Saskatoon! Passenger charged with stealing plane megaphone

WestJet Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at Calgary Airport on Feb. 16, 2010. Larry MacDougal/The Canadian Press

The Canadian Press
A passenger on a WestJet flight says police boarded the plane looking for someone who had snatched the aircraft’s megaphone.

Mike Van Dijk says the pilot of the flight to Saskatoon from Toronto first announced Monday night that something had disappeared from the plane.

“That we had lost something,” Van Dijk said. “And, at first, it kind of seemed like something had fallen off the plane.”

Officers next told everyone that they wanted the thief to come forward.

Top 10 rated safest airlines in the world

Qantas Airline plane gets takes off at Sydney Airport in Sydney on August 28, 2014. Getty Images

AFP
Australian carrier Qantas has topped a list of the world’s safest airlines for boasting a clean, fatality-free safety record for more than 60 years.

The latest safety index published by Airlineratings.com comes after a tragic year in aviation history. While 2014 saw the lowest number of fatal airline accidents — 21 — two of the crashes from Malaysia Airlines were unprecedented, claiming 537 lives, editors note.

In 2014, a total of 986 lives were lost– higher than the 10-year average.

A total of 449 airlines were surveyed.

Here are world’s safest airlines in the world in alphabetical order:

AirAsia To Pay $US100K Compensation Each To Families Of QZ8501 Crash

The families of the victims of AirAsia flight QZ8501 will be offered $US100,000 in compensation by the airline as those searching for the plane claim they are just hours away from finding the plane's black box.

It follows an offer of $US24,000 after family members were given a draft letter from AirAsia, which detailed its initial compensation deal,CNN reported.

Flight QZ8501 crashed over the Java Sea just 40 minutes after it left Surabaya Airport on December 28.

Family release pic of the 7yr old girl who survived plane crash

This is the 7yr old girl who proved to the world recently that miracles still do happen. She survived a plane crash on Friday evening January 2nd that killed her parents, sister and cousin. The plane the family was flying in, a Piper PA-34 went down in Western Kentucky and by some miracle, Sailor Gutzler survived, trekked three-quarters of a mile in the dark barefoot until she found a house and knocked on their door, telling them what had just happened to her family.

"She told me that her mom and dad were dead. And that she had been in a plane crash." The man whose home Sailor knocked on told CNN

Lucky! 7yr old girl walks away from plane crash in Kentucky; 4 others killed

Below is what Kentucky State Police posted on their Facebook page... 

The Kentucky State Police are responding to a report of a plane crash near the area of KY 810 South in the Suwanee community of Lyon County At approximately 6:30 pm CST, a 911 call was received from a Lyon County resident. The caller told police that a 7-year-old female had walked to his home reporting that she had been involved in a plane crash. The juvenile was in distress and was transported to a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries. 

No Canadians among 162 on board missing AirAsia plane

An electronic sign board instructs relatives and next-of-kin to gather at a holding area at the Changi International Airport where AirAsia Flight 8501 was scheduled to land. AP

The Canadian Press
The Foreign Affairs Department says there’s no indication there are any Canadians on board a missing Air Asia flight.

But a spokesperson says Canadian officials are working to confirm that with local authorities.

The AirAsia jet had 162 people on board for a scheduled two-hour flight from western Indonesia to Singapore when it disappeared on Sunday.

Airline officials have said the majority of the people on the plane were Indonesian, but there were also three South Koreans, a Malaysian, a British national and his two-year-old Singaporean daughter, as well as a French captain.

Yet another as AirAsia plane carrying 153 people overshoots runway in Philippines

Not again! Two days after an AirAsia airliner carrying 163 people plunged into the sea, another one carrying 153 passengers overshot the runway at an airport in the Philippines today December 30th, forcing passengers to disembark the aircraft on emergency slides.

The incident occurred at Kalibo Airport in Aklan province in Philippines according to a journalist Jet Damazo-Santos who was on board and shared the photo above on Twitter. "Engine was shut immediately, we were told to leave bags, deplane asap. Firetruck was waiting,' she said

There have been no word from AirAsia officials about this latest incident but according to Jet, no passenger was injured in this latest mishap.

Missing AirAsia spotted in sea by search plane

Looks like the AirAsia flight that went missing early yesterday morning may be at the bottom of the sea. Indonesian officials say a search plane hunting for the missing plane have spotted objects in the sea believed to be wreckage from the plane which was carrying 155 passengers and 7 crew members.

An Australian Orion aircraft early this morning detected suspicious objects near Nangka island, about 160 kilometres south-west of Pangkalan Bun, near central Kalimantan, which is about 1,120 kilometres from the location where the plane lost contact while an Indonesian helicopter saw two oily spots in the search area a few hours later, this is according to Indonesian officials.

Experts believe that the aircraft was likely flying too slow to avoid a thunderstorm they encountered and this caused the plane to stall and crash.

Air Asia plane with 162 on board goes missing in Indonesia

This file photograph taken on February 15, 2012 show an AirAsia plane taking off from Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta.AFP/Getty Images

Ali Kotarumalos And Margie Mason The Associated Press
A massive sea search was underway for an AirAsia plane that disappeared Sunday while flying from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board through airspace possibly thick with dense storm clouds, strong winds and lightning, officials said.

More than 12 hours later, shocked family members huddled at the Surabaya airport from where the Airbus A320 had taken off, awaiting any news of the jetliner operated by an airline whose parent company is based in Malaysia. It is the third incident involving Malaysia this year following two of the worst aviation tragedies that hit Malaysia Airlines — in March Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people and in July Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on it.

Indonesia and Singapore launched a search and rescue operation for Flight 8501 near Belitung island in Java Sea over which the jetliner lost contact with ground traffic control, about 42 minutes after taking off from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city. The flight had completed a little less than half of its journey time to Singapore.

PM proposes to buy additional C-17 Globemaster heavy-lift transport plane

Army personel walk next to a Boeing C 17 Globemaster freight transport airplane from Canada at the Kabul International airport, in Kabul, on August 19, 2012. AFP/Getty

Murray Brewster The Canadian PressThe Harper government has signed off on a proposal to buy an additional C-17 Globemaster heavy-lift transport plane, bringing to five the number of the hulking airborne workhorses in the air force fleet.

Multiple defence sources say the decision to acquire the aircraft was made recently, but has not yet been announced as officials are still hammering out the contract details.

The Canadian air force has been pushing for the deal for over two years, telling senior officials that there is “a strong operational and business case” for a additional aircraft given how much use the fleet has gotten since it was introduced in 2007.

Earlier this year, The Canadian Press reported that National Defence believed it could afford the estimated US $169-million price tag because it had not spent all of the funds made available for the initial purchase of four C-17s.

American Plane Crash Averted As Flight Carrying 240 Passengers Makes Emergency Landing

American Airlines flight AA280 carrying 240 passengers and 15 crew members from Seoul to Dallas yesterday experienced a mid-air scare over the Pacific Ocean and was forced to make an emergency landing near Tokyo.

The flight was said to have entered winds up to 150mph- causing a violent shaking which lasted for around an hour. 15 out of the 240 passengers on-board sustained different injuries during the turbulence, but are glad they made it out alive.

The emergency landing saved the situation a passenger said when the plane landed. More photos below.