AVIATION INCIDENTS | Airplane Accidents, Crashes, Missing

[siamu maharaj]

Originally Posted by Bart_LCY

Due to embargo they can't

They can buy new Russian jets + any Western jet from a 3rd party that's more than 7 years old. Having said that, I'm not sure that this crash had to do with malfunctioning.

[idiamindada]

Iran should develop their own aviation technology. those died might be Iran's talented and needed engineers, doctors, and professionals.

[hkskyline]

TIMELINE-Plane crashes involving Iran

Jan 9 (Reuters) - An Iranian passenger plane with at least 105 people on board crashed near the northwestern city of Urumiyeh, state television reported on Sunday.

Following is a timeline of aircraft crashes involving Iran in the past 10 years:

Feb. 2, 2000 - An Iranian Air Force C-130 runs out of control while taking off from Tehran airport and crashes into an empty Iran Air A300. Both aircraft are destroyed. All six aboard the C-130 are killed.

May 17, 2001 - A Russian Yak-40 plane carrying 29 people, including Iranian Transport Minister Rahman Dadman and some deputy ministers, crashes in northern Iran killing all on board.

Feb. 12, 2002 - An Iran Air Tours Tupolev-154 crashes near the western city of Khorramabad. All 118 aboard are killed.

Dec. 23 - A Ukrainian Antonov An-140 plane crashes into a mountain in central Iran, killing all 46 aboard. Most of the passengers were Ukrainian and Russian aerospace officials travelling to Iran to test fly an Iranian-built copy of the plane. The crash was blamed on pilot error.

Feb. 19, 2003 - An Iranian Ilyushin-76 troop carrier crashes in southeast Iran killing all 276 Revolutionary Guard soldiers and crew aboard.

Feb. 10, 2004 - A Kish airlines Fokker-50 plane crashes while landing at Sharjah airport in the United Arab Emirates killing 43 of the 45 passengers and crew aboard.

Dec. 6, 2005 - An Iranian Air Force C-130 aircraft with 94 people on board crashes into a 10-storey apartment block in the Shahrak-e Towhid area of Tehran, killing all on board and at least 22 people on the ground.

Jan. 9, 2006 - An Iranian military plane crashes in northwest Iran, killing at least 11 people on board, including several Revolutionary Guard commanders.

Sept. 1 - An Iran Air Tour Tupolev 154 passenger plane catches fire on landing at an airport in the northeastern city of Mashhad, killing 29 people.

Nov. 27 - An Antonov-74 military aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from a Tehran airport, killing 36 people on board.

Aug. 24, 2008 - A Boeing 737-200 belonging to private Kyrgyz company Itek-Air, chartered by an Iranian company and bound for Iran, crashes at Bishkek airport. Around 70 people, including members of a local teenage basketball team, die.

July 15, 2009 - A Caspian Airlines Tupolev aircraft, carrying 153 passengers and 15 crew from Tehran to Yerevan in Armenia, crashes near the city of Qazvin killing all aboard.

July 24, 2009 - An Ilyushin Il-62 from Kazakhstan leased by Iran's Aria Aviation Company, veered from the runway and hit a wall while landing at Mashhad's Hasheminejad Airport. At least 16 people are killed and 30 injured from the 153 people aboard.

Jan 9, 2011 - An Iranian passenger jet crashed in bad weather near the northwestern city of Urumiyeh. At least 50 people were rescued from the crash, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted an official as saying. Fars said there were 105 people on board, state TV put the number at 156.

[TEHR_IR]

Originally Posted by siamu maharaj

They can buy new Russian jets + any Western jet from a 3rd party that's more than 7 years old. Having said that, I'm not sure that this crash had to do with malfunctioning.

well, we can't even buy now the 200 tupolev planes we ordered because tupolev is doing bussines with the USA for it's engines now for over a year! so we can't buy any!
also due trade and bussiness sanctions many countries don't even want to sell there second hand planes to us, we bought 747-400s and A320s which were build in 1995 and 2003 but the EU putted them on their black list! it's all politics my friend...

[TEHR_IR]

Originally Posted by siamu maharaj

Iran should really start buying new planes.

this crash was caused because of bad wheater it had nothing to do with the plane...

