Flight Safety

Departing from a 4200-foot runway, the twin engine Beech B60 Duke lifted off after a 1500-foot takeoff roll. The landing gear was immediately retracted but at approximately 100 feet agl, a large puff of black smoke erupted from the left engine. Witnesses stated the airplane pitched up and then banked sharply to the left. At […]

An airshow pilot was killed during practice for the New York Air Show on Friday after the tail separated from the aircraft. The aircraft, a Giles 202 owned by airshow performer Andrew Wright, crashed in a wooded area. Reports did not immediately confirm the pilot was Wright, who has flown the Giles since 2001, according […]

AOPA’s Air Safety Institute released its 24th annual Joseph T. Nall Report (PDF) this week, including for the first time a review of helicopter accident causes. Overall, accident rates for non-commercial fixed-wing aircraft climbed from 6.30 per 100,000 hours in 2010 to 6.54 in 2012 due to flight time decreasing while accident counts remained level […]

I don’t know if you bothered to click on the video linkfor yesterday’s coverage of NASA’s crash work on ELT performance. It’s worth watching. But the part I’m most interested in occurs at 1:47. I’ve taken the liberty of re-editing the video and placing it in a viewer here. Note how ineffective the single shoulder […]

Concerns about pilot aging are just as important for the younger pilot as for the more silver-haired among us. The US population is getting greyer, and it’s plain to see when looking around any airport, so too is the average pilot. This aging brings numerous challenges and a few rewards that should be important to […]

NASA’s orchestrated crash of a Cessna 172 on Wednesday, the last in a series of impact tests, completed the data-gathering phase of research aimed at improving the performance of ELTs. The agency’s Search and Rescue Mission Office completed the last of the three drops from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia to simulate severe but […]

Vintage jets have been banned from performing aerobatics over land and all Hawker Hunter fighters have been temporarily grounded in the U.K. following Saturday’s crash of a Hunter at the Shoreham Air Show in southern England. The Civil Aviation Authority announced Monday that “high energy” aerobatics will be outlawed for jet warbirds at most airshows […]

A controller who was trying to help a Bonanza pilot in distress directed him to a runway that no longer exists, according to an NTSB preliminary report posted this week. According to the report, the pilot of the Beech C35 Bonanza had taken off from Westhampton Beach, New York, on Sunday, August 16, on an […]

The FAA has some serious explaining to do following a tragic accident in Long Island last weekend that killed one person and injured another. As we reported, a Bonanza pilot had engine trouble and the controller vectored him toward a runway at the former Grumman Bethpage airport. Unfortunately, that airport has been closed for some […]

After several years of work by the Recreational Aviation Foundation, an old turf runway has been restored and reopened on North Fox Island, in Lake Michigan. The 3,000-foot runway has displaced thresholds on both ends, and is surrounded by trees up to about 60 feet high. The island, which comprises about 820 acres, is owned […]