Flight Safety

The FAA wasted little time following NTSB recommendations to sharply restrict helicopter operations around Reagan National Airport in Washington. In its preliminary report on a crash between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Eagle CRJ last month that killed 67 people, the NTSB urged the FAA to eliminate helicopter traffic that might conflict […]

Bryan Bedford, CEO of Republic Airways, is reportedly the leading contender to head the Federal Aviation Administration, according to sources cited by Reuters. The FAA has been without a permanent administrator since Jan. 20, following the resignation of Mike Whitaker, who stepped down a little more than a year into his five-year term. Deputy Administrator […]

Tecnam made a big inroad into the U.S. flight training market with the sale of 38 aircraft to US Aviation Academy. The school also has an option to buy another 52 planes from the Italian planemaker. The order constitutes a significant expansion of US Aviation Academy’s fleet, which now sits at about 175 spread among […]

All five people on a turbine conversion Bonanza survived when the plane crashed on takeoff into the parking lot of a retirement community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. The aircraft cabin was consumed in a post-crash fire. The pilot of the plane, registered to a Mannheim, Pennsylvania LLC, told controllers at Lancaster Airport that he […]

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says it will take a maximum of 18 months to “rebuild the air traffic control system” if Congress will up-front the funding. But it sounds like the scope of the overhaul he was describing might be limited to modernization of communications systems. In a 10-minute interview aired by Fox on Saturday, […]

SpaceX’s Starship 8 test vehicle blew up over the Caribbean on Thursday, diverting flights into South Florida airports because of what the FAA termed “falling space debris.” The explosion occurred about 20 seconds before the engines were due to shut down after what appeared to be a successful launch from SpaceX’s south Texas launch facility. […]

Sling Pilot Academy has expanded its operations to Long Beach, California, unveiling the “Whisper Sling”—a new, noise-reducing pilot training aircraft. The announcement was made during a ceremony on March 5 at the academy’s newly established campus at Long Beach Airport. With this expansion, Sling now operates five training schools across Southern California. The Long Beach […]

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary report on the fatal medical jet crash in Northeast Philadelphia on Jan. 31, revealing that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was not operational at the time of the crash and likely hadn’t captured audio for several years. Investigators noted that while the Learjet 55 crew were […]

ATP Flight School announced it is expanding its training fleet with the addition of 61 new aircraft in 2025, according to a press release on Tuesday. ATP said the new deliveries will include 54 Cessna 172 Skyhawks—each equipped with advanced Garmin G1000 NXi avionics—and seven Piper Seminoles featuring Garmin G1000 flight decks. With these additions, […]

Sources have told AVweb that a controversial FAA policy to turn incompletely documented medical deferrals into denials has been indefinitely deferred. The policy was supposed to have come into effect on Jan.1, but opposition from a broad base of GA groups prompted a deferral until March 1. The indefinite delay was communicated to AMEs on […]