Aeromedical

The FAA says it hasn’t yet determined whether pilots will be able to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and keep their medicals. In a statement issued to AVweb late Sunday, the agency said it’s waiting for the outcome of an FDA committee meeting on an emergency approval for a vaccine developed by Pfizer. The meeting is […]

Medical science has now confirmed what your family and friends have been telling you since the first time you strapped in and maybe before that. Your brain works differently than that of non-flying folks and contrary to what those in your immediate bubble might think, that’s actually a good thing, well mostly. Chinese researchers have […]

The FAA needs to improve oversight of BasicMed to ensure pilots who use it are actually entitled to do so, a new government report says. The Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General issued a report to Congress on Friday saying the agency needs better verification of the very foundations of the program: drivers licenses […]

With cold and flu season underway, the FAA has published its annual list of acceptable and unacceptable over-the-counter (OTC) medications for pilots who want to fly through the pain. The first recommendation is for sick pilots to take their self-certification responsibilities to heart and to wait until they’re feeling better. It’s more complicated than that, […]

While the BasicMed semi-self-certification for airmen has been a boon for stateside pilots, it’s largely a domestic policy. Now, says AOPA, Mexico is set to allow pilots flying on BasicMed to visit. The Bahamas had already recognized BasicMed. “I would like to thank Director General Rodrigo Vásquez-Colmenares Guzmán of Mexico’s Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil […]

After years of petitioning the FAA to ease access to airman medicals, AOPA was successful in getting BasicMed passed in 2017, and now the association says more than 50,000 pilots have taken advantage of the program. That’s a not-insignificant percentage of the 600,000 certificated pilots in the U.S., but one that AOPA expects to grow […]

A United Airlines captain and his first officer are in jail in Scotland awaiting a court appearance Tuesday on charges they planned to fly a Boeing 757 full of passengers to Newark while impaired. The flight deck crew, aged 61 and 45, were intercepted in the airport and prevented from boarding for the scheduled 9 […]

Becoming disoriented in flight is one of the most terrifying experiences pilots can have. In extreme cases, it leads to loss of control, controlled flight into terrain or even an inflight breakup. Less extreme experiences lead to pilot deviation or, more optimally and after the afflicted pilot is safely back on the ground, the expense […]

It would appear pilot incapacitation was behind the fatal crash of a Cessna Citation in the Atlantic 300 miles east of Fort Lauderdale on May 24. The aircraft inexplicably changed course while on a delivery flight from Alton, Illinois, to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The preliminary report from the NTSB says that as the Citation […]

As Boeing tweaked final development of the 737 MAX, it made the MCAS autotrim system more aggressive and ultimately riskier, according to a new report in The New York Times. Boeing failed to inform even its own test pilots and the FAA about the revisions. MCAS—Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System—was added to the 737 MAX to […]