Flight Safety

The FAA has reorganized its certification division, scrapping the familiar Transport, Small Airplane, Engine and Propeller and Rotorcraft Directorates in favor of a new “functionally-aligned organizational structure.” Effective July 23 all certifications, whether on airliners or light aircraft, will flow, as is appropriate, through new organizations named Organizational Performance, International, Policy and Innovation, Compliance and […]

Owners impacted by the recently announced Lycoming connecting rod bushing service bulletin will be on their own to pay labor charges, the company told AVweb this week. However, Lycoming will provide the necessary parts. Customers who bought factory engines still covered under warranty will be afforded a labor allowance, according to Lycoming. As we reported […]

The Civil Air Patrol says it can take days for pilots to be found after an off-airport landing, but Jim O’Donnell had the first emergency vehicle on scene before he came to a stop after landing his Cessna P206 on the Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County, New York. Shortly after takeoff from Brookhaven Airport, en […]

When I got my first job flying freight in the mid-1970s, every single pilot I met was a white male. I didn’t really think anything about it—it was the way of the world. There were no women flying for the airlines or the military and the WASPs of World War II were not even a […]

Sometimes you just get set up. You got up early, looked out the window at a nearly clear sky and figured you’d fly the 80 miles or so to visit a buddy and hang out at his airport instead of yours. You whipped out your tablet for a full briefing and to make sure there […]

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will travel to Anchorage, Alaska, for a hearing on the crash of Ravn Connect Flight 3153 in October 2016. Flight 3153 was a Cessna Caravan traveling from Quinhagak to Togiak carrying one passenger and two pilots that impacted rocky terrain near Togiak killing all aboard. This is the first […]

Pilot Vlado Lenoch, 64, of Illinois, and his passenger, Bethany Root, 34, of Kansas, died about 10:30 Sunday morning when the P-51 Mustang “Baby Duck” they were flying crashed in Kansas, news outlets have reported. Lenoch had flown the classic airplane on Saturday night at the Atchison airport, in an airshow that was held as […]

The Global Super Tanker, a converted 747 designed to fight wildfires, has been grounded in California even as fires rage, and its operators say it’s because of “red tape” imposed by the U.S. Forest Service. “We just happen to be the biggest, fastest fire truck in the air,” said Jim Wheeler, CEO of Global SuperTanker […]

Heard over rural Massachusetts. Cherokee XYZ (tremulous voice): “Albany Approach, Cherokee XYZ five miles northeast of Pittsfield at 3500 feet, requesting fight following to Kilo Oscar Romeo Delta.” Silence: all on frequency were contemplating the Cherokee, a student pilot at the controls, attempting the impossibly long flight to Chicago and then penetrating the O’Hare airspace. […]

Nav Canada, the nonprofit corporation responsible for air traffic control in Canada and over the North Atlantic, said Sunday it had restored its automated flight planning system after the main facility housing the equipment was flooded by a thunderstorm in Ottawa, early Saturday. The flood caused the evacuation of the facility and staff moved to […]