Flight Safety

Ethiopia’s transport minister told reporters on Sunday that preliminary data from Ethiopian Flight 302’s flight data recorder showed “clear similarities” to data pulled from a similar Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed off Indonesia last October. Dagmawit Moges said the FDR, which appeared significantly damaged from the Ethiopian crash, is actually relatively intact. […]

The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation (MCAS) system at the center of investigations into two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 was misunderstood and mischaracterized in a flawed certification process as Boeing and the FAA rushed to bring the new jet to market, a Seattle Times investigation published Sunday alleges. Citing named and unnamed sources, […]

The Cirrus line has been flying for 20 years and although most people in aviation know they have full aircraft parachutes, it’s fair to ask how effective these have been. With more than 90 uses of the so-called CAPS, has the system really saved lives? In this video, AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli analyzes the record. view […]

Flight 1549 Capt. Chesley Sullenberger has weighed in on the MAX 8 discussion but from a crew training and experience perspective. The pilot who deadsticked an A320 into the Hudson River after a dual engine failure 10 years ago with the help of First Officer Jeff Skiles said in a Facebook post on Saturday that […]

This week, AVweb’s news roundup found reports on new aircraft batteries from True Blue Power, a website supporting congressional action to allow flight operations at airports closed by presidential visits and good news for several military airfields in the U.K. True Blue Power introduced its new, fifth-generation main ship batteries at the Helicopter Association International […]

Boeing 737 MAX Grounding I strongly suspect that many (if not a majority) of airlines do not include enough aircraft handling simulator training on their conversion courses, especially on difference courses. For example, converting from the B737-800 to the 737 MAX should include simulator training specifically aimed at how to deal with a malfunctioning MCAS, […]

An apparent “denial of service” attack took down AVweb for several hours this afternoon. The system is back up and running, and new security measures have been installed. We are resending today’s Flash as a convenience for readers and a service to advertisers. We are also repopulating our news feed with the latest breaking information. […]

Investigators probing the wreck of Ethiopian Airlines Fight 302 have reportedly recovered the airplane’s trim jackscrew and found it set to a nose-down position. This is similar to the jackscrew position found in the Lion Air crash last October and may be the additional evidence that convinced the FAA to ground the Boeing 737 MAX […]

I was flying with a student in SoCal. Before taxi, she got an appropriate VFR clearance as required per ATIS. However, she was a little confused and despite talking to approach with a distinct transponder code, was unsure if we had flight following. She asked me if she could confirm with ATC and against my […]

The FAA has uncovered new information from the wreckage of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 “concerning the aircraft’s configuration just after takeoff that, taken together with newly refined data from satellite-based tracking of the aircraft’s flight path, indicates some similarities between the ET302 and [Lion Air] JT610 accidents,” according to the emergency order issued by the […]