Accidents/NTSB

Letter of the Week:USA Today‘s Strategy Only a personal injury lawyer would write a Lettre de Cachet like the black adventure story published in USA Today. My sympathies for their reduced ad revenues and declining circulation. But holding public executions and sensational smear campaigns has never worked for any publication. Even the networks hesitate to […]

More than 400 large U.S. military drones have crashed in major accidents around the world since 2001, a record of calamity that exposes the potential dangers of throwing open American skies to drone traffic, according to a yearlong Washington Post investigation. Since the outbreak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military drones have malfunctioned […]

Three men are reportedto have been killed in the crash of an IAI Westwind II on the northwest side of the Huntsville, Ala., Airport Wednesday afternoon. The airplane appears to have been on a training flight, with flight instructor Robin Gary Smith of Yukon, Okla., and operator of the training company Jet Contrails, reportedly among […]

While reading over USA Todays exhaustive-and exhausting-indictment of general aviation, I was struck by the inescapable feeling that Id been given the Disney tour of every plaintiffs file room for the past 40 years, without benefit of hearing what cross examination revealed in the court cases this reporting obviously leaned so heavily upon. So much […]

An extensive report on general aviation safety in USA Today this week doesn’t convey the whole story, says GAMA President Pete Bunce. He took a break from his work in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to talk with AVweb’s Mary Grady about ongoing efforts to build safer airplanes. Duration: 8:47 File Size: 8.0 MB download here

Today, the NTSB released its preliminary accident reporton the May 31, 2014, fatal accident of a Gulfstream G-IV at Hanscom Field, Bedford, Mass.-it stated that although the mechanical control lock was in the off position, the Fight Data Recorder (FDR) indicated the elevator position throughout the event was consistent with the control lock being engaged. […]

The NTSB says that data recovered from the flight data recorder (FDR) a Gulfstream IV jet that was involved in a fatal crash at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Mass., Saturday indicates the crew aborted the takeoff after reaching about 165 knots. The thrust reversers were apparently deployed and brake pressures were rising, according to NTSB […]

This week has seen two seen two military jet crashes, fortunately with no serious injuries. The first, a Marine AV-8B Harrier, impacted in a residential neighborhood in Imperial, Calif., at 4:20 PDT on Wednesday, destroying three homes and leading to the evacuation of eight others. The pilot ejected safely and was hospitalized for evaluation. The […]

Our weekly review of whats new in aviation found that a replica of the Bugatti 100P air racer is on display, the NTSB issued recommendations regarding lithium batteries, NATA has announced scholarship winners and Disney Planes characters are joining a national wildfire prevention education program. The Mullin Automotive Museum, a Southern California institution devoted to […]

AVwebs weekly news roundup uncovered reports about the tight competition in the Red Bull Air Race series as it touches down in Asia, the success of the Pilatus PC-7 trainer in service with the Indian air force, Embry-Riddle Universitys new Masters degree program in Unmanned Systems and an upcoming NTSB meeting on ag aircraft safety. […]