Search Results for: vfr

Nine people were killed when a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter hit a mountain in Alaska in June 2015, and on Tuesday the NTSB said the pilot had a history of making bad decisions. “Lives depended on the pilot’s decision making,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Robert Sumwalt. “Pilot decisions are informed, for better or worse, by […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a […]

In many conversations with instrument instructors, I’ve noted a common concern about the way many pilots conclude practice precision approaches (ILS or GPS LPV) under the “hood”: They do a great job of keeping the needles near the center as decision altitude nears; airspeed, descent rate and heading all would be appropriate. But when the […]

Owners of the Garmin GTN series of navigators will be getting free upgrades in May. The touchscreen navcom systems will now offer visual approach guidance, which provides lateral and vertical navigation advisory data to assist VFR pilots with flying a stabilized approach down a standard glideslope to any runway—including those not served by instrument approaches. […]

During a VFR approach in a busy airport in mostly-Catholic Colombia, a student pilot was given landing clearance. It seemed she didn’t understand the controller. Student: “Could you please confirm?” Tower:Sure: I confirm you in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son…” Of course the controller gave her the right instructions […]

The pilot of a Turbine Otter that crashed in Alaska in 2015, killing all nine aboard, had turned off the terrain awareness and warning system before the aircraft hit the side of a mountain near Ketchikan. The NTSB released the factual docket on the crash of the Promech Air crash, which occurred in marginal VFR […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

A while ago I had a long, interesting discussion on the topic of preparing for inflight emergencies with a pilot whose day job was as a surgeon who trained surgeons. He had an interesting perspective on the subject based on how he taught aspiring cutters: He had them sit down and write down everything that […]

Our main airport has several flight schools and they keep us air traffic controllers quite busy. It’s easy to tell when they get a new batch of students—those first radio calls for VFR clearances and eventual taxi and takeoff are usually halting, uncertain affairs, dragging on as students parrot their instructors without truly understanding the […]