Flight Safety

Space may get all the mainstream attention in the new NASA budget proposal released today, but staff from the Aeronautics Research Mission are excited about a boost in research funding for new technologies that will impact commercial aviation — including projects that aim to cut fuel burn in half, dramatically reduce noise, restore commercial supersonic […]

A new two-day symposium to explore the future of electric-powered flight will be held May 6 and 7 in Redwood City, California, the Sustainable Aviation Foundation has announced. The program, which is being developed by SAF President Brien Seeley, will include a “global faculty of technology experts and visionaries,” according to the SAF website. The […]

We were flying into Birmingham, Alabama at about 2:00am on a Sunday morning. The sky was clear with great visibility. Birmingham has an ILS to runway 6, and the final approach fix is MCDEN. After checking in with Birmingham Approach, we were told to fly “direct to MCDEN for the McVisual approach.” John Young

Letter of the Week:The Privatization Trap HR 4441 (ATC privatization) is a bear trap using austerity for bait. Don’t think for a moment that user fees will stay out of private aviation. Think revenue. Functional ADS-B infrastructure provides a precision billing platform to warm any number of Congressional hearts. With growing Part 23 and 25 […]

A suicide bomber, possibly with explosives concealed in a laptop, is believed to have blown the hole in the side of a Daallo Airlines A321 last week. It has also been reported that the bomber is the passenger whose body was found on the ground 18 miles north of Mogadishu, Somalia, where the flight originated. […]

The former president of Sikorsky Aircraft was killed along with his passenger when his P-51D crashednear Maricopa, Arizona, on Friday. Jeffrey Pino, 61, was head of Sikorsky from 2006 to 2012. He was flying the Mustang, named Big Beautiful Doll, when it went down. The passenger was identified as Nickolas Tramontano, 71, of Brookfield, Connecticut. […]

I was attending a Wings safety seminar recently and the 1995 American Airlines crash in Colombia was discussed, including the video American Airlines made two years after the fact. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a click. In this compelling video, the speaker says the words that I believe have subtly, but profoundly, influenced […]

Obstructions, sand, mud, wandering animals and other surprises like the end of the runway rushing up to meet you…these are just some of the hazards common to short and soft fields. We all think we’re trained for them, but there’s a big difference between training and reality. I’m not knocking what CFIs teach or what’s […]

Coast Guard boats and divers are searching the waters off Los Angeles this morning after two single-engine airplanes collided Friday afternoon. The Coast Guard said the collision occurred about 3:30 p.m. in clear skies, The Associated Press reported. Two men, ages 61 and 81, were on board a Beechcraft Bonanza, and a woman, 72, was […]

The FAA is looking at cutting its Contract Weather Observer staffing at 57 airports around the country, moving some duties to local ATC, according to an agency document and various media reports in recent weeks. Trained human weather observers contracted by the FAA supplement automated weather reports at towered airports, providing more discerning information including […]