Six-man crew exits 105-day isolation experiment imitating flight to Mars

September 11th, 2009 Flight 93 victims remembered in San FranciscoSAN FRANCISCO — About a dozen Harley-Davidson motorcycles ridden by relatives and friends of United Flight 93 passengers and crew members roared into San Francisco International Airport, ending an eight-day journey that mirrored the plane's intended path. Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field Sept.

September 9th, 2009 Passengers freed from hijacked plane in MexicoMEXICO CITY — Passengers have been freed from a hijacked airplane in Mexico City, but the crew remains aboard. Passenger Adriana Romero told the Televisa network that all passengers have been released unharmed from the Cancun-to-Mexico City flight, Aeromexico Flight 576, but the crew is still being held hostage.

August 10th, 2009 47 spend 'nightmare' 9 hours in grounded planeROCHESTER, Minn. —Passengers whose flight from Houston to Minneapolis was diverted because of storms had to spend nine hours on the cramped plane on an airport taxiway while a new crew was flown in.

July 30th, 2009 Bird strike forces emergency landing in St. LouisST. LOUIS — An American Airlines flight made an emergency landing in St.

July 24th, 2009 Military air crew was unaware C-5 had lost wheelsCHICOPEE, Mass. — The military says the crew of a huge C-5 transport plane did not realize that two wheels had fallen off during a training flight in western Massachusetts until after they were alerted by an air traffic controller.

July 14th, 2009 6 men endure Mars flight simulation experimentMOSCOW — Russian engineers broke a red wax seal and six men emerged from a metal hatch after 105 days of isolation in a mock spacecraft, still smiling after testing the stresses that space travelers may face on the journey to Mars. Sergei Ryazansky, the captain of the six-man crew, told reporters at a Moscow research institute near the Kremlin on Tuesday that the most difficult thing was knowing that instead of making the 172-million mile (276-million kilometer) journey they were locked in a windowless module of metal canisters the size of railway cars.

June 3rd, 2009 Captain of Air France Flight 447 was son of pilotPARIS — Marc Dubois grew up to be a pilot, just like his dad. The younger Dubois was last heard from Sunday night, when the Air France Flight 447 he was captaining encountered fierce thunderstorms over the mid-Atlantic and plunged into the ocean with 228 people on board.

May 27th, 2009 MOSCOW - A Russian Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) was launched Wednesday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the mission control said. "The craft is due to dock with the ISS May 29," a spokesperson said.

April 30th, 2009 Plane lands safe in Seattle after engine problemSEATAC, Wash. — A Boeing 777 has landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after its crew reported a malfunction in one of its two engines.

April 25th, 2009 15 injured when jet over Pacific hits turbulenceHONOLULU — Fifteen people aboard an Air Canada flight suffered minor injuries when it encountered turbulence about one hour northeast of Honolulu. The airline says flight AC34 from Sydney to Vancouver, British Columbia, diverted to Honolulu and landed early Friday morning.

March 25th, 2009 SOFIA - A 13-year-old boy in Bulgaria died while imitating a TV reality show, a media report said. The police received a message around 7.30 p.m.

March 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A group of scientists who worked on the Phoenix Mars lander last year say they have found evidence of liquid salt water on the red planet. An analysis of photographs from the lander that explored Mars for six months shows drops of what could be salty, liquid water on the legs of the lander.

February 27th, 2009 MOSCOW - Six people, who will take part in a 105-day experiment to simulate a flight to Mars, have been selected by scientists at the Moscow-based Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems. Four Russians - astronauts Oleg Artemyev, Sergei Ryazansky, Alexei Baranov, a doctor, and sports physiologist Alexei Shpakov - and two members of the European Space Agency, France's Cyrille Fournier, a civilian pilot, and Germany's Oliver Knickel, a mechanical engineer, will take part in the experiment.

February 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Jitender Kumar Mohla was arrested Monday and sent to jail for 14 days, a day after his allegedly aggressive behaviour on board an Indigo flight from Goa to Delhi caused a mid-air scare and sent security agencies into a tizzy at the airport here. Delhi Police arrested Mohla, a resident of Dwarka sub-city here, under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 336 (endangering life or personal safety of others) and 506 (criminal intimidation) as well as under the Civil Aviation Act.

January 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of NASA scientists has found proof of the existence of methane gas on Mars, raising questions about the possibility of life on the red planet, the US space agency said Thursday. In an article published in the journal Science, researchers said they found seasonal variations in methane in the planet's atmosphere that could be evidence of geological or biological processes.