The first Air France A380 took off from Paris on Friday, bound for New York with 380 passengers who had bid a total $450,000 in a charity auction organized by the airline. Air France is the first European owner of Airbus’s biggest plane, which it will fly with 538 seats and is already flown by Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Australia’s Qantas. Air France will start full service with the plane on Nov. 23, with daily flights between Paris and New York.

Photo: Air France’s first A380 superjumbo is seen during flight testing at Chateauroux, France on November 9. (Photo Copyright Phil Noret)

A passenger plane overshot the runway Thursday, landing in hardened lava surrounding an airport in eastern Congo and injuring 20 people, a U.N. radio station reported. The MD-82 (registration 9Q-CAB, msn 49702), operated by CAA (Compagnie Africaine d’Aviation), was flying from Kinshasa to Goma. An official from the U.N. mission in Congo, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he does not have permission to speak with media, said there were 117 passengers aboard. They included the governor of North Kivu province, who was not hurt.

A 2002 volcanic eruption sent lava oozing onto Goma’s runway, truncating it from more than 2 miles (3 kilometers) to less than a mile (1.5 kilometers). Authorities have not removed all of the lava rock.

South Carolina offered Boeing $170 million in incentives and relief from sales taxes on things like fuel used in test flights.

Boeing also has long complained about the business climate in Washington and frequent strikes by production workers. At Boeing’s plant in North Charleston, workers last month voted against continued representation by the International Association of Machinists.

55 airlines have ordered 840 of the planes since the program was launched in 2003 — far more than any other Boeing plane at the same stage of development.

There was no communication with the airplane for more than an hour as it approached the airport, the board said. An FAA spokesman said the agency was tracking the airplane on radar, so it knew the aircraft’s position during the period without radio contact.

The aircraft flew over its intended destination – Minneapolis-St. Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport – and continued northeast for approximately 150 miles over the next 16 minutes. The airport’s controllers then re-established communication with crew members, who said they had become distracted, the safety board said. “The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness,” the board said in a news release.

A board spokesman said the agency is examining all possible explanations for the mishap, including whether the pilots may have fallen asleep.

Six people have been killed after a cargo plane crashed on takeoff from Sharjah Airport. The Sudanese registered plane, a Boeing 707 operated by Sudan Airways on lease from Azza Air, veered sharply to the right after take-off and flipped before crashing. Boeing 707-320 ST-AKW (pictured above) is reported to be the aircraft involved.

The US Airways case involved the greatest number of planes – eight. The FAA alleges US Airways operated the eight aircraft on a total of 1,647 flights last fall and winter while the planes were in a potentially unsafe condition.

The FAA said it issued an AD requiring airlines to inspect Airbus A320 aircraft for possible cracking of a landing gear part. But US Airways operated two Airbus A320s on a total of 43 flights without complying with the ordered inspection. The airline also operated an Embraer 190 aircraft on 19 flights without performing an inspection to prevent a cargo door from opening during flight, according to the FAA. The remaining five cases involve the airline’s failure to follow its own maintenance procedures, the FAA said.

The United Airlines case involves one aircraft, a Boeing 737. According to the FAA and the airline, a pilot noticed a low fuel pressure indication while on a flight from Denver, Colorado, on April 28, 2008. The pilot shut down an engine and returned to the Denver airport. United mechanics who inspected the engine found that two shop towels had been used to cover openings in the oil sump area, instead of protective caps.

Four people were injured, two critically, in the crash of a South African Airlink Jetstream 41 turboprop Thursday. The aircraft had just departed Durban on a positioning flight to Pietermaritzburg when the crew declared an emergency due to an engine failure. The airplane crashed near a school perimeter shortly after. Both pilots were injured critically, and a flight attendant suffered serious injuries. An employee working on the school’s grounds was also slightly injured. There were no passengers aboard.

With households and companies trying to preserve cash amid the global economic slowdown, Airbus expects airline passenger traffic to contract 2% this year but to expand 4.6% in 2010. Longer term, airline passenger traffic will remain resilient to the cyclical effects of the airline sector and should grow at an average annual rate of 4.7% through 2029, requiring 24,100 new aircraft worth $2.9 trillion, Airbus said. That figure includes 10,000 jets to replace aging aircraft. Cargo traffic, currently depressed due to weak economic activity, is expected to grow by 5.2% annually on average over the forecast period, Airbus said. This will require 3,440 additional freighters, of which 850 will be new aircraft, with the remainder conversions from passenger jets.

In its 2008 long-term market outlook, Airbus had projected average annual passenger traffic growth of 4.9% and cargo traffic rising by 5.8% over 20 years.

Southwest also will suspend service between Albuquerque (ABQ) and Portland (PDX); and between Manchester (MHT) and Phoenix (PHX) with flights resuming in February. Flights between Kansas City (MCI) and Seattle (SEA) will stop in January and resume in May, according to the airline. Conversely, Southwest will add nonstop service from St. Louis (STL) to Boston (BOS) and Minneapolis (MSP) in January.

Boeing Chief Financial Officer James Bell also confirmed that the first three 787 airframes will not be sold, and will be written off after taking part in initial flight testing.