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.
From our earliest days as student pilots, the instructor probably explained how pitot-static instruments work as well as the “plumbing.” During my private checkride the examiner asked me to diagram the system and explain its operation. A Quick Review The pitot tube is only connected to the airspeed indicator, allowing ram air from the slipstream […]
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 […]
Two people were killed, one on the airplane, one on the ground, when a Cessna 303 Crusader crashed into a house in LaGrangeville, New York. There were three people in the airplane and three in the house when the aircraft, a relatively rare six-place twin made in the early 1980s, came down on a flight […]
Canadian authorities have launched investigations, including a criminal negligence probe, after a skydiver was injured when both her main and reserve parachutes failed to deploy properly. The 30-year-old woman suffered broken bones and other non-life-threatening injuries after falling about 5,000 feet during a solo jump near Trois Rivieres, Quebec. It was described by local media […]
The show went on in Chicago this weekend after two Blue Angels F-18s touched during a close formation maneuver during practice last Wednesday at their home base in Pensacola, Florida. “The No. 3 canopy made momentary contact with the underside of No. 1’s outer wing during the Diamond 360 maneuver,” Navy spokeswoman Lt. Michelle Tucker said. […]
A Cessna Citation 680 business jet carrying former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., his wife, Amy, and their 1-year-old daughter, Isla, along with two unidentified pilots, overran the runway at Tennessee’s Elizabethton Municipal Airport (0A9) on Thursday. No serious injuries have been reported, although the family and pilots were transported to Johnson City Medical Center […]
An Airbus A321 operated by Ural Airlines was forced to make an emergency landing in a cornfield near Moscow, Russia, shortly after takeoff when an encounter with a flock of seagulls caused an engine failure on Thursday morning. All 226 passengers and seven crew members onboard were able to evacuate the aircraft via the emergency […]
Carbon monoxide poisoning likely played a key role in the fatal accident of a 1984 Piper Malibu carrying soccer star Emiliano Sala, according to a special bulletin issued by the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) on Wednesday. As previously reported by AVweb, the aircraft went down in the English Channel 22 NM northwest of […]
Stephen Dickson was sworn in by U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao as the FAA’s 18th administrator on Monday. As leader of the FAA, which is responsible for a system operating more than 50,000 flights a day, Dickson will oversee the agency’s 47,000 employees and $16.4 billion-dollar budget. He is taking over from Acting Administrator Dan […]
One of the oldest jokes in aviation holds that the big fan is there to cool the cockpit: Whenever it stops unexpectedly, the pilot starts to sweat. Every aviator who’s had that experience can probably confirm a significant uptick in pulse and respiration. In the best case, that’s accompanied by a corresponding intensification of focus, […]
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