Flight Safety

The fuel tank selector valve was between Both and Right on the Cessna 172 that collided with two vehicles in an emergency landing on a bridge in Miami on May 14. The crash killed the pilot and injured two passengers and five people in one of the vehicles. That was the only obvious anomaly with […]

The FAA is keeping Boeing on a shorter leash than the company wanted to ensure it makes some internal changes on its certification processes. The company applied for its customary five-year Organization Designation Authorization allowing designated Boeing employees to sign off on some aspects of the certification of new aircraft. In the wake of the […]

FAA inspectors took part in a safety briefing that preceded an impromptu STOL landing and takeoff competition that turned fatal in late May. In its preliminary report into the apparent stall-spin accident that killed competitor Tom Dafoe, the NTSB also says the pilot was reportedly warned twice to “lower your nose” on the third round […]

There’s an old Buddhist saying that the fool sees only the form, while the enlightened person sees the essence. It’s strange to think that religion could give us any insight into aviation weather. But in the same way that gods tend to be elusive, many of the important details in the atmosphere are unseeable and […]

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 […]

The search for a Tara Air Twin Otter missing in Nepal was suspended on Sunday due to bad weather. There were 22 people on the small twin when it disappeared on a 20-minute flight from Pohkara to Jomsom. The aircraft was about five minutes out from its destination when radar contact was lost. Government officials […]

The head of Australia’s largest pilot’s group says a BasicMed type medical certification system may be among reforms being considered after recent meetings with top government officials. A self-certification system like that available to U.S. private pilots is at the top of AOPA Australia’s wish list for regulatory reform. CEO Ben Morgan told Australian Flying […]

A month after authorities called off the search, family members of one of the pilots of an aircraft that went missing in Ontario have found the wreckage. Brian Slingerland’s family chartered a plane and spent most of last Saturday searching an area near the last known position of the Piper Comanche Slingerland and his friend […]

The FAA wants to revoke the air carrier certificate of the company that owned a Boeing 737-200 that ditched off Honolulu last year. The FAA naturally had a good look at Rhoades Aviation’s operation after the dual flameout that preceded the ditching last July 2. The agency claims to have found hundreds of illegal flights […]

Most pilots venture into windy conditions with enough skills and smarts to know how to either avoid or cope with them. But wind-related accidents are still commonplace, so clearly we don’t always get it right. One reason for this may be fairly simple: With the exception of blowing snow, tornadoes, dust devils and some cloud […]