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After nearly five decades, guys like James Noce finally get to tell their stories about Area 51. Yes, that Area 51. The one that gets brought up when people talk about secret Air Force projects, crashed UFOs, alien bodies and, of course, conspiracies. The secrets, some of them, have been declassified. Noce, 72, and his fellow Area 51 veterans around the country now are free to talk about doing contract work for the CIA in the 1960s and '70s at the arid, isolated Southern Nevada government testing site. Their stories shed some light on a site shrouded in mystery; classified...

Rescue workers were scouring an artificial Moroccan lake Saturday in search of the head of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund -- the world's largest -- who went missing after his glider crashed. Morocco's official MAP news agency said that Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's glider went down in the lake Friday. The pilot of the aircraft was rescued in good condition, but authorities continued the search for Al Nahyan.

Two veteran pilots -- one a Bakersfield-based national champion in 2004 at a Reno air show -- were killed Wednesday in a World War II vintage airplane they've flown countless times before, according to friends at the crash scene in a canal and open farm field behind the Frito Lay plant. Al Goss, 68, the owner of the blue North American AT-6 (Advanced Training) "Texan" that was based in Shafter's Minter Field, and Steven Ballard, 54, a FedEx pilot from Anchorage, Alaska who worked on Goss's "Warlock team" at Minter Field, died at 11:34 a.m. when the AT-6 broke into...

The crash of Air France flight 447 from Rio to Paris last year is one of the most mysterious accidents in the history of aviation. After months of investigation, a clear picture has emerged of what went wrong. The reconstruction of the horrific final four minutes reveal continuing safety problems in civil aviation.

SAN AIR BASE, South Korea — An Air Force pilot escaped serious injury Thursday when he ejected before his F-16 fighter crashed while landing, authorities said. Base officials did not immediately identify the pilot, who was treated at the base hospital for minor cuts and released, said 1st Lt. Chris Hoyler, a spokesman for Osan’s 51st Fighter Wing. There were no other injuries or property damage reported in the crash, which occurred around 12:40 p.m., said. The fighter, an F-16C, had nearly touched down when the pilot ejected, Hoyler said. The pilot, assigned to the wing’s 36th Fighter Squadron, had...

[...] It was blustery and cold in Section 48 of Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday afternoon, and the wind shook the branches of the giant tree that now shelters the graves of 14 lost musicians of the U.S. Navy Band. But 50 years to the day after they, along with five fellow musicians, perished in a plane crash, their widows, children and comrades gathered with members of the current Navy Band to pay tribute at the spot where most of them rest: two lines of headstones, violins and clarinets, French horns and trumpets, as if still in formation. It was...

The crash of Air France flight 447 from Rio to Paris last year is one of the most mysterious accidents in the history of aviation. After months of investigation, a clear picture has emerged of what went wrong. The reconstruction of the horrific final four minutes reveal continuing safety problems in civil aviation. One tiny technical failure heralded the impending disaster. But the measurement error was so inconspicuous that the pilots in the cockpit of the Airbus A330 probably hardly noticed it. snip . . .

Did some searching after reading this article on the NYPost that mentioned Joseph Stack was in an alternative country band: "Ric Furley, who played with Stack in an alt-country band. "He had the airplane. He had a lot of nice musical equipment," said Pam Parker, who managed Stack's band, which was fronted by her husband, Billy Eli. While Stacks internet pages have been removed, his bandmate Ric Furley's myspace page is still up at this time. From his pic links we see these images of Joseph Stack:

After 9/11, cockpit doors were sealed, air marshals were added and airport searches became more aggressive, all to make sure an airliner could never again be used as a weapon. Yet little has been done to guard against attacks with smaller planes. That point was driven home with chilling force on Thursday when a Texas man with a grudge against the IRS crashed his single-engine plane into an office building in a fiery suicide attack. One person inside the building was also killed. "It's a big gap," said R. William Johnstone, an aviation security consultant and former staff member of...

