FAA and Regs

The FAA has launched an investigation into whether a Las Vegas helicopter charter company violated safety regulations by dropping $10,000 in cash on a soccer field during halftime promotion for the local pro team. The Skyline Helicopter Tours aircraft circled the field in the packed stadium a half-dozen times before dropping the cash over 200 […]

The entire fleet of Boeing 737NG aircraft must be checked for potentially serious structural cracks but the inspections are easy to accomplish and will only add an hour to routine maintenance, unless cracks are found. As we reported last week, Boeing found cracks in the “pickle fork” assembly on a relatively low-time NG that it […]

As airliner seats get smaller and Americans get bigger, the FAA has decided to quantify the effect seat size (on the airplane) has on safety. Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell announced the agency will conduct 12 days of emergency evacuation testing at the end of November to see if stuffing ever growing, uh, masses into progressively […]

The FAA has ordered operators of some of the hard-working fleet of Boeing 737NGs to conduct inspections for cracks in a critical structural assembly that have shown up in some NGs. Boeing found cracks in a plane that had about 35,000 cycles on it, less than half the 90,000 that the “pickle fork” is designed […]

Coming soon, a “humble” FAA? New Administrator Steve Dickson used a word not often associated with the agency when talking to air traffic controllers about the agency’s role in the historic grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX and the two catastrophic crashes that precipitated it. “We can always improve, we can always get better,” Dickson […]

A major avionics shop says about 5,000 business aircraft will miss the Jan. 1 deadline to be equipped with ADS-B. Duncan Aviation, which has been closely monitoring equipage data, said in a report last week that with 16 weeks to go before the end of the year, 23 percent, or 3,384 business jets, don’t have […]

AOPA has written the FAA urging it to hold off on mandating an expensive fix for older Pipers that pilots say is a nonexistent problem. As we reported earlier, the FAA issued a notice a few weeks ago that it was considering issuing an airworthiness directive requiring operators of older Cherokees to replace the fuel […]

The FAA has banned unauthorized U.S. aircraft from entering Bahamian airspace to clear the airspace for government and sanctioned humanitarian flights. A TFR was issued Sunday at the request of the Bahamian government and any U.S. aircraft busting the TFR can expect a call from the agency. The move comes after days of frustration over […]

Airlines have ordered dozens of MAX simulators since the planes were grounded earlier this year. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, CAE, the largest manufacturer of airliner simulators, said it had taken orders for 47 MAX simulators and expected to deliver 22 by the end of the year. “Clearly there is going to be […]

The former chief technical pilot on the Boeing 737 MAX has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to turn over documents subpoenaed by the Justice Department as part of its broad investigation into the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Mark Forkner played a key role in the development of the aircraft and worked for […]