Flight Safety

Sequences don’t come much easier. A VFR Mooney and a VFR Cherokee both requested a practice RNAV approach. They were the same distance from the same initial approach fix (IAF), and the Mooney was 50 knots faster than the Cherokee. I gave the Mooney direct to the IAF. The slower Cherokee got a few vectors […]

The FAA announced on Thursday that it has downgraded the air safety rating for Russia from a Category 1 to a Category 2 rating. The change restricts Russian air carriers to current levels of existing service to the U.S. and bans them from carrying the code of U.S. carriers on any flights. The FAA noted […]

Alsim announced on Thursday that its AL40 simulator has been approved by the FAA as an Advanced Aviation Training Device (AATD). Designed as an exact replica of the Diamond DA40 NG, the AL40 comes equipped with G1000 NXi avionics and a GFC 700 autopilot. It uses Alsim’s in-house VFR image generator and visual system with […]

Finding out the status of a flight medical is a click away under a new online feature announced by the FAA on Wednesday. The agency says pilots can now follow the progress of their medical through the system on the MedXPress website. Previously, pilots who wanted to check on their application had to call the […]

The FAA has pulled the certificate of a California pilot and ex-Olympian who it says intentionally abandoned a vintage Taylorcraft and shot video of it crashing as he parachuted to the ground. Trevor Jacob has been told to surrender his ticket immediately and that he can’t apply for another one for a year for the […]

Despite our determination to do better, we pilots are human. Frustratingly, because of that we make mistakes. Fortunately, most of those mistakes damage only our self-image as steely-eyed superior beings although from time to time they result in damage to our airplanes. We’ve been trained to keep an aircraft right side up and on the […]

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 […]

In a recently published advisory circular (AC) updating its airport design guidance, the FAA officially acknowledged turf operations on unpaved runway safety areas (RSAs). According to the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), it first suggested the policy change a few years ago during the annual EAA/FAA Winter Recreational Summit. The update covers key risk factors to […]

Days before Chinese authorities have said they will release their preliminary investigation into the crash of China Eastern Flight MU5843 last month, the airline has returned its large fleet of Boeing 737-800s to service. China Eastern has 223 of the type and all were grounded when one dove from altitude, recovered briefly and then crashed […]

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) says the airline has to address a growing fatigue problem in its membership, but the airline says it follows crew rest regulations to the letter. “Fatigue, both acute and cumulative, has become Southwest Airlines’ number-one safety threat,” SWAPA told airline executives in an open letter this week. The union […]