Flight Safety

The FAA has adopted a final rule requiring commercial balloon pilots to have a current second class medical to fly passengers. The rule was adopted Wednesday but has been in the works for four years after Congress passed a bill mandating it. “Passengers can now rest assured that commercial balloon pilots must meet the same […]

A total of 24 aviation industry groups and prominent manufacturers have sent an open letter to all federal departments that regulate radio communications imploring them to delay the full rollout of 5G cellular services while they expedite codifying a comprehensive set of mitigations against potential avionics interference. The letter, signed by virtually all aviation groups, […]

For pilots, no matter how clear the skies, we always seem to be dealing with the wind. So, let’s look at wind from the perspective of an aviation meteorologist—where it comes from, what goes into forecasting it, and even some tips to help keep your flying safer. What Causes Wind? Unless all your flying is […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

Investigators are looking for explanations into how two warbirds ended up in the same place at the same time at a Dallas air show on Saturday. So far they haven’t had any public insight into how six people died in the midair collision of a B-17 and a P-63 Kingcobra at the Wings Over Dallas […]

Considerable insights can be gained by examining aircraft accident statistics. But sometimes—well, the results aren’t earth-shattering, but can be interesting nonetheless. Take the issue of pilot experience. We would certainly expect more-experienced pilots to make fewer mistakes. But what’s the actual difference? It’s not something that’s only relevant to homebuilts. But my Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft accident database […]

NASA has confirmed that an object discovered underwater off of the east coast of Florida is an artifact from the space shuttle Challenger. According to the agency, the artifact was located by a film crew on a dive looking for the wreckage of a World War II-era aircraft. NASA stated that it is still considering […]

The FAA has published airworthiness criteria for the Joby eVTOL aircraft, making it likely to be the first to be certified. The agency put the proposed “Special Class Airworthiness Criteria” rule in the Federal Register and opened it up for a 30-day comment period. The document runs about 12 pages and covers dozens of standards […]

A typical pilot is concerned with aircraft maintenance only to a limited degree. He or she often lacks any ability to perform or approve maintenance at the same time they’re responsible for pre-flight inspections and ensuring the paperwork demonstrates airworthiness. And although the FARs make the owner/operator responsible for ensuring inspections and maintenance have been […]

Every instrument approach procedure we fly ends in one of two ways: We either see the runway environment and land, perhaps after circling to align ourselves with a runway, or we don’t. When we don’t, we fly a missed approach procedure designed to get the aircraft back to a safe altitude and position from which […]