Flight Safety

A contest sponsored by Lightspeed and CloudAhoy is inspiring general aviation pilots to draw in the sky. Contestants make line drawings using the path of their airplanes, recorded using CloudAhoy, a smartphone-based GPS flight tracking app. The concept, on a larger scale, was popularized in the last few years by jet aircraft manufacturers who used […]

“Several failures in close succession” by a jet’s flight crew were the probable cause of a runway excursion at LaGuardia Airport last October, according to the NTSB’s final report,issued Thursday. The Eastern Air Lines Boeing 737-700, a chartered flight carrying then-vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence and campaign staff, overran Runway 22 during landing. The airplane departed […]

I got an email this week from a reader on the cusp of making a small fleet purchase for a few flight schools. I was asked for an opinion on the various choices in the training market. The more you think about this, the more difficult the decision actually is. There’s simply no perfect airplane […]

The danger of carbon monoxide poisoning in aviation was the subject of two safety alerts released by the NTSB on Wednesday, one for pilots (PDF) and one for mechanics (PDF). The risk of CO poisoning is “generally overlooked and underestimated” by both pilots and mechanics, the safety board said. A defect or leak in the […]

Bruce Landsberg, who worked as a safety advocate at the AOPA Air Safety Institute for many years, has been nominated to be a member and vice chairman of the NTSB, the White House announced on Friday. Landsberg, who lives in South Carolina, served as executive director and then president of the ASI, from 1992 to […]

I was in the lineup to depart LAX. A Delta jet was ahead of me and a Short Bros. 360 was ahead of Delta. Delta (strong southern accent): “Ah, ground control, could you tell us what kind of aircraft is that ahead of us?” Short Bros. Pilot: “Ah, we are a Short Bros 360.” Long […]

Anyone who knows anything about aviation also knows at least two things about regulations: They’re written in blood and despite the belief that the FAA devises rules on a whim, the so-called tombstone mentality lives on. The bodies come before the rules, usually, and sometimes it takes a while. But unless we’re reminded of it […]

When it looked like his airport might be hit by Hurricane Irma, Sebring Airport Executive Director Mike Willingham said he and his staff put into action a long-established emergency plan that he credits with preventing injuries and speeding recovery efforts. To be sure, there is plenty of damage, but Sebring will be ready to host […]

Following hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the general aviation community distinguished itself by mobilizing to fly disaster-relief supplies and personnel into the affected areas and people and pets out. Being one of the fraction of one percent of our nation’s population that is a pilot, I watched news coverage of my sister and brother aviators who […]

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., says he’ll fight any move to relax rules that require airline pilots to have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight time before they can fly airliners. Schumer was one of the architects of the controversial regs adopted by the FAA at the direction of Congress after the 2009 crash of […]