Accidents/NTSB

A recent video about the famed Cornfield Bomber brought back some fond memories of that airplane for me. As a freshly minted Air Force pilot, I was lucky enough to get assigned to the 49th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York, then its home. Tail number 58-0787 is sometimes […]

How Not To Botch The FAA Medical John Yodice wrote a column once on the legal perils of making a falsification on the medical application, even unintentional ones (such as accidentally forgetting a hospital stay). It results in a felony and can become years of jail time as well as a heavy fine (like $25k). […]

In partnership with the Transportation Safety Institute (TSI), the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) hosted a three-day Experimental Accident Investigation course this week. According to EAA, attendees were primarily “FAA field office staff who work with the certification of experimental and light-sport aircraft and investigate accidents.” The course, which is held at EAA’s headquarters in Oshkosh, […]

A Cessna Stationair operated by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) crashed in Sugar Land, Texas, on Wednesday afternoon. The aircraft hit a power line and struck two vehicles on the road while attempting to make an emergency landing. It has been reported that one of the three DEA agents onboard the aircraft sustained […]

Two aircraft were able to land safely after a midair during a Jet Class heat at the 55th annual National Championship Air Races at Reno-Stead Airport (RTS) near Reno, Nevada, last Friday. As seen in the video below, the two Aero L-39 Albatros jets made contact when “Reality Czech,” piloted by Nathan Harnagel, was attempting […]

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 […]

A man whose pilot certificate was revoked 21 years ago for lying on his medical application was the presumed pilot of a Cessna 335 high performance twin that crashed near Palm Beach County Park Airport a week ago, killing him and his wife. Philip Castronova, 70, and his wife Mandy, 39, were on their way […]

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 […]

Both overall and fatal accident rates in general aviation have reached a 10-year low according to the AOPA Air Safety Institute’s Joseph T. Nall Report. Report data showed fatal crashes decreasing to just 0.84 per 100,000 hours. This year’s Nall Report (PDF) reviewed trends in general aviation accidents from 2015, the most recent year for […]

It’s easy to look at controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents as the kind you’ll never get into. Sure; you may suffer an engine failure from contaminated fuel, or scrape a wingtip while landing in a stiff crosswind or even forget to put down the gear before landing. But flying a perfectly good airplane into […]