Flight Safety

Not all flight reviews are equal, and rusty pilots are not at all uncommon, but I recently faced a scenario that gave me pause. It read like the beginning of an NTSB report with a stack of extremely novel circumstances. My choice was either be one of the contributing factors to an accident or one […]

All 20 airports slated to receive the FAA’s Runway Status Lights program are fully operational, says the agency. The RWSL is made up of lights embedded in the tarmac across runway crossings as well as at the departure hold zone; they illuminate when it’s unsafe for an aircraft to proceed.  According to the FAA, “at […]

I like to fly at night. The air generally is smoother, there’s less traffic, the ATC frequencies are not as busy and ground illumination, the moon and the stars can compete in one of the best light shows you’ll ever see. Of course, humans were never meant to fly in the first place, and we […]

CNN is reporting that the FAA will allow some insulin-dependent diabetics to earn commercial pilot certificates thanks to the strides made in treatment and management of the disease. CNN’s sources say the announcement could be made early this coming week that the agency will allow insulin-dependent diabetics to apply for first and second class medicals. […]

It’s aviation’s Everest: the highest rating, the toughest to obtain and necessary to have to fly in the Part 121 airline world, and even in some portions of the Part 135 air taxi world. In reality, if you want to fly for a living, the chances are almost unity that you’ll need to hold an […]

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation grilled Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Engineer John Hamilton on “actions taken to improve safety and the company’s interaction with relevant federal regulators” during a Tuesday hearing related to two fatal accidents involving Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The hearing, titled “Aviation Safety and […]

Transport Canada issued an emergency airworthiness directive (AD) on Friday limiting the Airbus A220, formerly the Bombardier C Series, to a maximum setting of 94 percent N1 above 29,000 feet. According to Transport Canada, the directive is due to several occurrences of inflight engine shutdowns on Pratt & Whitney-powered A220s. The AD (PDF) covers A220s […]

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 […]

Texas authorities say two people died and a third was injured when two Robinson R22 helicopters collided in midair about 160 miles south of San Antonio. According to local media, the two helicopters came together while they were herding deer on a ranch near Hebronville. One helicopter was able to land and the other crashed, […]

The FAA is warning officials in Silicon Valley they face a long expensive battle to close an important reliever airport for San Jose’s Mineta Airport. According to AOPA, Santa Clara County supervisors have voted to stop taking federal Airport Improvement Fund grants to begin the process of timing out the obligations that come with them. […]