Accidents/NTSB

An Augusta, Georgia, airshow pilot was killed in the crash of his Pitts Special at the Good Neighbors Air Show at DeKalb Peachtree Airport on Saturday. Greg Connell has not been officially identified as the crash victim but his own social media accounts have confirmed the tragedy. Connell was doing a formation routine when his […]

A pilot was hurt in what appears to have been a forced landing on the rooftop of a building in Pomona, California, on Sunday. Circumstances of the incident weren’t clear at our deadline but news copter images show the aircraft to be intact with a collapsed nose gear. It appears to be a Piper Cherokee […]

A Russian-built An-2 biplane made an off-airport landing near San Bernardino International Airport near Los Angeles Friday. The 1940s aircraft, owned by the Commemorative Air Force, was on final approach for the airport when the engine quit. “I thought we had the airport made. But when we got closer, it was obvious we weren’t going […]

Although there haven’t been many accidents involving unmanned aircraft systems, there have been enough for the NTSB to begin building the investigatory resources to determine causes, just as they have for years with manned aircraft. In this exclusive AVweb podcast recorded at the AUVSI trade show in New Orleans, the NTSB’s Bill English explains what’s […]

Three people survived the crash of a Beechcraft Duchess in the back yard of a home in Pompano Beach, Florida, Monday. The Duchess clipped the roof of the house before crashing in the yard and erupting in flame. The pilot and two international students from Peru and Ecuador in the aircraft were badly burned. The […]

NTSB investigators have completed their fact-finding into the October 2014 midair crash at the Frederick, Maryland, airport, in which three people in a Robinson R44 helicopter died after a Cirrus SR22 “flew through [its] rotor system” in the traffic pattern. The safety board has not yet determined the accident’s probable cause. The factual report states […]

Just in time for Sun ‘n Fun, the NTSB has issued a new Safety Alert aimed at pilots planning to fly in to an aviation event. “Arrivals at major fly-in events … pose unique challenges for pilots (and air traffic controllers),” the NTSB says, “including extremely high-density traffic, special flight and communication procedures, a rapidly […]

As the inevitable autonomy of everything looms just ahead, rock-star entrepreneur Elon Musk had this to say at a recent development conference: “You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine. It’s too dangerous.” And that’s to say the driverless car visionaries don’t just want to offer you an autonomous vehicle, they’ll insist on […]

With more than 6300 CAPS-equipped Cirrus aircraft out there and given all the unblinking security cameras running 24/7, it was inevitable that good video of a Cirrus parachute touchdown would eventually emerge. Earlier this month,it did. (More here.) On March 5, an SR22 en route from Groton, Connecticut, to Republic Airport on Long Island suffered […]

We can argue about a lot in aviation, but one thing we rarely dispute is the unwritten rule that your AME and your doctor shouldn’t be the same person. Unpack the logic of that and two things become implicit: We don’t trust the government with our medical data (rightfully) and, if we’re honest, we want […]