Flight Safety

AVweb’s Flight Safety section offers in-depth coverage of aviation safety topics, including accident analyses, risk management strategies, regulatory updates, and pilot training insights. Designed for pilots, instructors, and aviation professionals, this section provides timely information to enhance situational awareness and promote best practices in flight operations.

ATC Pet Peeves

Being both a pilot and air traffic controller, I enjoy learning the dos and don’ts from both sides of the mic. We’re all human and everybody makes mistakes—yes, even controllers as I’ve observed from the pilot seat. But, I’m hoping you’ll ride along with me as I share some observations from the tower cab about […]

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Accident Probe: Course Reversal In IMC

We’ve long maintained that one of the best ways for a pilot to enhance his or her aviation risk management is to earn and use the instrument rating. This is especially true if the pilot in question has plans to use their pilot certificate for transportation on anything resembling a schedule. That’s because the skills, […]

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FAA Tells NTSB To Stay Out Of Space Crash Investigations

The FAA is telling the NTSB to mind its own business and butt out of investigating spaceflight crashes. Last month the NTSB issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adding space transportation to the list of methods of locomotion that it oversees. The commercial space industry pushed back, fearful that the new layer would curtail the […]

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FAA Urges More Stick Time For Airline, Charter Pilots

Airline and charter pilots may be in for more stick and rudder time assuming a new proposed advisory circular makes it through the 30-day comment period. The FAA has issued a draft of the AC on Flightpath Management and it includes a host of measures the agency wants operators to include in training and operations […]

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5G Issues To Linger For Years: Dickson

It would appear the chafe between 5G and aviation safety will be around for some time but FAA Administrator Steve Dickson told Congress on Thursday he expects future disruptions to be minimal. Dickson told the aviation subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that new rules on the interference resistance to 5G of […]

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Prepping For Darkness

It was well after dark when we arrived over the unfamiliar rural airport. We were descending toward that green and white airport beacon, and I thought I could see the headlights of my brother-in-law’s crew-cab pickup truck in the parking lot. “Watch this,” I said to my daughter, and I clicked the push-to-talk switch seven […]

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General Aviation Accident Bulletin

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 […]

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NTSB Wants Cub Rudder Post Replacement AD

The NTSB wants the FAA to issue an AD for old Pipers after two incidents in which the rudder posts snapped and the top section of the rudder folded into a roughly horizontal position. The failure obviously had a big effect on the controllability of the aircraft involved, a PA-12 Super Cruiser and a PA-14 […]

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JetBlue Flight Diverts After Evasive Action Tail Strike

The FAA and NTSB are investigating a Jan. 22 tail strike that appears to have resulted from evasive action taken by the crew of JetBlue A320 at an uncontrolled airport in Hayden, Colorado. The FAA has confirmed the tail strike and that it’s investigating. The NTSB is classifying it as an accident and is calling […]

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Post-Repair Flights: Recognize The Risks

All things being equal, accident data reflect that we pilots are pretty good at dealing with the risks involved with repeatedly causing inanimate objects to leave the ground, move through the air and land. Unfortunately, things are not always equal, and the factors that make us human, such as stress, distraction and impatience, can conspire […]

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