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Two historic military planes collided and crashed to the ground Saturday during a Dallas air show, federal officials said, sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.

It was unclear how many people were on board the aircraft or if anyone on the ground was hurt.

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Anthony Montoya, who witnessed the crash, said everybody was in "complete shock".

"I just stood there," he said.

"I was in complete shock and disbelief," said Montoya, 27, who attended the air show with a friend. "Everybody around was gasping. Everybody was bursting into tears. Everybody was in shock."

Officials would not say how many people were on board the planes, but Hank Coates, president of the company that put on the airshow, said one of the planes, a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, typically has a crew of four to five people.

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The other, a P-63 Kingcobra fighter plane, has a single pilot.

No paying customers were on the aircraft, said Coates, of Commemorative Air Force, which also owned the planes. Their aircraft are flown by highly trained volunteers, often retired pilots, he said.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said the National Transportation Safety Board had taken control of the crash scene with local police and fire providing support.

"The videos are heartbreaking," Johnson said on Twitter.

The planes collided and crashed around 1.20pm, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. The collision occurred during the Commemorative Air Force Wings Over Dallas show.

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Victoria Yeager, the widow of famed Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager and herself a pilot, was also at the show. She didn't see the collision, but did see the burning wreckage.

"It was pulverized," said Yeager, 64, who lives in Fort Worth.

"We were just hoping they had all gotten out, but we knew they didn't," she said of those on board.

The B-17, an immense four-engine bomber, was a cornerstone of US air power during World War II and is one of the most celebrated warplanes in US history.

The Kingcobra, a US fighter plane, was used mostly by Soviet forces during the war. Most B-17s were scrapped at the end of World War II and only a handful remain today, largely featured at museums and air shows, according to Boeing.

Several videos posted on social media showed the fighter plane appearing to fly into the bomber, causing them to quickly crash to the ground and setting off a large ball of fire and smoke.

"It was really horrific to see," Aubrey Anne Young, 37, of Leander Texas, who saw the crash.

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Her children were inside the hangar with their father when it occurred.

"I'm still trying to make sense of it."

A woman next to Young can be heard crying and screaming hysterically on a video that Young uploaded to her Facebook page.

Air show safety – particularly with older military aircraft – has been a concern for years.

In 2011, 11 people were killed in Reno, Nevada, when a P-51 Mustang crashed into spectators.

In 2019, a bomber crashed in Hartford, Connecticut, killing seven people. The NTSB said then that it had investigated 21 accidents since 1982 involving World War II-era bombers, resulting in 23 deaths.

Wings Over Dallas bills itself as "America's Premier World War II Airshow," according to a website advertising the event.

The show was scheduled for November 11-13, Veterans Day weekend, and guests were to see more than 40 World War II-era aircraft.

Its Saturday afternoon schedule of flying demonstrations included the "bomber parade" and "fighter escorts" that featured the B-17 and P-63.

Videos of previous Wings Over Dallas events depict vintage warplanes flying low, sometimes in close formation, on simulated strafing or bombing runs. The videos also show the planes performing aerobatic stunts.

The FAA was also launching an investigation, officials said.

A lyrebird at a Sydney zoo has learnt a new trick after a recent emergency at the attraction.

The lyrebird was filmed mimicking a siren and evacuation warning at Taronga Zoo.

It comes less than two weeks after a pride of lions escaped from their enclosure at the zoo, triggering an evacuation. 

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Watch the full video above.

A car suspected to be have been stolen has hit a tree and burst into flames after a police pursuit in Sydney's north.

Police officers smashed the windows to get the six people in the vehicle out after the crash in Cammeray.

Three of them were seriously injured and were rushed to hospital.

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Emergency crews remained on the scene.

More to come.

A passenger on a bus which flipped into a ditch north of Sydney said he felt like it had gone into a pothole before crashing, as police investigate if driver tiredness was behind the accident.

Samuel Hayward-Powell was among seven people, including the driver, on a bus driving along Wommara Place in Belmont North, Lake Macquarie, just after 3.45am.

The vehicle ploughed into a concrete barrier and two men on board were flung from the bus.

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They were trapped underneath as the bus rolled on it's side, until they were freed by paramedics.

