Accidents/NTSB

Investigators who probed the ditching of USAir 1549 into the Hudson River in 2009 say the recently released movie about the event portrays them in an inaccurate and unfair light. The movie, Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood, was released over the weekend in U.S. theaters. For dramatic purposes, Sully portrays the NTSB investigators as prosecutors […]

Try this thought experiment: Before USAir 1549 splashed down in the Hudson, if you put 10 airline crews in a simulator and ran the same scenario, how many would achieve results identical to the real event? Hold that thought for a moment, I’ll get back to it. Of course, you can’t unknow the details of […]

Hundreds of pilots filled a theater in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on Wednesday to watch a preview of Sully, the much-hyped account of the Miracle on the Hudson. There were some minor quibbles but Sandy Dubrow, who was among the pilots, told AVweb’s Russ Niles the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Duration: 4:30 File Size: 4.7MB download […]

Air traffic controllers need better training in how to assist aircraft in distress, the NTSB says in a report released this week. The safety recommendation is based on an analysis of five general aviation accidents, from 2012 to 2015, in which seven people were killed. In each case, the pilot was communicating with ATC but […]

The FAA has issued its final rule on the controversial airworthiness directive that will require the replacement of cylinders on 6,200 high-displacement Continental engines. It takes effect on Sept. 15. The AD, which scraps thousands of aftermarket cylinders made by ECi, was initially proposed in 2013 for 520, 550 and some 470 model Continentals that […]

A total of 12 people died in two separate crashes of light twins over last few days. A Beech Baron crashed at Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg, Virginia, at midday on Friday and a Piper Navajo went down in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Sunday morning. In both cases, all six aboard each of the aircraft died. Local […]

I was on AVweb news watch last week when a bulletin on a balloon crash in Texas came pixeling into my inbox. The headline said, “All 16 believed dead.” That can’t be right, I thought. And that’s been the reaction of nearly everyone in aviation whom I’ve talked to or corresponded with about this accident. […]

The builder of a replica of the Bugatti 100p racing plane was killed in the crash of the aircraft in Oklahoma on Saturday. NewsOn6 reported Scotty Wilson, of Tulsa, was flying the aircraft when it went down near Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base in west central Oklahoma. The aircraft was copied from a 1930s design by […]

The stats are in, the tallies tallied and the totals have been summed up: Loss-of-control tops the list of general aviation accident causes. Recent studies by industry and government point to loss-of-control (LOC) accidents in all their variations are the leading cause of GA accidents, both fatal and otherwise. According to the U.S. Government Accountability […]

When Los Angeles Times reporter Nigel Duara was fishing for a third-day lead on the tragic balloon crash in Texas Monday, the graph practically wrote itself: “The pilot of a hot-air balloon that crashed into a Texas pasture had four convictions for drunken driving on his record, but was not required to submit to the […]