FAA and Regs

Former Major League pitcher Roy Halladay had three drugs in his system when his Icon A5 crashed off the coast of Florida in November. The retired ballplayer had trace amounts of morphine and amphetamine along with an intoxicating level of the sedative zolpidem, commonly known as Ambien, in his bloodstream according to an autopsy report […]

Not to get all metaphysical, but the heart is at the very center of who we are and what we do. It feeds the brain with nutrients and life-giving oxygen, and fuels the cells out to the extremities. Any abnormalities of the heart, especially at the controls of an airplane, can lead to stress if […]

In 2016, the FAA terminated its certification of certain ELTs manufactured by Ameri-King, and this week, Orolia announced it has developed a new version of its Integra model that has been specially adapted and packaged to make it easy to replace the affected ELTs. The new Kannad Ameri-Fit pack is available through Aircraft Spruce, Mid-Continent […]

An Aeromexico Boeing 737 lined up for the wrong runway at San Francisco International Airport last week in the third landing miscue at SFO in six months. The crew accepted a clearance for Runway 28R but set up for 28L instead. There was a Virgin America flight on 28L waiting to take off. Controllers saw […]

The pilot who landed an Air Canada A320 at San Francisco Airport in October after being ordered to go around told FAA investigators the radio was set to the wrong frequency. Documents obtained by the Toronto Globe and Mail under a freedom of information request said the unidentified pilot, who is based in Vancouver, said […]

Michael Huerta’s five-year term as FAA administrator ended on Saturday, and so far the Trump administration has not named his replacement. Daniel Elwell, who was named as the FAA’s deputy administrator last June, will serve as acting administrator until the position is filled. Elwell was previously a senior official at Airlines for America, an airline […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine 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 web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

If there’s anything certain about second-guessing another pilot’s judgment after an accident, it’s this: The wreckage is Exhibit A if you insisted before the fact—or even after—that he shouldn’t have done whatever he did. If he pulls off what he shouldn’t have done without incident, he’s just crazy. But if he doesn’t, he’s crazy and […]

The Mayo Clinic is now offering a free online BasicMed course for pilots, the organization has announced. The course consists of six modules, covering medical self-assessments, warning signs of serious medical conditions, effects of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and more. The course takes about 90 minutes to complete and is followed by an online test. […]

They live and fly by different codes in the 49th state, and what might seem stupid in the lower 48 doesn’t move the needle in a place over twice the size of Texas. Consider the De Havilland Beaver that nosed over in the Noatak River. The NTSB heard about the event—word spreads fast in Alaskan […]