We sometimes use the present tense to describe things in the very recent past.... particularly with the news as the news is considered to be "current information," even if the death must (by definition) have been in the past.

A name for this is "the historical present." In a headline, it might just be used to keep the length of the headline as short as possible; headlines often bend the rules of grammar. It isn't needed. It's common in headlines but isn't always used. It isn't better as English. The first line of the story is "Yu Xu, China's first female J-10 jet pilot, was killed during an aerobatic training session on Saturday." That sentence is a perfectly good way to say it; better because it gives more information. It's too long for a headline. The headline writer could also have written "China's first female J-10 pilot killed in training accident" or "Training death of China's first female J-10 jet pilot" The headline writer had to decide which things were most important to put into the limited space. Will readers know a J-10 is a jet? Is it important to say it was an accident? that it occurred in training? that it occurred Saturday? In a story--or a headline--it adds a feeling of involvement or excitement. The storyteller and the listener "travel in time" in their heads to the time when the action is occurring. We are less emotional about things that have happened in the past and are over, so it is more exciting to pretend that they are still happening. Sometimes a story will establish a time frame by using tenses "correctly" and then shift to the historical present. "Last week, my grandsons were over at our house. So four-year old Dennis is eating his oatmeal, and he says to me, 'Do dinosaurs really come from eggs?' And I say..."

I easily understand if it's fiction. After I uploaded this question, I realized that Japanese headlines are doing the same thing to get more attention, but for death I think. When I read this headline, I felt like she could die someday again. Death can't repeat so it sounded quite strange to me, but now I fully understood! Thank you for your comment. :)

I would add that you would be wise to read up on and fully understand the 'historic presence' ( it has other names, too ). Much fiction is written in this tense in the English language.