Flight Safety

An Embry-Riddle research study found that remotely operated consumer drones exceeded 400 feet AGL in 6.8 percent of flights tracked and that one flew as close as 0.25 NM from Daytona Beach International’s approach path. The study sought to evaluate “potential aviation interference and safety hazards” caused by small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS/drone) flights. To […]

It’s easy to forget, as we move along through our busy lives day to day, that things used to be different. We didn’t always carry computers in our pockets, we didn’t always have seat belts in our cars, and flight planning once involved paper charts and rulers and E6-Bs. It makes me feel pretty old […]

Last week, EAA committed a million dollars to flight-training scholarships, and this week, FedEx stepped up, funding $2.5 million in scholarships for students pursuing aviation professions—not just pilots, but also maintenance technicians and more. “E-commerce is driving increasing demands on both air and ground transportation networks at a time when large numbers of workers in […]

The current requirement for cockpit voice recorders to store just two hours of data is not enough, the NTSB says in a new safety recommendation report, and 25 hours’ duration should be required. “These recommendations are derived from the NTSB’s experiences with investigations that lacked access to relevant CVR data,” the board said. In its […]

A Los Angeles-based “stunt rapper” died Saturday while wing walking for a video shoot in southern British Columbia. Details are scant but early reports said Jon James McMurray, a professional skier who set videos of himself and others engaged in extreme sports to his own hip hop music, fell off the wing of an airplane […]

AVweb’sGeneral Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine, and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s website atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after […]

A Florida aircraft mechanic has been charged with multiple counts of theft for allegedly removing serviceable parts from aircraft, selling them and charging his customers to replace them with new parts. Joseph Lippo, who operates J.L. Aircraft Services in Deland, was arrested on Wednesday and has since been released on a $15,000 bond. The investigation […]

All student pilots practice off-airport landings but a 36-year-old beginner was in the left seat for a freeway landing that looked pretty textbook on Friday. The student was on final for Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California, when the Cherokee he and his instructor were in went quiet. The instructor managed to tuck the aircraft […]

Aircraft Performance Group (APG) caters to the jet market with, among other services, the iPreflight iPad app for iOS. The draw is the app’s ability to crunch precise runway performance data based on a variety of customizable variables, including aircraft loading. Moreover, APG says its app meets regulatory requirements for engine-out performance calculations. But the […]

I recently heard this at Detroit Metropolitan Airport: Tower: “Airliner 123, left turn to heading 185. Cleared for takeoff 21R.” Pilot: “Right turn 185, cleared for takeoff 21R.” Tower: “That’s a left turn, 185.” Pilot: “Left turn 185 … that would’ve been a really long right turn.” Tower (completely deadpan): “It’s been done.” Chris Iriarte […]