[alejandro DS]

The new Tupolev TU-204SM could be an option for the Iran Air fleet

[hkskyline]

Pilot of plane that ditched in NY's Hudson River says he has new appreciation for that day
15 January 2011

DANVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Two years after the "Miracle on the Hudson," Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger says he's developed an even deeper appreciation for the lifesaving event.

"As time has gone by, I have become able to appreciate more the enormity of what happened that day and what didn't happen that day for all of us," he told The Associated Press this week at his Northern California home.

Saturday is the second anniversary of the splashdown, when Sullenberger and first officer Jeff Skiles ditched US Airways Flight 1549 into the frigid waters off Manhattan after the jet hit a flock of geese.

All 155 passengers and crew members were safely rescued, and Sullenberger became a hero in an event that captured the world's imagination.

The 59-year-old Danville pilot retired from Arizona-based airline last year and is writing a book about leadership to follow "Highest Duty," a memoir of his life and the events surrounding Flight 1549. He also has become a sought-after speaker and a consultant on aviation safety.

The Republican Party asked Sullenberger to run for Congress last year, but he declined.

"I'm a pilot not a politician," he said.

The Carolinas Aviation Museum is buying the damaged plane, which was headed to Charlotte, N.C., from the insurance company that owns it.

Sullenberger vividly recalled the moment the Airbus A320 struck the large birds, upending what began as a routine takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport.

"As the thrust failed, it felt like the bottom of the world fell out," he said. "It was shocking. After years of having everything work almost all the time, this was instantly the challenge of a lifetime."

Sullenberger said he was able to "essentially synthesize a lifetime of experience and training to solve this novel problem" and "felt as if the weight of the universe had been lifted" off him when he learned that everyone was safe.

The pilot, who is married and has two daughters, said he believes the story of the flight held the media's attention for so long because "it happened at a time in the world's history when we needed it."

"This gave people hope," he said. "It made people see when we work together and we have our values straight what we can accomplish."

[hkskyline]

Russia to release all recordings from doomed jet
19 January 2011
Agence France Presse

Russia will release a full transcript of communications between Russian air traffic controllers and the Polish presidential jet that crashed last year, killing president Lech Kaczynski, officials said Tuesday.

Kaczynski died with 95 others when his presidential jet crashed on April 10, 2010, as it attempted to land in fog near the city of Smolensk in northwestern Russia.

The Russian Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) said it had reached its decision following Tuesday's release in Poland of a recording of Russian air traffic controllers' communication with the doomed flight.

Polish investigators said their tape suggested that the Russian air traffic controllers had failed to notify the Polish plane's crew that they were well off course while landing in fog.

The Russian statement said that transcripts of all communications would be released "for the purpose of objectively informing the world community" about what happened on board the flight, Interfax reported.

The releases would include transcripts of cabin communications between the pilots, telephone conversations and radio communications, the news report said, without specifying when the releases would issued.

In their final report issued last Wednesday in Moscow, Russian investigators blamed the disaster on the incompetence of the plane's pilots and pressure from senior Polish officials to land despite dangerous weather warnings.

[hkskyline]

WSJ: Inquiry Blames Pilots, Airbus For Botched Azores Landing In 2009
7 February 2011
(c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Portuguese air-crash investigators have concluded that pilot error and automation shortcomings on Airbus A320 jetliners caused the botched landing of a SATA Internacional plane in the Azores in August 2009.

The final report on the so-called severe hard landing, which damaged the plane's undercarriage but didn't cause any injuries, details violations of basic safety procedures by pilots. But as part of their findings, Portuguese investigators also highlighted what they described as widely known deficiencies at the time involving the automated deployment of panels on top of the wings of Airbus A320 jets.

The report released earlier this month provides a dramatic example of how such complex automated flight-control systems, which are designed to enhance safety, sometimes can confuse pilots and result in unintended hazards.

Called speed brakes or spoilers, the wing panels are designed to pop up automatically on touchdown. The devices reduce lift and play a major role in helping jets slow down.

The three-month old plane, operated by a unit of Grupo SATA, was en route at night from Lisbon to Ponta Delgada in the Azores. But because the SATA Internacional pilots mistakenly failed to reduce thrust to idle before touchdown, according to the report, their A320's flight-control computers didn't order immediate spoiler deployment.

