Flight Safety

A pilot can learn a great deal by stripping his or her flying down to its fundamental roots. Flying an aircraft without an electrical system puts you in touch with the basics of flying by altimeter, whiskey compass, pilotage and pure stick-and-rudder skills. On the mechanical side, it’s a chance to commune with the engine […]

Eleven service members are presumed dead after theirU.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter went missing Tuesday night during a training mission off the coast of the Florida panhandle.Human remains and debris were recovered Wednesday as the Coast Guard continued its search, starting work in the pre-dawn morning in thick fog that improved as the day went […]

Whether we accept it or not, it’s true that humans tend to worry, sometimes obsessively and irrationally, about things that might harm them. That’s how terrorism works. Unless you’re in, say, Aleppo or Mosul, the likelihood of being killed in a terrorist attack is close to zero. Yet we duly have our shoes X-rayed and […]

All ten people on board were killed when two helicopters collided while filming a reality show in Argentina’s Andes Mountains on Monday evening. The French program, called “Dropped,” takes sports stars into the wilderness and follows their efforts to find their way back to civilization. The two pilots were Argentinian, but the rest of those […]

The NTSB’s preliminary report, posted online on Tuesday, revealed no new details about Harrison Ford’s accident in Santa Monica last week, and reports on the actor’s recovery also are sparse. Local news outlets have reported that Ford, age 72, underwent surgery to repair broken bones at UCLA Medical Center, and according to a statement from […]

The FAA has found that hook-and-loop Velcro-style fasteners for ELT units are subject to failure in an accident, but the agency said on Tuesday it has decided against issuing an airworthiness directive that would address the problem because manufacturers have already either revised or are in the process of revising those designs. The FAA did […]

The aerospace industry and a group representing airline pilots are planning to call for a ban on bulk shipments of lithium batteries on passenger aircraft, The Associated Press reported Monday. The batteries create an “unacceptable risk” of fires, according to a not-yet-published position paper from the International Coordination Council of Aerospace Industry Associations and the […]

The NTSB issued an update Monday on its investigation into last week’s runway accident involving a Delta MD-88 at LaGuardia Airport, in New York, but the cause is not yet clear. The safety board said investigators were examining and testing the jet’s antiskid, autobrake and thrust reverser systems on Monday. The board also reported that […]

A few years back, I was doing multi- education in a 310 at St. Louis international. The student was making a lot of go-arounds, and I was keeping the tower informed. Finally, our clearance was: “N1234, it’s a nice night, and we’re not busy. Cleared to land on any runway you think you might be […]

2014 was the first year that the number of helicopter accidents, including fatals, declined in the U.S. Tony Molinaro, communications lead for the International Helicopter Safety Team, spoke with AVweb’s Russ Niles at HAI Heli-Expo 2015. Duration: 4:55 File Size: 4.5 MB download here