Flight Safety

A Cessna 404 Titan crashed in Centennial, Colorado, early Tuesday, killing the pilot. The wreckage stopped about 10 feet from a house in a suburban area about 4:30 a.m. The aircraft took off from Centennial Airport at 4:27 a.m., according to local media reports, and crashed five minutes later. The NTSB told a news conference […]

Indonesian authorities reported Tuesday that a warship had recovered several bodies in the Java Sea confirmed to have been victims of AirAsia Flight 8501, which vanished on a flight from Surbaya to Singapore on Sunday. Indonesia’s Strait Times said late Tuesday local time that the corvette Bung Tomo reported that more bodies are expected to […]

Back in the dark ages when j-school looked like it might lead to a sort of career, I was asked on a fall registration form to “state minor course of study, if any.” With all the thoughtful consideration a 21-year-old could muster, I checked the box next to Asian history. Somehow, sociology seemed boring and […]

The search resumed at daybreak Monday for the AirAsia Indonesia A320 that disappeared from radar above the Java Sea early Sunday morning. So far, several sightings of floating debris and oil slicks in the region have been checked out and found not to be associated with the jet. Government officials said the search will expand […]

Back in the 1970s, when transponders were just starting to be used, a pilot contacted Tucson Approach Control. Approach asked him if he “had a transponder on board.” To which the pilot responded:“No. Just the wife and I, headed to Phoenix.” Burke McClure

At the risk of being mistaken, at least momentarily, for some doe-eyed Pollyanna, today’s blog will depart from the usual gloom for a brief bout of unabashed aviation boosterism. No, it’s not the Xanax kicking in, just soaring inspiration from seeing how much enthusiasm and creative vitality some people bring to general aviation through the […]

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 […]

There was plenty of weather along the route of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 early Sunday but nothing airlines that ply the busy air corridors over the Java Sea don’t regularly cope with. Weather officials said lightning strikes were recorded in the same area and at the same time the A320 with 162 people on board “lost […]

Much like the FAA’s Christmas-week safety campaign for those who received unmanned aerial vehicles as gifts, The UK’s aviation regulators sent the message (PDF) to consumers that disruptive or unsafe use of drones could result in hefty fines. The Daily Mail of London reported on Christmas Day that the Civil Aviation Authority said drone users […]

Monday must have been one of those schizophrenic days that only a federal agency could suffer. Just as The Washington Post broke a story that the FAA had hired its own lobbyist to suggest ways of speeding up the drone flight approval process against warnings by its own safety inspectors, it was participating in the […]