A plane carrying mostly tourists crashed in Kenya's Masai Mara national park Wednesday, according to news reports, killing up to four people.

Two German tourists and two Kenyan pilots died, local police chief Peterson Maelo told Reuters.

An AFP report said there were four American survivors, but this could not be confirmed.

Maelo said one of the dead tourists, an elderly woman, died first while the other, a middle-aged man, succumbed to his injuries later.

The aircraft was carrying between 12 and 14 people, the BBC reported.

Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reported that six passengers on board the light aircraft, belonging to Mombasa Air, were seriously injured as the pilots prepared to land at Ngerede Airstrip near the Mara Safari Club.

It quoted airstrip manager Daniel Jivai saying the plan wobbled before it came down at around 12:17 p.m. local time (4:17 a.m. ET).

“When we saw it coming down, there was a swift response from hotel personnel, tourists, and other visitors around the place and we managed to put off a small fire on one of the engines," said Jivai.

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Updated at 11 a.m. ET: Bad weather was blamed for the crash of a chartered helicopter Sunday in southern Sudan, which killed all 32 people aboard, including several prominent government and political leaders.

The helicopter was carrying a government delegation to South Kordofan state for prayers on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when it crashed into Hajar al-Nar, a mountain near the town of Talodi, said the official Sudanese news agency, SUNA. 

SUNA reported that the victims included Ghazi al-Saddiq, the minister of Guidance and Endowments — the equivalent of the religion ministry — Maki Ali Balayli, chairman of Sudan's Peace and Justice Party, and several other government, security and media figures. 

Initial reports had speculated that the Sudan People's Liberation Movement North, the main rebel group in the violent region, might have attacked the helicopter, but rebels denied any involvement, and the government later said the crash was "due to bad weather."

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PARIS -- An emergency layover in Syria's war-torn capital was bad enough. Then passengers on Air France Flight 562 were asked to open their wallets to check if they had enough cash to pay for more fuel. 

The plane, heading from Paris to Lebanon's capital, diverted amid clashes near the Beirut airport on Wednesday. Low on fuel, it instead landed in Damascus, the capital of neighboring Syria, where a civil war is raging.

An Air France spokesman explained Friday that the crew inquired about passenger cash only as a "precautionary measure" because of the "very unusual circumstances."

 Sanctions against Syria complicated payment for extra fuel. 

He said Air France found a way to pay for the fill-up without tapping customer pockets — and apologized for the inconvenience. 

The plane landed safely in Beirut.

Agents of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration will be stationed at British airports during the Summer Olympic Games, British media reported Tuesday — the latest indication that authorities are scrambling to shore up security before the games open in 11 days.

M. Alex Johnson is a breaking news and projects reporter for NBCNews.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Sky News, citing security sources, reported that the agents would begin arriving at Heathrow and other major UK airports next week.

Olympic organizers have come under withering criticism after G4S, the private contractor coordinating security preparations, said last week that it might not be able to supply enough guards. In response, the British military was asked to provide 3,500 extra personnel last week, government sources told NBC News.

"I knew it was going to happen," Sarah Hubble, a former G4S employee, told NBC News. "When I was there, they were struggling and didn't have enough staff."

Errol Southers, who withdrew from consideration to be President Barack Obama's first TSA director in 2010 in a political struggle over unionization of TSA workers, said the Olympics would likely draw would-be terrorists like flies to honey.

"I think that, given the world stage as it is, it certainly sets an environment that is perfect," Southers said in an interview with NBC Los Angeles.

"We have what we call adaptive adversaries," said Southers, assistant chief of homeland security for the Los Angeles airport police. "They'll be looking for patterns, for routines — vulnerabilities and gaps in the security system."

Noting the "extraordinary number of VIPs" who will be at the games, Southers said, "It is a perfect stage for a terror attack if that's your agenda."

Sky News reported that TSA agents were drafted primarily to assist U.S. carriers, but it said the agents would also be working with British airlines.

The agents will not be allowed beyond boarding gates or onto British aircraft, it said.

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Claude Paris / AP

Police Officers walk near the plane that crashed on landing at Le Castellet airport, near Toulon, southern France, Friday, July, 13, 2012. Three US citizens died in the accident.

Three Americans were killed Friday when a private jet crashed and burst into flames at the end of a runway in the south of France, police officials told NBC News.

The Americans formed the plane crew and no other passengers were on board, the Police Prefecture of Var told NBC.

The aircraft, a Mystere-Falcon 20, crashed at Castellet airport, between Marseille and Toulon, moments after the pilot signaled a problem at around 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EST), authorities said. The jet had departed from Nice, officials said.

The reason for the crash remained unclear.

French authorities have not released the identities of those killed in the accident, except to say that the 60-year-old pilot, 24-year-old co-pilot and 30-year-old flight attendant all died in the crash.

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Sunday Alamba / AP

Onlookers gather at the site of a plane crash Sunday in Lagos, Nigeria,

Updated at 5:19 p.m. ET: Nigerian authorities said Sunday that as many as 153 people were aboard a Dana Airlines passenger jet that crashed into a two-story building in Lagos, the country's largest city. "I don't believe there are any survivors," said Harold Denuren, Nigeria's director of aviation.

