Flight Safety

The pace of technological change can be excruciatingly slow sometimes … we’ve been waiting eons now for battery-powered airplanes that never need maintenance … but it’s relentless. I’m reminded of the college classmate who told me, way back in the last century, that she was making a smart choice studying to be a keypunch operator, […]

The FAA has issued a statement warning operators of unmanned aircraft (UAS/drones) to stay away from wildfires. The agency emphasized that while proper use of drones for firefighting missions can provide a lot of useful information, unauthorized flights risk lives, especially since firefighting operations typically occur in the same airspace as the majority of hobby […]

Unleaded Avgas “Regardless of which fuel is selected, on that first takeoff, what will YOU be thinking?” I’ll be thinking “I’m glad I’m not flying behind a high-HP engine that needs 100-octane fuel” 😉 Joking aside, I’ve been saying that I’ll be glad to do away with TEL because I won’t have to worry about […]

A bill now under consideration in the U.S. Senate would provide grants to flight schools to help them recruit veterans to train to become commercial airline pilots. The bipartisan American Aviator Act, introduced by Senators Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., proposes to authorize up to $5 million per year to fund the program […]

The National Weather Service needs to do a better job of forecasting low-level turbulence, which can affect GA pilots, the NTSB said in a recent Safety Recommendation (PDF). The recommendation is part of the safety board’s ongoing investigation of the crash of a Pilatus PC-12 in April 2017. The PC-12, operating as an air ambulance, […]

The National Park Service has ended its efforts to reach the crash site of a de Havilland Beaver, operated by K2 Aviation, thathit the side of a mountain during a sightseeing flight in Denali National Park last week. In a news release issued on Friday, the NPS said after the weather cleared, a ranger inspected […]

A professional pilot, Duane Youd, stole his employer’s Cessna Citation 525 jet and deliberately crashed it into his own house, in Payson, Utah, about 2:30 a.m. Monday, according to police reports. Youd’s wife and a boy, who were in the house, escaped without injury, but he died in the crash. Youd’s relation to the boy […]

Your body’s wondrous structure of bone, muscle, tendons, ligaments and assorted odds and ends is a fantastic erector set that keeps vital organs safe, and allows for all of life’s perambulations. It lifts, twists, bends on command, and permits pilots to go about their cockpit tasks without a second thought. But throw a monkey wrench […]

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 […]