Accidents/NTSB

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

The Mooney M20J that hit a power line tower in Maryland was well below the the approach the pilot was trying to fly, according the NTSB’s preliminary report. Although the report does not determine cause, it does describe a long list of heading and altitude errors on the approach to Montgomery County Airpark, which ultimately […]

Editor’s note: For our July 2021 Accident Probe, Oshkosh Or Bust, we explored an accident involving a non-instrument-rated pilot who took off into dark night IMC and crashed into an open field near the airport, killing himself and his passenger. This month’s accident is eerily similar, except both occupants were instrument-rated commercial pilots. The underlying […]

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is urgently recommending that the FAA and Transport Canada require both immediate and more frequent inspections for Bell 407 helicopters. The recommendations are the result of the NTSB’s ongoing investigation into the crash of a Bell 407 that experienced an inflight separation of the tail boom during an on-demand […]

The NTSB has cited the absence of altitude deconfliction guidance in the collision of a P-63F and a B-17 at the Wings Over Dallas Airshow on Nov. 12. Six people were killed in the tragedy at Dallas Executive Airport. In its preliminary report, the NTSB said there were a total of eight vintage aircraft involved […]

The pilot of a Mooney that crashed into power lines and a tower in Maryland earlier this week told a 911 dispatcher that visibility was a factor in the accident. Patrick Merkle, 66, called 911 after the aircraft that carried him and passenger Janet Williams came to rest and discussed the moments before the crash […]

The death of a young copilot who fell from a jump plane in North Carolina last July was an accident, an autopsy report has ruled. The report, obtained by NBC News, says Charles Hew Crooks, 23, died from injuries resulting from his fall to a backyard in a suburb of Raleigh on July 29 and […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

The two occupants of a Mooney M20J that crashed into high voltage power transmission tower in Maryland Sunday were rescued just after midnight Monday and suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The 65-year-old male pilot and 66-year-old female passenger spent almost seven hours stranded in the aircraft as it dangled from the powerline and tower. The […]

A Florida pilot escaped with only wet feet after his Cirrus SF50 lost power shortly after takeoff from Indianapolis Regional Airport on Friday morning. Timothy Borrup, 54, told local authorities the plane’s single jet engine faltered during the initial climbout and he pulled the CAPS handle. It turned out to be a textbook application of […]