Flight Safety

A Russian aviation panel this week said it’s suspending certification of Boeing 737s operated by the country’s airlines due to safety concerns.In a vaguely wordeddeclaration to the FAA and Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, the Interstate Aviation Committee said it wants official notice “supporting their safe operation” related to “urgent improvements of Boeing-737 aircraft rudder […]

A loss of oil pressure and what appears to be a high-speed descent prompted the pilot of a Cirrus SR22T to deploy the BRS airframe parachute over Fayetteville, Arkansas, Tuesday, where it struck a pickup truck as it landed alongside a busy street. Much of the descent under canopy was caught on cellphone and dashcam […]

The U.S. and the U.K. now appear to agree that a bomb brought down Metrojet 9268. Numerous reports quoting unnamed sources say the bomb theory is now front and center. The U.K. banned flights to the Sinai area on Wednesday. There has been no official judgment on the theory by any of the many bodies […]

Until there’s a more detailed analysis of the voice and flight data recorders from Metrojet Flight 9268, conflicting media reports of possible causes of the jet’s crashin Egypt on Saturday are bound to continue. Meanwhile,U.K. authorities have halted flights from a popular resort area in the region, fueling fears it was a terrorist attack.A government […]

So there you are, flying along, proverbially fat, dumb and happy. Suddenly a cacophony of unusual sounds and vibration, accompanied by a pungent smell that pierces the cockpit, and the windshield is sprayed with oil. Some emergencies are clear cut like this—others more subtle. Some are caused by outside events such as a mechanical engine […]

A prototype AgustaWestland AW609 tiltrotor that was part of the company’s test program crashed in Italy on Friday morning, killing both test pilots on board. Some press reports say there may have been an in-flight fire prior to the crash, but authorities have not confirmed any details. The aircraft had been built by Bell in […]

The IMC Club, which has grown to about 130 chapters with nearly 3,000 members, now has completed its acquisition by EAA, Radek Wyrzykowski, founder and president of the club, told AVweb on Monday. “All IMC Club members will automatically become EAA members,” effective immediately, he said. Going forward, all members of the IMC Club can […]

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 […]