FEBRUARY 18--The man suspected of intentionally crashing an airplane into a Texas office building today appears to have posted a lengthy online diatribe attacking the Internal Revenue Service and declaring that, "I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand." The six-page manifesto, which you'll find below, is dated "2/18/10" and is signed "Joe Stack (1956-2010)." Andrew Joseph Stack, 53, has been identified as the man who flew a small plane into an Austin building housing IRS offices. The statement was uploaded to the front page of a web site that was registered...

AUSTIN, Texas - A small plane crashed Thursday into a multistory office building in Austin, causing a fire and sending black smoke billowing from the seven-story structure, officials said. At least two people were injured and a third was unaccounted for. Law enforcement officials in Austin said the pilot may have intentionally crashed the plane. The aircraft hit the Echelon Building, which is next to a major highway in north Austin.

Today's tragic event in Austin provides us with a unique opportunity to examine how idiotic and self-serving the typical responses are made by the apologists for Islamic terrorism (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) when one of their co-religionists shoots up an Army base, bombs a building, blows up a pizza parlor full of teenagers, etc. So here are some of the comments that would have been made by the usual suspects if they were actually operating in standard terrorthink mode: 1) The IRS should ask itself, "Why do they hate us?" (submitted by Fareed Zakaria) 2) This was a desperate act...

Man flew plane into IRS Building after setting his house on fire in Texas.

News Alert, single engine plane plows into building in Austin, Texas. Building houses FBI.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the plane belonged to Doug Bourn, a senior electrical engineer for Tesla Motors. Although it's unclear whether or not he was on board at the time. As we reported first earlier, two other Tesla employees were in the plane at the time of the crash. Fox Business News reported earlier today Tesla CEO Elon Musk was not on board the plane, and that he's calling this the " worst day in Telsa's history." Later on, he issued a full statement, which can be read here at Wired . . .

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- The three people killed on board a small plane that went down in a Northern California neighborhood were all employees of Tesla Motors Inc. The twin-engine Cessna 310 crashed in a residential area of East Palo Alto on Wednesday morning after hitting some power lines. It had just taken off from Palo Alto Airport in heavy fog.

Evidence has reached debkafile's counter-terror sources that the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 which crashed after takeoff from Beirut on January 25, killing all 92 aboard, was blown up in mid-air. This was an al-Qaeda operation timed for one month to the day after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for Detroit. It is becoming clear that either a bomb was planted on the Ethiopian flight with a timer or a passenger acted as suicide bomber. Western security agencies in the Middle East involved in combating al Qaeda believe that its planners picked on the Ethiopian flight...

Evidence has reached debkafile's counter-terror sources that the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 which crashed after takeoff from Beirut on January 25, killing all 92 aboard, was blown up in mid-air. This was an al-Qaeda operation timed for one month to the day after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for Detroit. It is becoming clear that either a bomb was planted on the Ethiopian flight with a timer or a passenger acted as suicide bomber. Western security agencies in the Middle East involved in combating al Qaeda believe that its planners picked on the Ethiopian flight...

The pilot of a Nanchang CJ-6A Chinese trainer gives Mesa police an account of the events that led to him crashing the plane into a closed restroom facility at Red Mountain Park after trying to make an emergency landing in the park due to engine failure. Feb. 7, 2010.Ralph Freso, Tribune Crew personnel look over the damage to the CJ-6A trainer aircraft. Feb. 7, 2010. Ralph Freso, Tribune The right wing of the aircraft is sheared off by a light pole fixture in front of the restroom building. Feb. 7, 2010.Ralph Freso, Tribune Crew personnel begin to remove avionics...

The probable cause of the Colgan Air crash that killed 50 people near Buffalo, N.Y., a year ago was the captain's inappropriate response, characterized as "startle and confusion," after the stick shaker was activated, pulling back when he should have pushed forward, the NTSB reported in a hearing on Tuesday. Contributing factors included the crew's failure to monitor airspeed and their violation of the sterile-cockpit rule. In the daylong hearing, which ran past 7 p.m., the board split over the issue of whether or not fatigue was a contributing factor in the accident. Board chairman Deborah Hersman argued that several...