Flight Safety

Ho-hum, another month, another accident in which the aviation industry can get its pants snagged on the notion that cockpit automation is turning us all into numbskull idiots with hands of stone. But what if the pilot is already well on his way to being a numbskull? Does the automation push him over the edge […]

Only a small percentage of the controller work force in the system today—or for that matter, in the past—are or have been pilots. Controllers are taught to perform the duties and provide the services that are outlined in the controller’s bible, the FAA Order 7110.65, Air Traffic Control Manual. While they have been made aware […]

The string of incidents that led to the crash of Air Asia Flight QZ8501 on Dec. 28 last year began with a mechanical malfunction that had gone unresolved despite having failed 23 times, investigators said in their final report (PDF), issued today by Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee. But in trying to cope with the […]

JetBlue plans to develop an “ab-initio” training program for its Embraer SA E190 crews, the company told Bloomberg News last week. The airline must get FAA approval for its plans, but if it does, it would become the only U.S. airline to recruit zero-time pilots. The program will start with about two dozen participants, said […]

Letter of the Week:Personal Airspace I would register my drone prior to flying it above 200 feet AGL. I think it is clear from U.S. v. Causby (1946) that the FAA has no authority to regulate “the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere” of my property, which in the Causby case is at least 83 […]

Things can go “bump” in the night. Daytime, too. Most of them either have been considered before or encountered by someone, resulting in a section of your AFM/POH labeled “Emergency Procedures.” But not everything that can happen is covered there: Pilots are constantly inventing new ways to screw up, and the aircraft themselves can present […]

A UH-60L Army helicopter crashed Monday evening while flying in Fort Hood Range in Texas, killing all four crew members on board. Fort Hood officials said emergency crews found the wreckage after an “extensive search” of the northeast portion of the range. The crew, assigned to 2nd Battalion, 291st Aviation Regiment, First Army Division West, […]

An Mi-8 helicopter crashed on a frozen river in Siberia Thursday, with at least 10 reported dead and 15 injured. Rescue crews with snowmobiles are at the site, about six miles from the Igarka airport, with two Mi-8 helicopters heading there carrying doctors and rescuers, according to The Siberia Times. Passengers reported that the crew […]

Severe icing and malfunctioning instruments led to the crash of a Cessna Citation in Kansas two years ago, the NTSB said in its probable cause report this week. The 1975 Cessna 500 Citation I was at 15,000 feet when it began a high-speed descent and crashed in a field, killing the pilot and single passenger […]

Francis Gary Powers. I suspect that name lives astride a generational divide. If you were born much after the mid-1950s, it may not resonate at all. If you’re older, it likely has a more visceral connotation and for me, that’s an unhappy stew of cold war terror, shame and embarrassment. That this should be so […]