Accidents/NTSB

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 […]

The pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 that crashed on March 10 appear to have inconsistently applied Boeing recommendations to disable the MCAS stall-protection system. But they failed to recover the aircraft for reasons still unclear. The Wall Street Journal, relying on sources who have seen the flight data recorder readout, reported that […]

The pilot who died in the crash of a Piper Navajo in Madeira, Ohio, had previously snagged a persistent fuel leak in the aircraft but flew it again a week later before the leak had been diagnosed and repaired. It’s not clear from the report whether pilot David Sapp was aware the aircraft had not […]

Adding to the FAA’s look-see into Boeing and an ongoing FBI investigation into the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX 8, the Senate Transportation Committee is launching its own investigation. This time is has to do with whistleblower complaints claiming the FAA improperly trained its safety inspectors to review the MAX 8 design and certification. […]

It will likely be more than a month before Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are cleared for flight after the FAA announced it will be weeks before Boeing finishes testing its proposed software update. Boeing had earlier said it hoped to submit the proposal to the FAA this week but has put that off. “Time is […]

New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer wants the FAA to exclude Boeing from the agency’s standing advisory committee on rulemaking. Schumer said that companies involved in active investigations shouldn’t also be involved in regulation writing. Schumer was, of course, referring to the aftermath of two crashes of Boeing 737 MAX 8 airliners, now the subject of […]