Search Results for: air new zealand

The family of a New Zealand pilot kidnapped 19 months ago has issued a statement thanking the Papuan rebels who snatched him for not killing him. Phillip Mehrtens was released by the West Papua National Liberation Army on Saturday. He told reporters there he was “very happy” to be going home, but his family went […]

Back in the days of flying around New Zealand NORDO (no radio), the method of sneaking past RNZAF Base Ohakea, near the coast, was to use the transit lane seaward of the beach. Due to the M306 Raumai Bombing Range along the route, the standard procedure was to land at a convenient airfield short of this airspace […]

New Zealand-based Vickers Aircraft Company says it intends to make its first delivery of the WAVE two-place amphibious aircraft to a U.S. customer in April of 2025. Founder Paul Vickers said the company is now raising capital to fund the push to begin deliveries on its backlog. Most current investors are Americans, he said, and […]

Investigators are focused on “flight deck seat movement” in the upset episode involving a LATAM Boeing 787-9 on Monday (March 11). A report published by TAC—The Air Current news outlet—cites information received from “two people briefed on the incident.” The news source also cites a senior airline safety official who said it is understood the […]

Brian Jokat, a passenger onboard a LATAM Airlines 787-9 that had a sudden loss of altitude on Monday, says the captain told him the “gauges went blank” and he was briefly unable to control the airliner. The airline had previously said in a statement there was “a technical event during the flight which caused a […]

It seems there are still new ways for airliners to be delayed as Qatar Airways passengers headed to Doha, Qatar, from Birmingham, England, found on Tuesday. The flight was delayed more than four hours as firefighters worked to free the pilot and several cabin crew from a stuck elevator. The delay caused numerous passengers to […]

A New Zealand company says it’s solved one of the biggest safety issues affecting amphibious aircraft operations. Paul Vickers, president of Vickers Aircraft, told AVweb the WAVE pusher amphib will not flip if the pilot forgets to raise the landing gear before a water landing. Vickers declined to discuss the flip-proof design in detail for […]

An unknown number of Indonesian soldiers were killed and as many as 30 are missing after Papuan rebels attacked them during their search for a kidnapped New Zealand pilot. Phillip Mehrtens was taken by gunmen after he landed his Susi Air plane at a remote strip in the rebel-held area of the country in February. […]

Separatist rebels in Papua have released photos of an apparently healthy pilot they took hostage a week ago. Philip Mehrtens, a New Zealander, landed his Susi Air charter flight at Paro Airport in a fractious area of the Indonesian territory on Feb. 7. He was seized at gunpoint by members of the West Papual National […]

FAA To Expand Safety Management Systems Requirements Safety is a menacingly powerful word. While many safety aspects can be quantified with historical data, assessment qualitative and emotional aspects tend to vary with the situation or implementation. I operated with SMS requirements throughout my career that ranged from, “How you will mitigate this risk” to “Prove […]