Authorities said that in addition to the passengers and crew aboard the plane, an unknown number of people may also have been killed or hurt on the ground. President Goodluck Jonathan canceled all appointments for Monday and declared three days of official mourning for the victims.

The plane was heading from Abuja, the capital, to Lagos when it went down about 3:30 p.m. local time (10:30 a.m. ET), authorities said. It crashed into a building and broke into two before burning up, witnesses said.

Local reports indicated that at least three buildings were severely damaged, one of them a church. Nigerian Eye reported from the scene that bodies could be seen burning on the ground, while pictures on the Internet showed large plumes of smoke across the city.

Police said they had recovered the plane's voice recorder. Al Jazeera reported from Abuja that witnesses said the the plane may have hit a power line in clear and sunny weather.

Razak Fadipe, acting head of the Lagos fire service, told The Daily Times of Nigeria that no one had been rescued alive as of 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. ET) but that people were likely to be trapped in the one of the buildings.

Poor road access and a crowd of hundreds of people were complicating rescue efforts, in some cases blocking fire crews from reaching the scene.

"Our job is crucial to the rescue efforts," Fadipe said. "Without us doing our job, other rescue teams cannot gain access to even rescue any survivors that may be trapped in the building."

The Daily Times quoted a senior official of Dana Airlines, whom it didn't identify, as saying the plane had been undergoing repairs for several weeks.

"The station manager protested its use, but the Indian management insisted it should fly," the official said, according to The Daily Times.

The crash came after 10 other people were killed when a Boeing 727 cargo plane flying from Lagos crashed Saturday in Accra, the capital of Ghana, and hit a bus, the Sunday Tribune of Nigeria reported.

The crew of four survived, authorities said.

A senior military officer told the Sunday Tribune that the bus was severely damaged, while the plane's wings and tail broke off from its body.

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Chunks of metal the size of a cellphone fell onto cars in a neighborhood near Toronto airport Monday, around the same time as an Air Canada Boeing 777 made an emergency landing, CBC reported.

The airliner, bound for Japan, suffered a failure in one of its engines shortly after takeoff from Pearson International Airport.

The plane dumped fuel before returning to Pearson, landing normally using one engine. No injuries were reported.

The aircraft is thought to be fitted with GE90 engines. (GE is part-owner of NBC Universal, which is joint parent company of msnbc.com).

At least four vehicles were hit by pieces of metal, according to Peel regional police Constable George Tudos, but there was no immediate confirmation the debris was from the plane.

“We believe it is, but it's not up to us — we're not the investigating body,” Tudos told CBC.

"As it [the plane] was traveling away from Pearson we had other complaints stating that debris, consisting of metal objects, was falling from the sky," he said.

On Twitter, residents near the intersection of Derry and Kennedy Roads in Mississauga were posting photos of a vehicle’s rear windshield that was apparently smashed by falling material from the plane, Canada's National Post reported.

CBC said there were 318 passengers and 16 crew aboard Flight AC001, which took off from Pearson at 2:10 p.m. ET and returned to make its emergency landing at 3:53 p.m. ET.

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the plane's crew requested the emergency landing shortly after takeoff.

A businessman who was on board the plane tweeted that passengers were told it was an engine overheating.

"Seems my plane fell apart! Luckily we managed to land it," Jason Flick tweeted, adding that the plane spent 20 minutes dropping fuel.

The passengers were given hotel accommodation overnight and were expected to resume their journey Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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SEOUL, South Korea -- More than 250 flights in and out of South Korea have experienced GPS signal jamming since the weekend, with North Korea high on the list of suspects, officials said Wednesday.

Similar jamming in the past was traced to the reclusive North, which last month breached U.S. Security Council resolutions with a failed long-range rocket launch and was blamed for cyber attacks on South Korean financial institutions last year.

Slideshow: North Korea continues celebrations

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Pyongyang refuses to let failed rocket launch dampen tone of festivities.

Launch slideshow

None of the flights, including 11 operated by foreign airlines, was in danger, the Transport Ministry said, with automatic switching of navigation to alternative systems.

North Korea threatens to reduce South Korea's government 'to ashes'

"As it happened at the time of (military) drills in 2010 and 2011, we suspect North Korea was engaged in jamming signals," a government official said.

Lee Kyung-woo, of the Korea Communications Commission, told NBC News that backup electronic systems maintained safety and that it and other relevant government agencies would continue to monitor the situation. 

A Defense Ministry spokesman told NBC News that he could not confirm or mention what type of measures were to be taken against the North's suspected jamming.  

North Korea has stepped up its rhetoric against the South in recent weeks, hurling personal insults at South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and threatening to reduce the capital Seoul to ashes.

The North is expected to conduct a third nuclear test soon, possibly using a uranium device that would infuriate neighboring countries and the United States, which have been involved in talks to try to rein in its nuclear weapons program.

The North's ability to wage cyber war from North Korea is seen by the South, one of the world's most wired countries, as increasingly sophisticated.

News reports said North Korea operates vehicle-mounted jamming devices that can disrupt signals up to 60 miles away and is developing systems with further reach.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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