Aviation News

The National Transportation Safety Board has issued a set of recommendations to the FAA intended to increase scrutiny on flight-instructor performance. Using the 2019 crash of a parachute-jump Beech King Air in Hawaii as the impetus, the NTSB’s latest recommendations ask the FAA to more closely watch pass/fail rates of students from any given instructor […]

The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that Boeing has agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement in criminal charges relating to a “conspiracy to defraud” the FAA during the 737 MAX’s certification process, with more than half of that amount going to reimburse airline customers for loss of service as a result of the airliner’s […]

In a tweet this morning, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced that she is resigning her post ahead of the upcoming presidential transition. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve the U.S. Department of Transportation,” she said, noting that she was “deeply troubled” by the mayhem that took place at the Capitol building […]

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced new appointments to the FAA’s Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) on Tuesday. According to the FAA, the twelve new DAC members represent unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/drone) interests in areas such as industry, research, academia, retail, technology, and state and local government. Members will serve a two-year term. “As […]

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced last week that his company is making plans to attempt to catch its reusable Super Heavy rocket with the arm of the launch tower. Currently in development, the Super Heavy is the first stage of the company’s Starship system. While SpaceX hasn’t yet tried anything quite like the launch tower […]

Pilatus announced the delivery of its 100th PC-24 business to new owner Jetfly Aviation on Tuesday. The PC-24 received its FAA and EASA type certifications in December 2017 and the first aircraft was delivered to New Hampshire-based PlaneSense the following February. According to Pilatus, the PC-24 fleet has logged more than 33,500 flight hours to […]

Nonprofit organization Doc’s Friends has announced that its 1944 Boeing B-29 Superfortress “Doc” will be going on tour for the month of July. The aircraft is scheduled to visit St. Louis, Missouri, on July 9-11; Terre Haute, Indiana, on July 12-15; Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 16-18; Cleveland, Ohio, on July 19-21; and Kalamazoo, Michigan, on […]

Bombardier announced on Monday that it has completed its planned acquisition of an aircraft service center at Germany’s Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER). Prior to the purchase, Bombardier was part-owner of the center, picking up shares from Lufthansa Technik AG and ExecuJet Aviation Group AG in the agreement. The Berlin facility has more than 160,000 square […]

There were five fatal accidents involving large passenger aircraft resulting in 299 fatalities last year, according Netherlands-based aviation consultancy To70’s 2020 worldwide civil aviation safety review. The group reported eight fatal accidents accounting for 257 fatalities in the category in 2019. TO70 also noted that the fatal accident rate for large commercial aircraft in 2020 […]

A team of scientists at Oxford University has made jet fuel from carbon dioxide in the lab and there is some optimism that it could be commercialized. A report in Nature Communications said the team essentially reverse engineered the chemical reactions that turn fossil fuels into CO2, which is considered the most important greenhouse gas. […]