Plane Crash

The title "8 Million Ways to Die" was already taken, so "The Grey" had to settle for "The Grey," named for the plus-size wolves waging war on the desperate human survivors of an Alaskan wilderness plane crash. Tough situation. Frostbite. Wolf bite. Drowning. Falling from great heights. Harsh outcomes abound for man and beast. And yet the film takes some time to let its characters ruminate, by way of dialogue, on their circumstances, which gives "The Grey" a distinctly late 20th century feel.

A Delta Air Lines flight bound for Los Angeles was forced to make an emergency landing moments after leaving New York City, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in New York City said Thursday. The incident is being investigated as a possible bird strike, he said. Delta Flight 1063 reported an engine problem and returned to the airport after 3 p.m. EDT,  the spokesman said by telephone. The plane reportedly carried 172 passengers and seven crew members.

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

U.S. Coast Guard  and Navy forces have been dispatched to the scene of a plane crash off the coast of Florida. So far there is no word about the fate of the pilot believed to have become incapacitated at the controls. The small aircraft circled aimlessly in the skies for hours over the Gulf of Mexico as anxious air traffic controllers watched helplessly. Air traffic controllers apparently tried for hours to make contact with the pilot, but all attempts failed, pointing to the likelihood that the pilot had perhaps fallen unconscious at the controls, or perhaps suffered a heart attack.  FlightAware.com released the above image of the path of the plane, including the erratic and repetitive circular patterns it made over the Gulf of Mexico.

No one wanted to move out of the little apartment building on North Spaulding Avenue. The rents were low, the neighborhood lively. Most days, actor and masseur Johnny Ray strolled up the street with his potbellied pig, Harley. Tibor Reis, 78, tipped his fedora in greeting as he headed, in a suit, to his Orthodox synagogue. Before leaving for work to answer phones, Tami Talebi mapped out macabre movies.

Frank "Scoop" Vessels, a prominent Southern California breeder of racehorses and the grandson of the founder of Los Alamitos Race Course, died Wednesday in a twin-engine plane crash in southeastern Oregon. He was 58. The plane, an Aero Commander Model 500-B, broke up in the air and was destroyed after crashing about 80 miles south of Burns, Ore., witnesses told authorities. Vessels was flying the plane, which was bound from Redding, Calif., to Montana, Harney County Sheriff Dave Glerup told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Lauren Elder will never know why she survived the plane crash that killed two friends and stranded her on an icy Sierra mountaintop, wearing a lightweight skirt and vest and high-heeled boots. But she knows how she survived below-freezing temperatures when the plane crashed 30 years ago: by climbing down a 13,264-foot snow-covered mountain in spite of a broken arm, shattered teeth and a gashed and swollen leg.

A Moroccan military plane crash in a remote mountainous region of the North African nation on Tuesday killed at least 78 people and seriously injured three, according to Morocco's official news agency. The C-130 transport plane carried 60 soldiers, nine crew members and a dozen civilians and was preparing to land at an airport near the border with the disputed region of Western Sahara, according to local media reports. The wounded were taken to a military hospital in the nearby town of Guelmim while a search of the site continued, the Maghreb Arabe Presse Agency reported.

U.S. Coast Guard  and Navy forces have been dispatched to the scene of a plane crash off the coast of Florida. So far there is no word about the fate of the pilot believed to have become incapacitated at the controls. The small aircraft circled aimlessly in the skies for hours over the Gulf of Mexico as anxious air traffic controllers watched helplessly. Air traffic controllers apparently tried for hours to make contact with the pilot, but all attempts failed, pointing to the likelihood that the pilot had perhaps fallen unconscious at the controls, or perhaps suffered a heart attack.  FlightAware.com released the above image of the path of the plane, including the erratic and repetitive circular patterns it made over the Gulf of Mexico.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials worked Thursday to confirm the identities of two men killed in a plane crash at Santa Monica Airport, but friends of the two men identified them as the general manager of an aviation website and a world-traveling Internet business development consultant. Paulo Emanuele, believed to be 46, was the general manager of the airliners.net website. Martin Schaedel, believed to be about 23, was a consultant to FareCompare, an airline fare comparison website.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - A supersonic military jet fighter crashes into a densely populated urban neighborhood at mid-day. Flames erupt. At least 40 apartments are destroyed or damaged. But, miraculously, no one is killed. Only seven people, including the two aviators aboard, are injured, none seriously. How is that possible? Civilian and military officials in this military town were struggling Saturday to answer that question, less than 24 hours after a Navy F/A-18D Hornet on a training mission slammed into an apartment complex just after noon Friday.

The title "8 Million Ways to Die" was already taken, so "The Grey" had to settle for "The Grey," named for the plus-size wolves waging war on the desperate human survivors of an Alaskan wilderness plane crash. Tough situation. Frostbite. Wolf bite. Drowning. Falling from great heights. Harsh outcomes abound for man and beast. And yet the film takes some time to let its characters ruminate, by way of dialogue, on their circumstances, which gives "The Grey" a distinctly late 20th century feel.

Does the endgame loom in the decades-long tussle over Santa Monica Airport? In 2015, all land and building leases at the airport expire, and city officials — and thousands of Westside residents weary of life in the flight path — say the obligation to operate the facility as an airport ends too. Santa Monica has hired consultants to study the 227-acre campus and early next year will begin asking for the public's input on potential future uses....

Search and rescue personnel found the body of a child and worked Thursday to recover the remains of five other passengers killed when a twin-engine plane slammed into a rugged mountaintop cliff near Phoenix, authorities said. Officials landed a helicopter near the crash scene in the Flatiron part of the Superstition Mountains east of Apache Junction, said Elias Johnson of the Pinal County Sheriff's Department. Video from news helicopters Thursday showed the wreckage strewn at the bottom of a blackened cliff.

Authorities believe at least six people were killed when a small plane crashed into the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix on Wednesday. The crash happened about 5:30 p.m., witnesses said. A spokesman for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, Elias Johnson, said six people were aboard the private aircraft, all believed to be members of the same family. He did not think there were any survivors, but said, "It's too early to tell. We hope to God someone survived. " Johnson said at a news conference that the plane crashed near Flatiron, where a wildfire apparently sparked by the crash was burning out of control.

The Americans returned Down Under and wound up on top in the Presidents Cup at Melbourne, Australia. Jim Furyk became the fourth player to win all five of his matches, and the bottom half of the lineup was strong enough to give the Americans their fourth straight win in this lopsided series. Tiger Woods won the clinching point Sunday for the second straight time. He played well all week without always getting rewarded with a point, but easily handled Aaron Baddeley , losing only one hole in a 4-and-3 victory.

A small private plane crashed into the water off Newport Beach on Sunday evening, killing at least three people, Newport Beach police said. "Whether or not we have more victims, I don't know," Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve Burdette said. The single-engine Beechcraft Musketeer was traveling from Mexico to Torrance when the crash occurred at about 5:45 p.m., according to Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Burdette said the pilot knew the plane was in trouble and had radioed that he wanted to try to land on the street near the Fashion Island shopping mall.

Isn't it a sad commentary on today's times when the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in New York is referred to as "just a plane crash." Robert Raimist Los Angeles

Kurt Budke turned Oklahoma State's women's basketball team into a winner and hoped he'd found the place where he'd coach until he retired. Miranda Serna , a former assistant coach at Long Beach State, had passed up opportunities to leave his side, staying loyal to the man whom she had helped to win a junior college national championship and then rebuild a big-time college program. Having succeeded together, Budke and Serna died together — perishing in a plane crash on a trip aimed at building their team's future.