The nearly 70-ton aircraft with 173 people aboard bounced 12 feet into the air after touchdown, remained airborne for nearly five seconds and then slammed back to the surface roughly 1,000 feet farther down the runway. The spoilers finally deployed once pilots pulled back the throttles.

Portuguese investigators reported that the A320's landing gears hit the surface with a vertical acceleration almost equal to five times the force of gravity, significantly exceeding the usual stress limits.

Since the Azores accident, manufacturer Airbus has changed the logic of the flight computers on A320s to avoid a repeat of such problems. The report indicates similar changes were implemented earlier to larger Airbus A330 and A340 models.

The report says that prior to the Azores accident, Airbus received several reports of A320 hard landings caused by spoilers failing to pop up when needed. Airbus is a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. (EAD.FR, EADSY).

With regard to the pilots, the English version of the report concludes that the captain, who was flying the approach, failed to follow airline and manufacturer procedures. Rather than struggling to put the plane back on the ground and risking a hard landing or worse, the report says, the captain should have increased thrust and climbed away to make another approach. The report says both pilots were retrained.

The report also faults the airline's maintenance employees for failing to immediately conduct a thorough inspection of the plane. The jet flew six more trips with passengers until mechanics downloaded information from its flight-data recorder and realized what happened, according to investigators.

[Fatfield]

Crash at Cork, Ireland. this morning.

Six fatalities confirmed.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0210/cork.html

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wor...hes_In_Ireland

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12415541

[Vrooms]

Heres another article:http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/2011021...t-4bdc673.html

Six dead as plane crashes at Ireland airport
AFP - 2 hours 54 minutes ago

DUBLIN (AFP) - – A commuter plane crashed and burst into flames, killing six people and injuring another six Thursday, as it tried to land in heavy fog at Cork airport in Ireland, officials said.

The turboprop aircraft travelling from Belfast in Northern Ireland with 12 people on board flipped onto its roof as it made its third attempt to touch down at the airport in southern Ireland.

"I can confirm that we have six fatalities and six people are in hospital," Tom O'Sullivan, a spokesman for Cork County Council, told AFP. Irish police gave the same toll.

After the crash, the white and blue aircraft operated by Manx2 airlines was left lying upside down, with its front end almost completely destroyed, photographs taken by witnesses showed.

Dozens of rescue workers and emergency vehicles surrounded the plane.

The Irish Aviation Authority said the 19-seat Fairchild Metroliner SW4 aircraft was carrying 10 passengers and two crew when it crashed.

Visibility was so bad that the control tower was unable to see the aircraft when it crashed, said the authority's chief executive, Eamonn Brennan.

He said the "wind was very light but the visibility was very poor".

The pilots had tried to land on two different runways without success but the plane crashed next to a taxiway while making a third attempt, the aviation authority said in a statement.

"There is a fire, and debris has been scattered onto the runway and over a wide area," the statement said.

O'Sullivan, from the county council, later said the fire had been extinguished and the area had been declared a crime scene while the crash was investigated.

Cork Airport said it was closed until further notice.

Incoming flights operated by British Airways, Aer Lingus and Ryanair were diverted to Shannon airport.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork, John Buckley, was in the area at the time and went directly to the airport to hold prayers with relatives who were waiting in the arrivals hall of the airport.

"The suddenness and scale of this loss of life is shocking," his office said in a statement.

Irish Transport Minister Pat Carey conveyed the sympathy of the government to the families of the victims and said he had already spoken to the head of the air accident investigations unit, who were on their way to Cork.

Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson said he was shocked by the crash. Some of the victims were believed to be from the British province.

"This is a terrible tragedy and my thoughts are with the families of the bereaved," he said.

There were questions over why the flight was allowed to leave Belfast City Airport when there was also heavy fog there.

Manx2 was founded in 2006 and operates flights linking Ireland, Britain and the Isle of Man. It began the twice-daily flights from Belfast to Cork in September.

[hkskyline]

Suits progress as NY plane crash anniversary nears
AP
Wed Feb 9, 4:02 pm ET

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Days before the second anniversary of the deadly crash of a plane into a New York home, lawyers for victims' families have been in court discussing the lawsuits pending against the flight's operators.

