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‘Black box’ could hold answer to plane crash mystery

The "black box" is actually an orange cylinder — about 13 pounds of metal wrapped around a stack of memory chips and designed to withstand the force of being slammed high-speed into a brick wall. One such device — currently sitting more than two miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean — is now the object of a massive international search and could hold the answer to why Air France Flight 447 mysteriously plunged into the sea off the coast of Brazil last week with 228 people on board. “These record many, many parameters of the flight — the aircraft, its altitude, even the amount of force that one of the pilots might put on a pedal,” John Perry Fish, an underwater recovery expert, told CNN

Suspected suicide blast kills 30 at Pakistani mosque

A suspected suicide attacker detonated his explosives at a mosque in northwestern Pakistan during Friday prayers, killing at least 30 people and wounding roughly 40 others, a local police official said. “It has been verified that the material did not belong to the plane,” Brig. Ramon Borges Cardoso told reporters in Recife, Brazil, about the material recovered Thursday

Could a Computer Glitch Have Brought Down Air France 447?

As the French team leading the investigation into the Air France Flight 447 crash works through the multitude of likely and less likely disaster scenarios — from the repercussions of stormy conditions to an act of terrorism — perhaps among the most difficult to assess will be possible flight computer malfunctions.

Why satellites failed to find missing plane

Cars have global position systems to pinpoint where drivers are when they get lost, so why can’t GPS be used to locate the exact position of planes when the worst happens?

Investigators: No sign plane had problems before take-off

It may be a long time before investigators learn what caused an Air France plane to plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, a French crash investigator said Wednesday.

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.

Fears for 228 as Air France jet vanishes

A French passenger aircraft carrying 228 people has disappeared off the coast of Brazil, airline officials say. Air France told CNN the jet was making the 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when contact was lost

China quarantines U.S. school group over flu concerns

A group of students and teachers from a Maryland private school have been quarantined in China because of swine flu concerns, a school spokeswoman said Thursday. The Chinese government has confined 21 students and three teachers to their hotel rooms in Kaili, China, because a passenger on their plane to China was suspected of having swine flu, or H1N1, said Vicky Temple, director of communications for the Barrie School in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Indonesia plane crash kills nearly 100

An Indonesian military transport plane crashed into a residential area in East Java early Wednesday, killing 97 people, military officials said. The death toll might rise, because the Air Force said 112 people were thought to be aboard when the Hercules transport plane crashed about 6:30 a.m. The crash destroyed four homes and killed two people who lived in at least one of the homes, said Suwardi, the village leader of Karas in East Java.

Airline defends training of pilot involved in fatal crash

The regional airline involved in a fatal February plane crash outside Buffalo, New York, contested a report Monday alleging the pilot did not have the training to handle the emergency that brought the plane down, and that he might have been fatigued on the night of the crash. Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by regional carrier Colgan Air, plunged into a house in Clarence Center, New York, on the night of February 12, killing all 49 on board as well as one man in the house. In a story Monday, The Wall Street Journal cited investigators as saying the crash resulted from pilot Marvin Renslow’s incorrect response to the plane’s precarious drop in speed: He overrode an emergency system known as a “stick pusher,” which sends the plane into a dive so it can regain speed and avoid a stall.