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Several injured in Qantas incident

Seven people were injured aboard a Qantas flight from Hong Kong, China, to Perth, Australia, after the jetliner hit turbulence over Borneo in Malaysia overnight, the airline said on Monday. Six passengers and a crew member sustained minor injuries and were treated onboard, the airline said in a statement on its Web site. Qantas said the aircraft was an Airbus A330-300, adding that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau will investigate and that there was no reason to link the incident to other incidents involving A330 aircraft

One giant leap toward space tourism in New Mexico

The era when travelers will be able to catch a flight from New Mexico to outer space moved a step closer this week with the official start of construction of Spaceport America.

Air France pays $24,500 to crash victims’ families

Air France will pay families about ?17,500 ($24,500) in initial compensation for each victim of the crash of Flight 447 this month, the company’s chief executive says. So far, Air France has been in touch with about 1,800 relatives of the people who died when the Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, chief executive Paul-Henri Gourgeon told France’s RTL radio Friday

Air France bodies had broken bones, official says

At least some of the bodies recovered from the Air France crash this month had broken bones, Brazilian authorities have told French investigators, evidence that suggests the flight broke apart before hitting the ocean. Paul-Louis Arslanian, director of the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, the French accident investigation board, said Thursday that Brazilian medical examiners had given that information to his agency

Spotlight: Amanda Knox

Amanda Knox has finally spoken. Ever since the 21-year-old American student was arrested in Italy in late 2007 and charged with the grisly murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher, tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic have bubbled with scandal and speculation.

Officer survives New Mexico crash; pilot’s fate unknown

A New Mexico police officer was rescued Wednesday after surviving a helicopter crash in the snowy Santa Fe National Forest, but the fate of the pilot remained unknown. The simple fact is that the blizzard of airworthiness directives, company memos, weather reports, technical specifications and diverse other documents that have surfaced since last week constitute entirely circumstantial evidence. Aviation history is replete with accidents with causes utterly unrelated to what first seemed the obvious explanation

Airplane went down in volatile equatorial zone

There is a region of the world where the weather is always hot and humid and it rains almost every day of the year. Sounds predictable, right? But weather in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, or ITCZ, can be volatile and dangerous

Official: Missing plane sent 24 error messages

Air France Flight 447 sent out 24 automated error messages — including one saying the aircraft’s autopilot had disengaged — before it vanished with 228 people on board, aviation investigators said Saturday.

Finding downed jet in open ocean is a tall order

Though searchers believe that they have found debris from an Air France jet that disappeared off Brazil’s coast Monday, finding the entire plane and learning exactly what downed it could be a tedious, years-long process. Many factors can complicate a search effort.

Could lightning have brought down Air France plane?

The mysterious disappearance of Flight AF 447 over the Atlantic Ocean has fueled speculation among aviation experts about what caused the state-of-the-art airliner to come down.