Accidents/NTSB

Last night (May 14), the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to confirm the Biden Administration’s nomination of Jennifer Homendy to another five-year term as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and a second three-year term as chair of the board. Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Sen. Maria Cantwell, […]

A C-54 transport carrying fuel crashed a few minutes after takeoff from Fairbanks, Alaska, on Tuesday. The plane, the military version of the DC-4 airliner, was carrying two crew and both died in the crash. The aircraft was owned by Alaska Air Fuel and crashed into the Tanana River about 10 a.m. Video shows fire […]

The National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB’s) final report cites pilot error as the likely cause of a midair collision that killed three over Watsonville Municipal Airport in August 2022. A Cessna 152 was practicing touch-and-go landings at the airport when the pilot of a Cessna 340 announced his intentions for a straight-in approach to land. […]

After investigating a few aluminum propeller failures, the NTSB has issued a Safety Alert and it’s particularly addressing backcountry pilots. “Aluminum propeller blades can be susceptible to fatigue cracking and fracture if a small nick, pit, or corrosion on the surface or edge is not found and repaired during preflight inspection or maintenance,” the NTSB […]

A pilot who may have been trying to do an in-flight visual inspection of his Bearhawk Patrol’s control surfaces was killed in the process and also doomed the safety pilot he had with him. The NTSB’s final report into the crash of the homebuilt on Oct. 29, 2022, in Hanover Township, Pennsylvania, attributes the accident […]

All the usual authorities are investigating after the inboard flap on the right wing of a Southwest Boeing 737-800 was damaged possibly by a piece of detached engine cowling on takeoff from Denver International Airport on Sunday. Flight 3695 was headed for Houston Hobby Airport about 8:15 a.m. local time when the incident occurred. Air […]

The pilots involved in a United Airlines 737 MAX 8 runway excursion on March 8 gave conflicting accounts of runway conditions, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The flight crew noted the captain was the pilot flying while the first officer was the pilot monitoring. The captain recalled the […]

It’s highly unusual for people on the ground to be injured by an airplane crash or emergency landing. But it does happen. Yesterday (April 1), two pedestrians on a walking trail less than a half-mile from the Delaware County Regional Airport in Muncie, Indiana, were injured by a single-engine Piper that came down short of […]

This week, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a safety alert warning pilots of the dangers posed by dust devils. According to the agency, dust devils have been present in some 170 aviation accidents the NTSB has investigated since 1982. The small, rapidly rotating columns of air are made visible by the dust and […]

The pilot and builder of a one-third scale B-29 hit a dip in the grass runway and lost control of the big homebuilt before it hit a golf cart and injured a female videographer at Glenndale Airport in Kokomo, Indiana, last November. In the very short final report on the unusual mishap, the NTSB says […]