Flight Safety

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.

Another Look At Fly By Wire

As aviation technology goes, nothing is quite so enduring as the steel cable or torque tube as a means of manipulating flight controls. Add hydraulics for big airplanes, but the basic idea has sustained for more than a century. Is it time to revisit the idea? That’s being done commonly in the automotive world, with […]

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Regs OK Virtual Currency For Canada Pilots

Pilots in Canada can meet their requirements to stay current without ever getting into an actual airplane, under a rule exemption that was enacted by Transport Canada in August. The change will make pilot training more “cost effective and efficient,” officials at Transport Canada told The Globe in a statement. The agency also said the […]

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FAA Hits SMO Evictions

The FAA is demanding proof from the city of Santa Monica that it will be able to legally and safely provide aviation services at Santa Monica Airport now that it has evicted the FBO and flight school on the field. The agency has subpoenaed the city to provide all the relevant documentation (certificates, ratings and […]

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Ryder Cup Penalty For Floatplane Pilot

GA pilots have been cited for delaying presidents, clearing the Capitol and stopping missile tests but a Minnesota floatplane owner may be the only one to be detained for interrupting a golf game. The unidentified man and his passenger were rowed to shore by Chaska Police (the motor on their boat failed) after they landed […]

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Four Rescued After Seaplane Crash In Washington

Four people survived the crash of a chartered seaplane operated by Kenmore Air in the waters off Washington State Friday. The de Havilland Beaver crashed near its destination, Lopez Island, part of the San Juan Islands, just before 9 a.m. according to news reports. The crew members on a fishing boat rescued all four from […]

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General Aviation Accident Bulletin

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine 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 web site at www.ntsb.org. Final […]

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Finding Carla Explores Tragedy Behind Regulations

When a family survived a wilderness crash in California in 1967 in their Cessna 195, only to die while waiting for rescue that never came, their story brought home the need for general aviation aircraft to carry ELTs, says Alaska author Ross Nixon. In his book, “Finding Carla,” now in bookstores, Nixon details what went […]

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Podcast: ‘Finding Carla’ — Tragedy Leads To Lives Saved

They say aviation regulations are written in blood, and Alaska pilot Ross Nixon tells a story that makes that clear — when a family was lost in a California crash in 1957, it was ultimately determined they might have survived if only they’d been found in time. Thanks to that somber event, says Nixon, general […]

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Under the Illusion

Our body is traditionally said to have five senses—all of which, it can be argued, are involved in piloting an airplane. The problem occurs when the inputs from two or more contradict each other thereby causing an erroneous mental picture. During instrument training most of us have experienced “the leans” where our eyes convey one […]

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NBAA Report: Flight Crews Skip Checks

A study conducted by NBAA has found that 15 percent of flights in business jets begin without a complete flight-control check, the association reported last week. The NTSB suggested a need for the study after its investigation of a fatal 2014 accident involving a Gulfstream G-IV at Hanscom Field, in Bedford, Mass. The safety board […]

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