Flight Safety

With cold and flu season underway, the FAA has published its annual list of acceptable and unacceptable over-the-counter (OTC) medications for pilots who want to fly through the pain. The first recommendation is for sick pilots to take their self-certification responsibilities to heart and to wait until they’re feeling better. It’s more complicated than that, […]

The FAA says it’s establishing a new “safety division” but says it has nothing to do with the Boeing 737 MAX.  The Washington Post first revealed the new department but the agency says it’s old news, part of a reorganization that began two years ago. “The FAA is constantly evolving and changing to continue addressing […]

Boeing’s manufacturing facility in Renton, Washington, may have been “prioritizing production speed over quality and safety” during the time when two 737 MAX aircraft involved in fatal accidents were built at the factory, according to testimony given by former Boeing employee Edward Pierson at a U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on […]

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) is appealing an FAA decision regarding city handling of federal grant funds at California’s Santa Monica Airport (SMO). As previously reported by AVweb, the FAA issued a determination (PDF) in November that stated that the City of Santa Monica had failed to comply with its grant obligations for reasons […]

The earth’s surface is about 71 percent water. Most of us will never pilot a personal aircraft long distances over oceans, but eventually flying over some body of water while beyond gliding distance to land is almost a certainty. When we do that in a single-engine aircraft, the adverse consequences of an engine failure increase […]

The FAA has selected twelve organizations to advise the agency as it develops test administration requirements for an aeronautical knowledge and safety test for recreational Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS/drone) operators. Among the organizations that will be advising the FAA are Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, DJI, King Schools, the Unmanned Safety Institute, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association […]

On Jan. 8, the FAA will discontinue the Hazardous Inflight Weather Advisory Service (HIWAS) after discussions with industry going back a year and a half. Ending HIWAS is “part of FAA efforts to modernize and streamline service delivery.” Citing new weather-dissemination technologies, the FAA says that “the demand for inflight services from Flight Service specialists […]

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 […]

A former FAA inspector who claims he was “promoting aviation” has been sentenced to six years in jail for a string of corruption and theft charges that even involved his mother. The Miami Herald is reporting that Manuel Fernandez, a senior FAA safety inspector in South Florida, stole expensive repair manuals and resold them, took […]

After dropping steadily for most of the past two decades, the helicopter accident and fatal accident rates have plateaued and the FAA is redoubling efforts to keep the numbers dropping. The U.S. Helicopter Safety Team (USHST), an FAA-led initiative with the lofty goal of eliminating helicopter fatalities, released the latest stats on accident rates and […]