U.S. District Judge William Skretny said Wednesday that 43 lawsuits have been filed in federal court in Buffalo. He says about 10 have been settled.

Cases that don't settle are expected to go to trial in March 2012.

Safety investigators say pilot error led Continental Connection Flight 3407 to stall and crash Feb. 12, 2009, killing all 49 people on board and the home's owner.

The lawsuits name Continental Airlines and Colgan Air, the regional carrier contracted to operate the Newark, N.J.-to-Buffalo flight. Colgan parent Pinnacle Airlines and plane maker Bombardier Inc. also are named.

The companies deny responsibility.

[dizee]

Originally Posted by Fatfield

Crash at Cork, Ireland. this morning.

Six fatalities confirmed.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0210/cork.html

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wor...hes_In_Ireland

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12415541

Yes it's tragic.

Heavy fog in Cork, 2 attempts to land before the fatal 3rd one. (I believe they tried from different ends of the same runway.)

In retrospect a diversion might have been better but it's unknown what their fuel levels were like, apparently they were in a holding position for quite some time waiting for the weather to clear a bit.

It is too early to say though for now, we can only offer condolences to the families affected and the emergency services should be commended for how well they responded.

[hkskyline]

Small plane crashes in Honduras, killing 14, including government official and 2 Americans
15 February 2011

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - A small Honduran commercial airliner crashed Monday near the capital, killing all 14 people aboard, including a senior government official and a top union leader, authorities said.

Two Americans and a Canadian were listed as passengers on the Central American Airlines' flight to Toncontin airport in Tegucigalpa, said Melvin Duarte, spokesman for the Attorney General's office. U.S. and Canadian embassy officials said they would release details on the victims after notifying their families.

The Let L-410 Turbolet crashed Monday morning in the town of Las Mesitas, about three miles (five kilometers) south of the airport.

It was carrying two pilots and 12 passengers, including Assistant Secretary for Public Works Rodolfo Rovelo, United Workers Federation of Honduras leader Jose Israel Salinas and former Economy Secretary Carlos Chain, said airline manager Felix Pacheco.

"I'm destroyed, in shock, because of what happened," Pacheco said, adding that it was a regularly scheduled daily flight.

The government declared three days of national mourning in honor of the government officials killed.

The cause of the crash is being investigated, but there was fog in the area at the time. Tincontin airport is considered dangerous because of its short runway and surrounding hills.

A pilot survived the crash but died on the way to a hospital, firefighters spokesman Jaime Silva said.

The National Service of Civil Aviation said the accident happened a little after 8 a.m. (8 a.m. EST; 1300 GMT), minutes after air traffic controllers instructed the pilots to land.

Jorge Deras, mayor of the town of Santa Ana, near Las Mesitas, said he heard an explosion and ran to the crash site.

"We found many ... bodies strewn about," Deras said. "It's a tragic vision."

At least 10 planes have crashed in and around the Toncontin airport since October 1989, when a Honduran commercial jet went down, killing 131 people.

Toncontin's short runway, old navigation equipment and neighboring hills make it one of the world's more dangerous international airports. It was built on the southern edge of hilly Tegucigalpa in 1948 with a runway less than 5,300 feet (1,600 meters) long.

[Cosmin]

An-148 crashes in Russia on test flight: ministry (FlightGlobal)

[hkskyline]

US Airways plane that landed safely on Hudson River is destined for NC aviation museum
20 March 2011

HARRISON, N.J. (AP) - To stand inside the cabin of the US Airways jet that crash landed on the Hudson River is to imagine, even briefly, some of the terror that must have overtaken the 155 people aboard as the plane descended onto the icy water.

The plane's interior is largely undisturbed from the Jan. 15, 2009, landing but is littered with reminders -- and a coating of dried mud. A stethoscope from a first-aid kit lies on the floor in one row, while unused life jackets still wrapped in plastic sit on seats. Many seat cushions are gone, grabbed by passengers as they exited onto a wing. In the rear galley, food and beverages are waiting to be served.

The world will be able to relive the triumph of what has been dubbed "The Miracle on the Hudson" when the Airbus A320 is shipped this spring from a northern New Jersey warehouse to Charlotte, N.C., for an exhibit at the Carolinas Aviation Museum.

