Accidents/NTSB

The NTSB this week released its annual “Most Wanted” list of safety improvements. Board member Earl Weener, who is a general aviation pilot himself, talked with Mary Grady about the issues affecting the GA fleet and some strategies that can help improve the safety record. Duration: 7:50 File Size: 7.2 MB download here

Divers have located the empennage section of AirAsia Flight 8501, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said on Wednesday local time. It’s not yet known if the wreckage found contains the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, which are normally located in the rear of the aircraft. Nor did the agency say whether acoustic equipment had […]

A7-year-oldgirl was the sole survivor of the crash of a Piper Seneca in a remote area of Kentucky Friday night that killed four others, according to Kentucky State Police. The aircraft had been en route from Key West, Florida, to Mount Vernon, Illinois, authorities reported. On Saturday, authorities identified the girl as Sailor Gutzler. In […]

Indonesian authorities reported Tuesday that a warship had recovered several bodies in the Java Sea confirmed to have been victims of AirAsia Flight 8501, which vanished on a flight from Surbaya to Singapore on Sunday. Indonesia’s Strait Times said late Tuesday local time that the corvette Bung Tomo reported that more bodies are expected to […]

Two men were killed Tuesday afternoon when the light helicopter they were flying in crashed into the roof of a building in North Salt Lake, Utah, authorities reported on Tuesday afternoon. Debris from the crash — the helo’s tail rotor — was found up to a half mile away, suggesting the aircraft may have broken […]

The NTSB said Wednesday a “punitive culture and inadequate safety management” along with poor weather caused the crash of an Alaska Department of Public Safety helicopter on March 30, 2013. The single-engine Eurocopter crashed in wooded and snow-covered terrain east of Talkeetna, killing the pilot, another state trooper and the snowmobiler they had just rescued.The […]

Losing people in a flight program is gut-wrenchingly hard and today I feel for all of the folks at Scaled Composites. None of them set out to lose a friend and injure another when they prepared to launch SpaceShipTwo last Friday. Their goal was the same as every person or team that has ever taken […]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting (subscription only) that structural failure, rather than an engine explosion, is the initial focus of the NTSB investigation into the loss of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo on Friday. It is quoting unnamed sources as saying the preliminary video and data analysis is turning the focus to an aerodynamic breakup, although […]

Friday’s loss of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo was as inevitable was it was tragic. If anyone believes-as I think some do-that attaching “tourism” to space flight somehow erases the risk of flight beyond the atmosphere, this accident should disabuse them of that notion. But I wonder if it will. Promoting space tourism has gotten quite beyond […]

One test pilot has died and another has been seriously injured in the crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo during a test flight from Mojave Air and Space Port, California. The company said that the spacecraft suffered an anomaly that resulted in loss of the vehicle. Parachutes were reportedly sighted in the area. One witness said […]