AVweb’s Flight Safety section offers in-depth coverage of aviation safety topics, including accident analyses, risk management strategies, regulatory updates, and pilot training insights. Designed for pilots, instructors, and aviation professionals, this section provides timely information to enhance situational awareness and promote best practices in flight operations.
The computer user refrain of “unplug it and plug it back in again” now applies to Boeing 787s. On Dec. 2, the FAA issued an airworthiness directive that required operators of all Dreamliners to power their aircraft down completely and turn them back on again by Dec. 9. The order came after the FAA said […]
Many years ago while flying into MFR (Medford, OR) as a newly minted pilot from a non-controlled airport I was nervous to say the least.I got a right downwind entry clearance but I absentmindedly entered an extended left downwind. Tower: “Experimental 123xy, okay left downwind will work just fine too, and cleared for left base […]
I was doing one of my periodic office de-clutters this week and up on the far northwest corner of one shelf, I found some interesting artifacts. Like an archeologist dusting off pottery shards, there was the last of my Jeppesen binders and a stack of paper charts, some dating to 1997. I can’t remember when […]
I’ve never felt it was appropriate that a pilot could obtain an instrument rating without flying in the clouds. From a safety standpoint—no matter what type of flying the pilot intends to undertake—it seems beyond ludicrous. I received instrument dual in IMC at a small airport in rural Iowa; one would think that it would […]
A big hunk of metal that a sea cucumber diver thought might be a Cold War atomic bomb turned out to be a piece of industrial junk. The Royal Canadian Navy sent a ship to a remote area off the northern Pacific coast of British Columbia late last month after the diver, Sean Smyrichinski, reported […]
High-profile aviation accidents usually get a public hearing in which the NTSB reveals what it knows and allows input from other parties on the road to establishing probable cause. Such hearings offer tantalizing factuals but they rarely reveal jaw-dropping lack of judgment. But rarely is not the same as never and this week’s hearing on […]
Poor weather and the pilot’s medical condition, including use of sedating drugs, were among the critical factors discussed Friday during the NTSB’s hearing on the July 30 hot-air balloon crash in Texas that killed 16 people. The balloon, piloted by Alfred “Skip” Nichols, owner of Heart of Texas Balloons, struck power lines and ignited a […]
The nighttime crash of a Piper Seneca in 2015 that left a 7-year-old survivor was a fuel starvation accident, the NTSB has determined in a factual report. The Jan. 2 crash in western Kentucky killed the 49-year-old pilot, his wife, their 9-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old cousin. The couple’s other daughter walked through wooded terrain […]
Aeronautical decision-making (ADM) is essentially the mental process of gathering and evaluating information pertinent to a flight; listing the options and their attendant risks; and then choosing the best alternatives. It is an iterative process due to the nature of the changing variables inherent in flight. ADM is often a relatively simple and subliminal process […]
A Pakistan International Airlines turboprop crashed Wednesday in the country’s northern region, killing all 48 people on board. News reports say there was a fiery explosion as the ATR-42 crashed following a possible engine-related emergency. The airliner was carrying 42 passengers, five crew members and a ground engineer when it crashed in mountainous terrain north […]
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