Hayward-Powell said he heard a series of noises before the crash, in what he said was a "traumatic experience".

"Just, boom, boom, boom and then the next thing I know the bus is on its side. There's glass everywhere," Hawyard-Powell said.

"It took a second to grasp what actually just happened."

Locals who heard the crash raced to help.

Leyton Wheatley said they managed to get people out by ripping open part of the roof.

"As we got closer we realised it was a bus and there were people screaming," he said.

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Five people on the bus were injured and taken to hospital, including one man who was airlifted with spinal injuries.

The area remains a crime scene as specialists from the Crash Investigation Unit try to determine what happened, police said.

"One of the things we will be investigating is whether or not fatigue played any role," Chief Inspector Peter Vromans said.

The bus driver, a 61-year-old man, was also taken to hospital where he underwent mandatory testing.

A crane was brought in to move the bus.

There's a new and promising sign that the severely strained relationship between Australia and China is getting back on track.

Anthony Albanese met the Chinese Premier on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Cambodia.

Albanese spoke with Premier Li Keqiang, the second most powerful man in the country, in what is the most significant meeting between Australia and China for three years.

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The pair spoke for two minutes through interpreters after arriving at the gala dinner in Phnom Penh.

Albanese is still hopeful for a meeting with China's president Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit on Monday.

The G20 summit brings together leaders from the world's largest economies, and is being held in Bali, Indonesia.

The summit's official priorities of health, sustainable energy and digital transformation are likely to be overshadowed by fears of a sputtering global economy and geopolitical tensions centred on the war in Ukraine.

The meeting sparked hope for other politicians of a softening of the rising tensions between the two countries.

"I hope he can meet with the Chinese president. That would be a good thing for our nation," Nationals leader David Littleproud, said.

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Albanese will also meet US president Joe Biden at the summit during formal sideline bilateral talks.

Biden will have a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.

The ASEAN summit is an opportunity for members of the 10-country bloc and others to discuss peace plans and solutions to rising tensions in the south-east Asia region.

US president pledges to work with south east Asian nations

One of those discussions included when Biden pledged the US would work with a strategically vital coalition of southeast Asian nations, telling leaders that "we're going to build a better future that we all want to see" in the region where US rival China is also working to expand its influence.

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"I look forward to continuing our work together with ASEAN and with each one of you to deepen peace and prosperity throughout the region to resolve challenges from the South China Sea to Myanmar and to find innovative solutions to shared challenges," Biden said.

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The US is at odds with China over a host of issues, including human rights, technology and the future of the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

Biden said he plans to talk with Xi about topics including Taiwan, trade policies and Beijing's relationship with Russia.

"What I want to do … is lay out what each of our red lines are," Biden said last week.

'Russia should – must – stop playing hunger games with world'

Despite rising tensions between China and the rest of the world, the war between Russia and Ukraine rages on – becoming a focal point for peace talks at the summits.

Cambodian leader Hun Sen called for unity, telling a gathering including Russia, China and the United States that current global tensions have been taking a toll on everyone.

The prime minister, whose country holds the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said at the opening of the East Asia Summit that it was in the world's common interest to cooperate to solve differences peacefully.

The comments come as regional tensions remain high between the United States and China over Taiwan and Beijing's growing regional aspirations, and while the Russia invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global supply chains, causing rising energy and food prices far beyond Europe.

Without singling out any nation by name, Hun Sen said he hoped leaders would embrace a "spirit of togetherness in upholding open and inclusive multilateralism, pragmatism and mutual respect in addressing the existential and strategic challenges we all face."

"Many current challenges and tensions have been hindering our past hard-earned efforts to promote sustainable development and causing greater hardship to people's lives," he said as he opened the meeting, which is running in parallel to the ASEAN group's main summit.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba asked yesterday for more political and material support from nations at the ASEAN summit to aid his country's fight against Russia.

He also accused Moscow of playing "hunger games" with the world by holding up shipments of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products.

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Kuleba said that with a deal allowing Ukraine to export grain and fertiliser due to expire November 19, the world needed to pressure Russia not to object to its extension, saying Ukrainian products were critical in Africa and Asia.

Not only does Russia have "to remain part of the initiative, it also has to instruct its inspectors to act in good faith and to avoid any measures, any steps, that create obstacles and hinder the export of Ukrainian agricultural goods to the global market," he said.

