FAA and Regs

The FAA says that a sharp increase from 2011 to 2012 in the number of reported incidents involving failure to maintain proper separation of aircraft in flight is likely due to changes in how such incidents are reported and not due to increased risk to aircraft, but not all agencies agree. The year-over-year increase ran […]

Heres my definition of a bad day: You overhauled your Barons IO-520s a couple of years ago using cylinders from ECI and now the FAA would like you to remove those jugs and replace them with something else. Round it off and call that about $25,000. Thats the basic gist of a proposed airworthiness directive […]

Public comments from each agency suggest that Canada’s Transportation Safety Board and Transport Canada may be divided regarding how each would prefer to address the issue of post-crash fires, and those differences have sparked some finger pointing. The Safety Board recently released a report probing an October 2011 crash in which the two pilots of […]

The NTSB this week released its latest safety statistics, and the rate for general aviation aircraft showed little improvement. Earl Weener of the NTSB, who is himself an active GA pilot, has been working to help focus FAA efforts toward reducing GA accidents, and he’s hopeful that programs now underway will have substantial effects over […]

Almost every year during AirVenture, the FAA administrator makes the obligatory slog to Wittman Field in N1, does a dog and pony and flies back to the Washington puzzle palace. In years past, this has been a bit of a love fest. In 2010, I was amused-or was it shocked?-when then-EAA president Tom Poberezny protected […]

The FAA Friday issued an airworthiness directive (AD) as a final rule for Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners requiring removal or inspection of Honeywell’s heretofore unimpeachable fixed emergency locator transmitter (ELT), in part “to prevent a fire in the aft crown of the airplane.” The FAA action is the result of a fire that involved the Honeywell […]

Federal prosecutors allege that a former military pilot who for the past eight months flew helicopters in the Syracuse, N.Y., area for Mercy Flight Central passed the company’s background check using a false name and did not hold proper FAA certification. John Dial allegedly went by the name Alex Coussirat when applying for his EMS […]

A newly released 322-page report on the Sept. 3, 2010, fatal crash of a UPS Boeing 747-44F noted “catastrophic uncontained fire” in an area that carried a “significant number” of lithium batteries as cargo, but did not resolve how the batteries ignited.Both pilots were killed in the crash. There were no other people on board. […]

New legislation passed through the House Tuesday (by a 411-0 vote) calling for a restructuring of the FAA’s Part 23 certification requirements for the purpose of expediting approvals for safety improvements. The Small Airplane Revitalization Act aims to remove bureaucratic barriers to evolutionary progress within the industry (for the introduction of new designs and the […]

General aviation advocacy groups have been working with the FAA to change the way light aircraft are certified, ditching the traditional Part 23 process and replacing it with an industry-consensus-standards approach. Greg Bowles of GAMA has been a leader in that effort, and he spoke with AVweb’s Mary Grady about the progress made in Washington […]