The plane's wings are expected to be moved within the next few weeks. The 120-foot fuselage will be trucked down around mid-June, said Stephen Ryan, whose Australia-based company FRD is consulting on the museum project.

That trip is sure to create a stir between New Jersey and North Carolina, much as it did when the plane was moved from the Hudson to the warehouse two years ago.

"We're still working out the route," Ryan said Saturday. "There are a lot of factors to be considered."

The museum exhibit is scheduled to open next January and will focus on the technology that helped the plane land safely as well as the heroics of Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who became an instant national hero. The most compelling moments likely will come from taped interviews with the passengers.

Museum president Shawn Dorsch told The Associated Press in January that the 19-year-old museum attracts about 30,000 visitors annually but could see that number swell to more than 100,000 once the famous jet is put on display.

Flight 1549 had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport when a flock of birds struck both engines, shutting them down. Sullenberger considered trying to land at nearby Teterboro Airport but quickly calculated that he wouldn't be able to make it that far. The Hudson was the only alternative.

The starkest visual evidence of the splashdown is in the very back of the plane, which was torn off by the impact and has a gaping hole that exposes the rear cargo hold. The rest of the fuselage is remarkably well preserved except for a defect on the right rear side. Two cracked windshields and other dents were caused by rescue tugboats or during the plane's removal from the water, Ryan said.

While the world watched passengers being rescued from the wings of the plane, the back of the cabin was rapidly filling with water and muck. That left a layer of mold that must be cleaned before the plane can be shipped to Charlotte.

Once there, it will be preserved as close to its current condition as possible. That means visitors probably won't be able to walk inside the cabin because the floor has degraded and wouldn't be able to withstand heavy traffic, Ryan said.

[hkskyline]

At least 14 dead in Congo Rep plane crash - radio

BRAZZAVILLE, March 21 (Reuters) - An Antonov cargo plane crashed in a suburb of the Congo Republic city of Pointe-Noire on Monday, witnesses said, with French RFI radio reporting at least 14 killed.

"Ambulances are shuttling bodies to the mortuary and the wounded to the hospital," one witness told Reuters. "The damage is significant, but for now we do not yet know the precise number of casualties." France's RFI radio said at least 14 had been killed but did not give a more precise toll.

The witness said the plane had been preparing to land at the airport in the coastal city but then veered out seawards before crashing on several buildings in the Mvou Mvou suburb.

In 2009 a similar Antonov cargo plane crashed in countryside just outside Brazzaville, killing its crew.

[nomarandlee]

Thankfully this plane is neither missing nor crashed. Everyone safe.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/s...,2856515.story

Passengers say sound like gunfire when hole tore in plane's fuselage, forcing Ariz. landing

LIEN HOANG, WALTER BERRY

Associated Press

11:02 a.m. CDT, April 2, 2011
PHOENIX (AP) — A "gunshot-like sound" woke Brenda Reese as her Southwest Airlines flight cruised at 36,000 feet. Looking up, she could see the sky through a hole torn in the cabin roof.

The Boeing 737 lost cabin pressure after the hole developed Friday, prompting frightened passengers to grope for oxygen masks as the plane made a terrifying but controlled descent.

One passenger called it "pandemonium." Another watched as a flight attendant and another passenger passed out, apparently for lack of oxygen, their heads striking seats in front of them.

Officials said Flight 812 lost pressure because of a fuselage rupture. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the pilot made a "controlled descent from 36,000 feet to 11,000 feet altitude."

His safe emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, about 150 miles southwest of Phoenix, drew applause from relieved passengers.

No serious injuries were reported among the 118 people aboard although a flight attendant was slightly hurt, according to Southwest officials. The cause of the hole was not immediately known. The FBI called it a "mechanical failure," not an act of terror or other foul play.

The plane is a 15-year-old Boeing 737-300. Southwest officials said Saturday they would pull 80 similar planes out of service for inspections of the fuselage.

Southwest operates more than 200 of the 737-300s in its fleet of about 540 planes, but it replaced the aluminum skin on many of the 300s in recent years, spokeswoman Linda Rutherford said. The 80 planes being grounded have not have their skin replaced, she said.

