Features

Whilemost of us were busy unwrapping Christmas gifts and ringing in 1998, executives atCessna’s single-engine plant in Independence, Kansas, were preoccupied with a ratherdistressing situation. They’d just learned that the Aeroquip-built mufflers installed inhundreds of brand new Cessna 172R Skyhawks and 182S Skylanes had potentially defectivewelds that could allow carbon monoxide contamination of the cabin […]

NBC’s two-hour made-for-TV movie Blackout Effect stars EricStoltz as a dedicated young NTSB investigator, and costars veteran character actor CharlesMartin Smith as an eccentric and emotional air traffic controller. The show starts out very promisingly with lots ofquick sequences intercut between airline cockpits and an ARTCC dubbed “MidwestCenter” located in Illinois. (Can you spell ZAU?) […]

If the case of “TenRomeo” proves anything, it’s that the government is not always right. A few months ago, I wrote an AVweb guest editorialadvising that the Federal Government had confiscated Dr. Millard Harmon’s Beech Bonanza36, N7710R. I owe you an update. In civil action, the United States sued Dr. Harmon, charging him with: From […]

Senator Slade Gorton Chairman — Senate Aviation Subcommittee U. S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Gorton: Mid-air collision kills 185. Global flight 1025, inbound to Chicago, collides with a cargo aircraft, PDO flight 342. Both aircraft are destroyed. NTSB investigating the FAA and the Air Traffic Control system as primary cause. This is the […]

EXCELSIOR SPRINGS, Missouri — From where Dennis Fetters sits, it’s frustratingto try to deliver a low-cost, relatively simple kit helicopter only to have people getupset when problems arise, as they have been wont to do this year on the Mini-500helicopter kits his company, RevolutionHelicopter Corp., manufactures. “We work hard to put together the most-affordablehelicopter kit […]

Top 10 Aviation News Stories | SpecialAwards | Final Flights AVweb’s Top 10 Aviation News Stories Of 1997 10.  John Denver Crash The death of a celebrity in an aircraftcrash will always make headlines. Couple that with the celebrity being the pilot, theaircraft being a homebuilt and questions raised about the pilot’s medical and certificatestatus […]

In-Flight Fire And Impact With TerrainValuJet Airlines, Flight 592, DC-9-32Everglades, Near Miami, Florida HISTORY OF THE FLIGHT: On May 11, 1996, at 1413:42 eastern daylight time, aDouglas DC-9 32 crashed into the Everglades about 10 minutes after takeoff from MiamiInternational Airport (MIA), Miami, Florida. airplane, registration number N904VJ, wasbeing operated by ValuJet Airlines, Inc., as […]

Last year’s TWA 800 accidentgenerated an extraordinary amount of public and media interest, perhaps because,thankfully, airplanes don’t often turn into fireballs and fall out of the sky in pieces.Its aftermath has only emphasized the peculiarities of the incident and heightened ourawareness of the political nature of reaction to such tragic events. The initial responseto the […]

I recently participated in a six-state satellite based interactive video conferencethat addressed the concerns and the difficulties that Fixed Base Operators are currentlyexperiencing. The conference took place on November 12, 1997. It’s subtitle was”Survival of FBO’s: can this industry succeed or is it doomed to disappear?” Theconference was attended by Directors of State Aeronautics Organizations […]

Castle Airport, in California’s Central Valley, is the home of a superbaviation museum and a few other attractionswhich make it worthy of a day-trip by general aviation pilots, and especially those withan interest in military aviation history. The airport is located next to the town ofAtwater, north of Merced, making it an easy afternoon trip […]