Aviation

New probe: Macedonian president was not assassinated

SARAJEVO -- A series of mistakes made by the crew, adverse weather conditions and poor maintenance of the aircraft caused the crash killed Boris Trajkovski.

These findings are contained in a new report presented this week.

Eight suspects were handed jail sentences, including senior managers and high-ranking civil aviation officials, while 12 others were acquitted Jan. 6 in a trial into the crash of a passenger plane in the southern province of Isparta in 2007 that killed 57 people.

A new report into the death in 2004 of former Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, conducted by a team of regional experts and released in Sarajevo on Tuesday, once again declared that the fatal plane crash was not the result of an assassination but an accident.

The tail of AirAsia Flight 8501 has been found in the Java Sea.

The director of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, Bambang Soelistyo, made clear Wednesday that the tail section of the plane, marked with part of the airline's logo, had been detected by sonar.

Soelistyo, as cited by CNN, informed that no black boxes had been found yet.

Indonesia said Jan. 7 it had found the tail of AirAsia Flight 8501, potentially marking a major step towards locating the plane's black boxes and helping shed light on what caused it to crash into the sea ten days ago.
      

A sun-powered plane was loaded onto a cargo carrier in Switzerland late Jan. 5 heading for the Middle East from where it will attempt a revolutionary round-the-world trip.
      

Indonesian search officials sent divers down to the bed of the Java Sea during a break in bad weather Jan. 6 in hopes of recovering more bodies from the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501.
      
Recovery teams, hampered by rough seas, have found fewer than 40 bodies since the plane crashed on December 28, carrying 162 people from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Turkish private airline company Atlasjet has said it has been unable to make its Iraq flights since Jan. 1 due to several reasons outside of the company, although its planes are ready to operate.

A civil aviation company belonging to Reza Zarrab, the Iranian-Azerbaijani businessman at the center of Turkey's suppressed corruption probe, has purchased a new plane worth $58 million.

Recovery teams expanded their search in the Java Sea on Jan. 5 as they raced to find bodies and wreckage from AirAsia Flight 8501, which authorities fear have drifted in rough weather that has hampered operations over the past week.