Accidents/NTSB

Although they’re relative rarities these days, as pilots, we all react to airline crashes just as we always have. We’re sober-minded and analytical so we don’t even allow ourselves a conversation inside our heads in speculation about potential causes because we’re waiting for the investigators, right? That’s ridiculous. Of course we speculate, forming snap opinions […]

Many VFR, and inexperienced IFR, pilots mistakenly believe that an instrument rating allows you to launch into “weather.” After all, instrument pilots have been trained to fly on the gages, so making the decision to fly into the clouds shouldn’t be difficult. Veteran IFR pilots understand the complexity of the go/no-go decision. There are weather […]

When Carli McConaughy pulled on the big control column in the middle of the helicopter she was flying in over Honolulu last week, she had no idea what she was doing but she likely saved her own life and those of her fianc and the unconscious pilot beside her. McConaughy, 35, and her newly betrothed […]

The current requirement for cockpit voice recorders to store just two hours of data is not enough, the NTSB says in a new safety recommendation report, and 25 hours’ duration should be required. “These recommendations are derived from the NTSB’s experiences with investigations that lacked access to relevant CVR data,” the board said. In its […]

AVweb’sGeneral Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine, and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s website atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after […]

AVweb’sGeneral Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine, and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s website atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after […]

Possible LSA Weight Limit Increase I’ve heard reference to four seats, 3600lb, and 150mph. Now, I won’t complain about the weight number… but honestly I’d rather trade some of that weight increase for a further speed increase. How many four-seaters out there weigh 3600lb and only top out at 150? Maybe if they could make […]

A Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut were recovered unharmed early Thursday after the Soyuz booster they were aboard on a launch to the International Space Station failed. The failure put the MS-10 capsule into a ballistic trajectory and it and the crew were recovered 200 miles east of the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch point, NASA […]

AVweb’sGeneral Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine, and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s website atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after […]

Neither pilot in the cockpit of a Falcon 50 that crashed in Greenville, South Carolina, last week was rated to fly the aircraft as pilot in command, according to the preliminary report issued by the NTSB on Thursday. The report states that the pilot in the left seat “held an ATP certificate with a type […]