Flight Safety

Around 20 years ago, a cold snap in the mid-southeast U.S. brought temperatures to well below freezing. The following day, my employee and I headed to the airport in midafternoon. We planned to fly our borrowed twin Commander to Milwaukee, returning it to its owner. We walked directly to the airplane, which had not been […]

The FAA on Monday issued a new Airworthiness Directive that affects about 1,800 Boeing 737 aircraft operated in the U.S. The AD requires additional inspections of the fan blades in all the airplanes equipped with the same type of blades that caused a catastrophic engine failure in April, when one passenger died on a Southwest […]

Early reports after the crash of a Magnus eFusion in Hungary in May said the aircraft appeared to be on fire before it hit the ground—adding to persistent fears about the potential for battery fires in electric-powered aircraft. However, a preliminary report from Hungary’s National Transport Authority says there was no fire. “The data recording […]

Transponders have been with us since the 1950s. They have improved greatly over the years such as the addition of providing pressure altitude in 100-foot increments and other aircraft information but essentially perform the same basic function, aiding in the positive identification of a radar contact. This is accomplished by two means. First, through the […]

For the last few years, my home airport has been a private, paved and lighted strip in a rural area. The pilot-controlled lighting is non-standard, however. For one, the system’s intensity is relatively weak. For another, there seem to be fewer runway lights than at most other airports I’ve used. And the light fixtures themselves […]

Sometimes there’s a razor-thin line between good luck and bad and the unidentified pilot and passenger of what appears to be an ultralight had some time to think about that in South Africa on Friday. The aircraft hit a zipline over a 1,000-foot gorge near Rustenburg in the northwestern part of the country about 8:30 […]

It’s been hard to miss that things are changing in our industry and that pilot training is much a part of that shift. I escaped my office long enough to attend the University Aviation Association’s (UAA) 71st annual Collegiate Aviation Conference last week and talking with representatives from schools both large and small helped verify […]

Officials in Micronesia say they are now looking for man who was unaccounted for in the crash of an Air Niugini flight that landed short of the runway at Chuuk Airport on Friday. Initial reports said that all 47 passengers and crew evacuated the Boeing 737-800 safely but revised the tally on Saturday to say […]

The 411 On 406s Mr Nelson’s description of the ELT technology, be it 121.5 or 406, is fairly accurate. The application of this technology in the real world is not quite up to par. The ELT as we know it is based on antiquated 1950’s concepts with numerous single points of failure incorporated in the […]

While getting ready for my commercial checkride I was practicing intensively with daily flights of at least a couple of hours. Due to the time constraints and availability of school aircraft, I was flying during the same hours of the day so I got to work with the same Boston approach controller. Once on a […]