The manager of Kathmandu Airport in Nepal said Wednesday that all 227 people aboard a Turkish Airlines A330 are safe after the aircraft "somehow missed the runway and ended up in the grassland area." Birenda Prasad Shrestha told AFP that the plane was on its second attempt to land at the airport.

The Weekender has some aviation history tours in store on SocialFlight's calendar. See the historic Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona, and its legacy aircraft at the airport's annual open house Saturday. Learn about the airport's origins as a World War II pilot training base at the on-site museum, which will host a Southwest Military Transport Show.

FreeFlight Systems is expanding its line of radar altimeters for rotorcraft, announcing on Wednesday the FRA-5500 system for transport-category helicopters. The system is an updated version of its RA-4000 series of radar altimeters, certified for Part 29 rotorcraft to comply with equipment mandates related to a 2014 FAA rule that targets helicopter air ambulance operations.

The case of the storied 1959 Beech Bonanza crash that killed Buddy Holly, two fellow singers and the pilot could reopen at the request of a New England man who has his own theories about what happened on that February night. L. J. Coon, who describes himself as a retired pilot and aircraft dispatcher among other aviation credits, has petitioned the NTSB to reopen the case based on his research indicating that something other than pilot inexperience and disorientation in IMC caused the crash.

Bell Helicopter introduced its new 407GXP at Heli-Expo, in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday. The new aircraft is an upgrade of the 407GX, with a payload increase of 50 pounds, a new fuel-efficient M250 Rolls-Royce engine with FADEC, and new avionics features that the company says will lessen pilot workload. The company also announced at the Expo that it has agreed to deliver 200 of the new helicopters, configured for emergency medical services, to Air Methods Corporation; the order is one of the largest commercial sales in Bell Helicopter's history.

The FAA's air traffic control system is at "increased and unnecessary risk" from cyber-attacks and other threats, according to a government report released this week. The analysis by the Government Accountability Office found weaknesses in controlling access to computer systems, encrypting sensitive data, and implementing security programs.

Airbus Helicopters presented its clean-sheet medium-class rotorcraft design, the H160, at Heli-Expo, in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday. The new design features two firsts -- the largest-ever shrouded tail rotor, which is double-canted at 12-degree angles to enhance anti-torque control efficiency, and an all-new "biplane stabilizer" with a staggered placement of two dual-level, interconnected stabilizer surfaces.

The sixth annual "Fly It Forward Challenge" is underway this week, calling on pilots around the world to take a non-pilot woman or girl on a short flight to introduce her to general aviation. "Salute the girls and women in your life that inspired you and/or supported you," say the event organizers at the Institute for Women of Aviation Worldwide.

It appears that FlightPro, the well-regarded Android flight planner and chart app, will not be back anytime soon, thanks to increasingly intense legal wrangling among the shareholders and entities involved. FlightPro missed the Feb. 5 update for its subscribers and at least some of those involved were hopeful the service could be restored.

The first civilian tiltrotor aircraft could be available for sale in 2017 and it will be built in Philadelphia. Agusta Westland announced Tuesday the AW609 will be certified in the U.S. and go into production at facilities it already operates in Philadelphia.

Diamond Aircraft has certified the Continental Diesel CD-155 engine for retrofit in its DA42 fleet, the company said on Monday. The new option is now available in Europe and Canada, with FAA approval still pending. "Including the CD-155 to the type certificate adds a nice upgrade option for current DA42 TDI owners and operators," said Ken Suda, president of Technify Motors, the German subsidiary of Continental Motors Group.

About 20 years ago, I was flying on a cloudy Saturday morning southwest of Austin, Texas. I was monitoring Austin approach when I heard a conversation from a plane inbound to Austin asking if they were in radar contact. ... Approach asked if they were the plane ten miles west of Comfort, Texas on a heading of XXX. ... The voice replied, "I don't think so. The town I see is too close for Comfort." -- Bryan D. Miller

It was almost a year ago, on March 8, 2014, that flight MH370 vanished from radar en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. As the anniversary approaches, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia are preparing to try out a new way to track airplanes that would use current technology but would enable the system to track a jet's position every 15 minutes, instead of the current norm of 30 to 40 minutes. Also, Malaysian officials have said they will release an interim statement detailing the progress of their investigation into the flight's disappearance sometime in the next week, but according to CNN, experts don't expect the report will contain any new information.

An Australian skydiver was likely saved by a fellow jumper who pulled his ripcord for him after he suffered an apparent seizure during freefall. In dramatic (really) video from the helmet cam of his instructor Sheldon McFarlane, a student skydiver identified only as Christopher at first seemed fine as he fell from 12,000 feet over Pinjarra.

A California jury has awarded $13,360,000 to the family of a Napa doctor who died in the crash of his Cessna 182 in 2009, citing negligence and false representation on the part of the mechanic who had signed out the aircraft's annual inspection days before the crash. The jury found that mechanic Faride Khalaf had earlier made improper repairs to the pilot seat track mechanism and lied about it to Dr. Kenneth Gottlieb, who was 67 at the time of his death.