Flight Safety

The FAA has denied a Republic Airways petition for an exemption from regulations requiring pilots applying for an airline transport pilot (ATP) certificate to have logged 1,500 flight hours. In the petition, the airline asked that graduates from its Leadership in Flight Training Academy (LIFT) be allowed to apply for a restricted airline transport pilot […]

L-29 pilot Aaron Hogue was killed Sunday during the Jet Gold Race at the Stihl National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada. Organizers suspended all racing after the accident, which occurred at Outer Pylon 5 about 3:45 p.m. local time. As seen in the accompanying video (graphic and disturbing content) Hogue’s aircraft was turning at […]

The NTSB says witnesses told investigators a turbine Otter seaplane operated by Friday Harbor Seaplane Tours spiraled vertically into Puget Sound on a scheduled flight from Friday Harbor to Renton, Washington. All 10 people onboard died. The NTSB released its preliminary report into the Sept. 4 accident in Mutiny Bay, north of Seattle, on Saturday. The […]

When an instrument-rated pilot thinks of an approach, he or she likely pictures a so-called standard instrument approach procedure, or SIAP, the published approaches we all have come to know and “love.” A SIAP is described in FAR Part 97 and in published charting data available from the FAA and Jeppesen, for example. Standard approach […]

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 […]

One person was seriously injured and two suffered minor injuries in what appears to be the first field deployment of the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System on a VisionJet SF50 near Orlando on Friday. According to clickorlando the aircraft went down in a marshy area near Lake Tohopekaliga about 3:15 p.m. The publication said all three […]

Since the dawn of aviation, icing has emerged as one of the great hazards of flying. The 1994 American Eagle crash in Roselawn, Indiana, shows that this problem has dogged aviation well into the modern era and called the bluff of even trained and experienced pilots. Even in the 2000s, when numerical forecasting had become […]

Ensuring there is fuel aboard the airplane adequate for the planned flight is a basic, primary responsibility for any pilot. Unfortunately, the accident record tells us it’s one responsibility not all pilots fulfill. In our experience, fuel exhaustion, starvation or simple mismanagement accounts for a healthy proportion of engine-failure mishaps. This is true despite the […]

One person has been confirmed dead and nine are missing after a turbine Otter floatplane crashed off Whidbey Island in Washington State on Sunday. The search for survivors was called off at noon on Monday. The charter aircraft took off from Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands for Renton about 2:50 p.m. and the […]

Sherman Smoot, former Naval aviator and longtime warbird and race pilot, died in the crash of a highly modified Yak-11 on Sept. 2. The crash occurred just after takeoff from Minter Field Airport in Shafter, California. Details of the crash have not been confirmed. The aircraft was known as Czech Mate and was set up […]