Kuleba's country was invited to the ASEAN summit for the first time this year and signed a peace accord with the group of nations with a combined population of nearly 700 million people.

Faces from across the world are on display at Australia's Head On photo festival held in Sydney, which features works by more than 500 photographers across 107 exhibitions.

When a polar satellite designed to improve weather forecasting launched early Thursday, an experimental heat shield tagged along. It could land humans on Mars.

The two separate missions both launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Lompoc, California.

Both missions were originally set to lift off on November 1, but a faulty battery on the rocket's upper stage caused a delay. Engineers exchanged and retested the battery to set the stage for the new launch date.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA have been launching weather satellites since 1960. The Joint Polar Satellite System-2, or JPSS-2, will be the third satellite within a fleet of NOAA's latest generation of polar-orbiting environmental satellites.

The orbiter will collect data that can help scientists predict and prepare for extreme weather events like hurricanes, snowstorms and floods.

The satellite will be able to monitor wildfires and volcanoes, measure the ocean and atmosphere, and detect dust and smoke in the air. It will also monitor the ozone and atmospheric temperature, providing more insight into the climate crisis.

Once in orbit and looping around the planet from the North Pole to the South Pole, the satellite will be renamed NOAA-21. The satellite will observe every spot on Earth at least twice a day, according to NOAA. And when you check the weather on your phone, it will be fed by data captured by the satellite.

The JPSS-2 will join two other satellites, the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership and NOAA-20, that comprise the Joint Polar Satellite System.

"JPSS provides more than twice daily observations over the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean that helps meteorologists monitor weather systems where we do not have the benefit of weather balloons, and only limited buoys, compared to the dense weather station network over land," Jordan Gerth, meteorologist and satellite scientist at NOAA's National Weather Service, said before the launch.

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Landing humans on Mars

A secondary payload hitching a ride on the rocket is NASA's Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator technology demonstration, or LOFTID.

The mission is designed to test the inflatable heat shield technology needed to land crewed missions on Mars and larger robotic missions on Venus or Saturn's moon Titan. Something like LOFTID could also be used when returning hefty payloads to Earth.

Sending robotic explorers or humans to other worlds that have an atmosphere can be challenging because the current aeroshells, or heat shields, in use depend on the size of a rocket's shroud.

But an inflatable aeroshell could circumnavigate that dependency – and open up sending heavier missions to different planets.

When a spacecraft enters the atmosphere of a planet, it's hit with aerodynamic forces, which help slow it down.

On Mars, where the atmosphere is just 1 per cent the density of Earth's atmosphere, extra help is needed to create the drag necessary to slow and safely land a spacecraft.

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That's why NASA engineers think a large deployable aeroshell like LOFTID, which inflates and is protected by a flexible heat shield, could put on the brakes while travelling down through the Martian atmosphere.

The aeroshell is designed to create more drag in the upper atmosphere to help the spacecraft slow down sooner, which also prevents some of the super-intense heating. The LOFTID demonstration is about 6 metres across.

About 90 minutes after liftoff, LOFTID peeled away from the polar satellite and inflated.

Then, the aeroshell separated from the upper stage and reentered the atmosphere from low-Earth orbit so researchers could assess whether the heat shield is effective in slowing it down and surviving.

Sensors aboard LOFTID were set to record the heat shield's experience during its harrowing descent. Six cameras will capture 360-degree video of LOFTID's experiment, said Joe Del Corso, LOFTID project manager at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, before the launch.

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Upon reentry, LOFTID faced temperatures that reached 1650 degrees Celcius and hit speeds of nearly 30,000 kilometres per hour – the ultimate test for the materials used to construct the inflatable structure, which includes a woven ceramic fabric called silicon carbide.

Officials at NASA said LOFTID's heat shield and backup data recorder splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles off the coast of Hawaii, where a team on a boat was stationed to recover the items.

Currently, NASA can land one metric ton on the Martian surface, like the car-size Perseverance rover. But something like LOFTID could land between 20 to 40 metric tons on Mars, Del Corso said.

The results of Thursday's demonstration could determine the entry, descent and landing technology that one day delivers human crews to the surface of Mars.

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