"Obviously we're dealing with a skin issue, and we believe that these 80 airplanes are covered by a set of (federal safety rules) that make them candidates to do this additional inspection that Boeing is devising for us," Rutherford said.

Southwest officials said the Arizona plane had undergone all inspections required by the FAA, but they did not immediately provide the date of the last inspection.

The 737-300 is the oldest plane in Southwest's fleet, and the company is retiring 300s as it take deliveries of new Boeing 737-700s and, beginning next year, 737-800s. But the process of replacing all the 300s could take years.

Reese said the plane had just left Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport for Sacramento, Calif., when the "gunshot-like sound" woke her up. She said oxygen masks dropped as the plane dove.

Seated one row from the rupture, Don Nelson said it took about four noisy minutes for the plane to dip to less than 10,000 feet. "You could tell there was an oxygen deficiency," he said.

"People were dropping," said Christine Ziegler, a 44-year-old project manager from Sacramento who watched as the crew member and a passenger nearby faint. Nelson and Ziegler spoke after a substitute flight took them on to Sacramento.

Reese described the hole as "at the top of the plane, right up above where you store your luggage."

"The panel's not completely off," she told The Associated Press. "It's like ripped down, but you can see completely outside... When you look up through the panel, you can see the sky."

Cellphone photographs provided by Reese showed a panel hanging open in a section above the plane's middle aisle, with a hole of about six feet long.

The National Transportation Safety Board said an "in-flight fuselage rupture" led to the drop in cabin pressure aboard the plane. A similar incident on a Southwest plane to Baltimore in July 2009 also forced an emergency landing when a foot-long hole opened in the cabin.

Four months earlier, the Dallas-based airline had agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges that it operated planes that had missed required safety inspections for cracks in the fuselage. The airline, which flies Boeing 737s, inspected nearly 200 of its planes back then, found no cracks and put them back in the sky.

Julie O'Donnell, an aviation safety spokeswoman for Seattle-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes, confirmed "a hole in the fuselage and a depressurization event" in the latest incident but declined to speculate on what caused it.

Reese said passengers applauded the pilot after he emerged from the cockpit following the emergency landing at Yuma Marine Corps Air Station/International Airport.

"It was unreal. Everybody was like they were high school chums," Ziegler said, describing a scene in which passengers comforted and hugged each other after the plane was on the ground.

"I fly a lot. This is the first time I ever had something like this happen," said Reese, a 37-year-old single mother of three who is vice president for a clinical research organization. "I just want to get home and hold my kids."

Gregor said an FAA inspector from Phoenix was en route to Yuma. The NTSB said it also was sending a crew to Yuma.

Holes in aircraft can be caused by metal fatigue or lightning. The National Weather Service said the weather was clear from the Phoenix area to the California border on Friday afternoon.

In 1988, cracks caused part of the roof of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 to peel open while the jet flew from Hilo to Honolulu. A flight attendant was sucked out of the plane and plunged to her death, and dozens of passengers were injured.

Three years ago, an exploding oxygen cylinder ripped a gaping hole the fuselage of a Qantas Boeing 747-438 carrying 365 people. The plane descended thousands of feet with the loss of cabin pressure and flew about 300 miles to Manila, where it made a successful emergency landing. No one was injured.

___

Hoang, Associated Press writers Don Thompson and Adam Weintraub contributed to this report from Sacramento, Calif., and David Koenig contributed from Dallas.

..

[Deadeye Reloaded]

Bad news.

GULFSTREAM CONFIRMS CRASH OF G650 FLIGHT-TEST AIRCRAFT

G650 Crashes During Testing In Roswell, New Mexico

SAVANNAH, Ga., April 2, 2011 — Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. confirmed today that a Gulfstream G650 crashed Saturday morning during takeoff-performance tests in Roswell, N.M. Two Gulfstream pilots and two Gulfstream flight-test engineers died in the crash.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who were lost," said Joe Lombardo, president, Gulfstream Aerospace.

The accident is under investigation by Gulfstream, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.

"We are cooperating 100 percent with the investigation," Lombardo said.

Gulfstream G650

[ruifo]

France says locates wreckage from Atlantic crash
Reuters April 3, 2011 1:58 PM

Read more:
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/wo...872/story.html


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Air France jet wreckage found in Atlantic

Read more:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...04/3181133.htm