really do not know what happened," captain Jose Goncalves said from hospital, AFP reported.

Angola state-run Angop news agency named two of the dead as Lt Gen Bernardo Leitao Francisco Diogo, known by his civil war name "Lelo Kizua", and Lt Gen Elias Malungo Bravo da Costa Pedro, known as "Kalias".

Mr Caetano said the pilot, who had spoken to Angolan TV, seemed confused but insisted that he had complied with all instructions from the control tower.

Portugal's Sol newspaper quoted a survivor in hospital as saying that the accident happened so fast it was difficult to know what the problem was, but the pilot seemed to be aware that there was a technical fault.

Portuguese news agency Lusa said the accident happened at about midday local time (11:00 GMT).

The plane, bound for the capital, Luanda, took off from Huambo's Albano Machado airport, which was only re-opened by the president last month after undergoing renovations.

Since 2002, Angola has been striving to tackle the legacy of a 27-year civil war that ravaged the country after independence.

It is one of Africa's major oil producers, but two thirds of the people remain in poverty.

According to Jane's Intelligence and Analysis, a digest of military information, Angola has the largest standing army in central and southern Africa and one of the largest air forces in sub-Saharan Africa.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

Read the terms and conditions

View the original article here

Read More

Plane missing in Bolivia with 9 aboard

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Rescue workers are searching Bolivia's eastern jungle for a missing twin-engine plane with nine people aboard operated by a small commercial airline.

Trying to track the IHOP gun's path from China Find out where 9/11's Bob Beckwith is now Bloomberg: 'The terrorists lost' GOP debate is when great expectations meet reality What to watch in tonight's debate How 9/11 and Geraldo changed my life World Blog: James Murdoch could be called back to testify

The Aerocon Fairchild SA227-DC Metro went missing Tuesday evening on approach to Trinidad, the provincial capital of Beni. It had originated in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

Authorities say two Colombians and seven Bolivians were aboard.

Aerocon official Nelson Kin says air traffic controllers did not receive an alert from an alarm aboard the plane that is designed to go off if it crashes.

A local military commander said in a television interview Wednesday that dense smoke from forest fires in the area impeded the search.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

View the original article here

Read More

Worker dies after being sucked into plane engine

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — An engineer working at an airplane testing facility has been sucked into an engine and killed.

Don't miss these Travel stories Where are the people of color in national parks? The U.S. population has grown more diverse, but visitors within national park borders remain overwhelmingly white.

Cricket spitting? Wacky events lure fairgoers Get your fill at fun August food festivals Shhh! Dealing with loud talkers on airplanes Airlines collect $21 billion in fees in 2010

Domestic carrier Air New Zealand confirmed the man was performing routine maintenance on a Lockheed C-130 Hercules airplane engine just after 8 a.m. Monday (4 p.m. ET Sunday) at the Woodbourne air field in Blenheim when he the incident occurred.

An Air New Zealand spokeswoman said the engine was sitting on a stand without propellers attached and was not affixed to a plane at the time of the accident.

TVNZ identified the engineer as Miles Hunter, 51.

'Very routine procedure'
Rob Fyfe, chief executive of Air New Zealand, told ONE News that officials were at a "complete loss" as how the incident occurred.

"It was a very routine procedure with very experienced people involved," he added.

Tasman Police communications manager Barbara Dunn said emergency services personnel performed CPR on Hunter but couldn't revive him.

Hunter worked for a Safe Air, a subsidiary of Air New Zealand.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Read More

Morocco says military plane crash kills 78

RABAT — At least 78 people were killed on Tuesday when a Moroccan military transport plane crashed into a mountain in the south of the country during bad weather, the military said in a statement carried by the state news agency.

The military said there were three injured survivors so far from the crash, which happened when a C-130 Hercules aircraft was trying to land in Guelmim, having flown north from the disputed Western Sahara territory.

A resident in the area told Reuters there was thick fog in the area at the time of the crash, which occurred at 9 a.m., some 450 miles south of Rabat.

"The crash, due to bad weather conditions, caused 78 deaths and (left) three seriously wounded", Morocco's Royal Armed Forces said in a statement carried on the official MAP news agency.

Girl’s clean water wish takes off after her death Races' wealth gap has become a chasm Debt talk damage has already been done Risky pelvic mesh highlights worries about FDA Alaska's Inside Passage iPhony: Inside China’s counterfeit Apple store Rolling restaurants: Some cities floor it, others brake

The military said that 60 soldiers, 12 civilians and nine crew members were on board at the time of the crash.

Get the latest on this story from breakingnews.com

The three survivors and 42 bodies recovered so far have been taken to the nearby military hospital, the military said.

The MAP news agency said that the plane had been traveling from the Western Saharan city of Dakhla and was due to travel on to Kenitra, 25 miles north of the capital, Rabat.

Morocco keeps the majority of its soldiers in Western Sahara, a territory about the size of Britain, that Rabat annexed in 1975.

Morocco's most recent plane crash was in 1994 when all 44 passengers and crew members aboard a Royal Air Maroc aircraft died in a crash near the southwestern city of Agadir.

© 2011 msnbc.com

View the original article here

Read More