Flight Safety

While flying from Henderson, Nevada to Ontario, California, I was receiving flight following from L.A. Center. In the middle of the desert, just southwest of Primm, Nevada, I heard a pilot initiate a call to Center with, “Excuse Me … .” My ears perked up. The conversation was as follows: Pilot:“Excuse Me. Can you tell […]

Harrison Ford says he doesn’t remember the emergency crash landing of his Ryan PT-22 on a Santa Monica golf course last March because of amnesia caused by his medical treatment. In his first public statement about the mishap (dressed as a dog dressed as a hot dog) on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Oct. 30, Ford […]

A group that promotes aviation training for women says focusing outreach on teenagers is a less productive way of correcting the gender imbalance in the cockpit. The Institute for Women of Aviation Worldwide (iWOAW) said in a news release that statistics show that most people start flying as adults. “Most outreach initiatives are restricted to […]

Our blog earlier this week about the UK’s easyJet’s plan to hire more women pilots ignited plenty of comments.I couldn’t help but think that anyone who wants to see women make up more than 12 percent of the pilot population — even more than 30 percent — must accept the idea that targeted hiring and […]

Letter of the Week:Correcting the Imbalance Regarding Paul Bertorelli’s blog about gender imbalance: Aviation, as a profession, seems to have set the modern standard on “imbalance,” an ironic fact given the physical principles on which it is based. Does it make sense to address the subject of gender imbalance without including wage imbalance, race imbalance, […]

If pilots get quality training from day one on how flight maneuvering actually works, GA can reduce the rates of loss-of-control accidents. That’s the message CFI Rich Stowell gave during his remarks at the NTSB’s Oct. 14 forum on LOC, a safety issue that’s on the board’s “Most Wanted List” this year. To that end, […]

ADS-B data recorded by FlightRadar24 suggests the final 30 seconds of Metrojet Flight 9268 before the data stream stopped involved a series of violent dives and climbs reaching up to 8,000 feet per minute. In the last minute before the data ended, the aircraft was climbing normally at about 400 feet per minute before it […]

Rich Stowell spoke at the NTSB’s recent Loss Of Control forum, proposing that the flight training industry needs to change its culture to help reduce loss-of-control accidents. He discussed the LOC issues facing general aviation and his new “Learn to Turn” initiative with AVweb’s Elaine Kauh. Stowell, a Master Instructor, 2014 National FAASTeam Rep of […]

Faulty design and manufacturing of engine components were among likely causes of the Orbital Sciences rocket explosion a year ago, according to a report (PDF) this week from a NASA-appointed review team. The unmanned Antares rocket, carrying cargo to the International Space Station, exploded at a commercial launch site in Virginia on Oct. 28, 2014. […]

Twenty-one people were sent to hospitals Thursday when a Dynamic Airways Boeing 767 caught fire while taxiing for departure atFort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. One man suffered serious injuries during the evacuation of 101 passengers via emergency slides, WTVJ in Miami reported. Meanwhile, the airport closed the field, and one runway reopened around 3 p.m. Witnesses […]