Plane Crash

Two Americans were among 19 people killed Sunday in Nepal when a small plane carrying tourists to view Mt. Everest crashed as it tried to land in rain and dense fog, police said. The crash of the Beechcraft 1900D aircraft operated by Buddha Air went down in Kotdanda, about 10 miles from the capital, Katmandu, killing everyone aboard just minutes before its scheduled return to Tribhuvan International Airport. The $140 Buddha Air "Everest Experience" package flies tourists from Katmandu around the world's tallest mountain and back.

General Manager Dean Lombardi said the Kings have made their "best" offer to restricted free agent Drew Doughty and will consider reducing that amount each day the 21-year-old defenseman is unsigned. "We all know he's a lively kid. He loves to play. He brings life to your room, let alone what type of player he is," Lombardi said Friday after the remaining players underwent physical exams and fitness tests to open training camp. "That said, we have to move on here and focus on what we have, and we have a good team.

Brazilian prosecutors said Thursday that they are looking again into the death of boxer Arturo Gatti . Brazilian investigators had ruled Gatti's 2009 death a suicide, but a spokesman with the Pernambuco state prosecutor's office told the Associated Press the case is being analyzed again. That comes after private investigators in the U.S. presented evidence challenging whether the Italian-born, Canadian-raised boxer had killed himself. Spokesman Jaques Cerqueira said prosecutor Paula Ismail may ask for the U.S. investigators' findings, which indicated Gatti was killed.

A growing professional hockey league based in Russia is a point of pride for a country that loves the sport, able to attract stars from the prestigious North American league who find competitive salaries and a less-demanding schedule. On Wednesday, a premier Kontinental Hockey League team fell victim to one of Russia's chronic weaknesses: the quality and safety of air travel. A Yakovlev-42 charter jet carrying the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv team to its season opener crashed into the Volga River shortly after takeoff, killing 43 people: 35 players, coaches and team officials, plus eight crew members.

Ruslan Salei's hockey career led him away from Anaheim after nine seasons with the Ducks but his heart remained in Southern California. The Belarus native married a woman he met here and settled into life in Orange County with his family, which expanded in March with the birth of their third daughter, Ava. During summers or whenever he could steal time he reconnected with old teammates and friends, his vibrant personality making them smile over...

Notable athletes who have died in a plane crash: Oct. 18, 1925 -- Marvin Goodwin, Cincinnati Reds pitcher. Goodwin was one of the 17 pitchers allowed to continue throwing the spitball after it was outlawed in 1920. He died in Houston after crash-landing his plane in a training exercise with the Army Air Reserve. Believed to be the first pro athlete killed in a plane crash. May 4, 1949 -- 22 members of the Torino soccer club. The entire team was killed when its plane crashed into a mountain near Torino, Italy, near the end of league play in Serie A, which immediately canceled the rest of the season and declared Torino the champions.

A wildfire sparked by a deadly plane crash continued to grow Monday, destroying a dozen homes, spurring more evacuations and drawing fire crews from across the Southland. The Canyon fire started Sunday morning when a small plane crashed just south of Tehachapi, killing the two occupants. Burning through chaparral, grass and woodlands in sometimes steep terrain, it had blackened 8,644 acres by Monday night and was 10% contained. More than 1,200 state and county firefighters were battling the blaze with the help of six water-dropping helicopters and seven air tankers.

What possible impact could a young pop musician make if given just 18 months to carve out a career? Only the most dreamy-eyed optimist could think of placing 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, much less scoring induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and continuing to win fans among new generations of musicians and listeners more than a half-century later. Yet that's what Buddy Holly accomplished in his short time in the spotlight, from the day he first entered the national sales charts on Aug. 12, 1957, with "That'll Be the Day" until the plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959, that took his life at age 22 along with those of Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper (J.P.

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.

To those who fear flying: Your chances of dying in a hospital because of a medical mistake are much, much higher than going down in an airplane, the World Health Organization said Thursday. In a news briefing Thursday, WHO's newly appointed envoy for patient safety Liam Donaldson pointed out that the chance of dying in a plane crash is about 1 in 10 million, but some 1 in 10 patients encounter medical errors at the hospital. The chances of dying from an error are about 1 in 300, Reuters reports . Donaldson cited the oft-made comparison of the aviation and health-care industries in an effort to promote the WHO's surgical safety checklist for hospitals, but there are also several ways patients can protect themselves from errors, and in particular, from infection.