Accidents/NTSB

Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force is confirming that one of its 13 F-35 fighter jets crashed into the Pacific during a training exercise. The pilot signaled that he was aborting the training exercise minutes after departing Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. His was part of a four-ship flight. Contact was lost with the aircraft and […]

China, the first country to ground the Boeing 737 MAX after the fatal crash of Ethiopian Flight 102 last month, is set to join the FAA’s review panel. Former NTSB chairman Christopher Hart is running the program, which is expected to run for about three months. The FAA agreed to create an international review board […]

Boeing released sales data for the 737 MAX line that reveal there were no new orders for the troubled jet in March, and simultaneously said that deliveries and orders for all 737 models fell in the first quarter. Overall orders were down by nearly half, to 95 from 180 in the first quarter of 2018. […]

During my primary training, one of my mentors was fairly adamant about the threat of weather. If I had the skills, wisdom and experience, and the airplane was in good condition with sufficient fuel, he would point out, the only other big thing that could be a safety-of-flight problem was weather. The primary concerns he […]

Boeing said Friday that it will reduce the production rate on the 737 MAX by 10 airplanes a month, from 52 to 42 by mid-April. The company said it has also appointed a special board committee to review the development of new aircraft. “We’re adjusting the 737 production system temporarily to accommodate the pause in […]

April Fools’ Arrest I just read your article “AVweb Editor Arrested” with horror; I just really couldn’t believe what I was reading. I mean, it’s so outlandish that it reads like it should be a complete joke. I mean, this can’t be real. It just can’t. There’s no way that… … wait … What’s the […]

The passenger of a passing truck was killed when a Robinson R44 attempted to make an emergency landing on a road in Palm River, Florida, on Thursday afternoon. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, one of the helicopter’s rotor blades broke off after hitting a telephone pole and struck the truck, killing the passenger. […]

The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) is challenging CFIs young and old to sharpen their own hand flying skills to pass that knowledge along to students. In an announcement at Sun ‘n Fun 2019 the national association of instructors said it’s launching the SAFE CFI-PRO workshop to reduce the number of inflight loss […]

Boeing’s MCAS stall-protection system was at fault in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 on March 10, according to a preliminary report released early Thursday. An earlier report showed that the aircraft’s flight data recorder revealed that the crew initially followed procedures Boeing recommended to disable the system, but then inexplicably […]

If Boeing wanted bad press for itself, it couldn’t have done any better than the unfolding drama of two hull losses of the 737 MAX 8 within five months and the slow drip of daily coverage on what crash investigators are learning. Overall, I give the daily press a B+ for its coverage. It has […]