Flight Safety

AVweb’s Flight Safety section offers in-depth coverage of aviation safety topics, including accident analyses, risk management strategies, regulatory updates, and pilot training insights. Designed for pilots, instructors, and aviation professionals, this section provides timely information to enhance situational awareness and promote best practices in flight operations.

A Considered Decision

Arent we pilots a confident crowd? We are so certain of our flyingskills that its always the other pilot, the below average mope, that people should be worried about. Because, in a time of need, we truly know we will rise to the challenge and our innate aeronautical skills will be there to save ourselves […]

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400 Military Drone Crashes Since 2001

More than 400 large U.S. military drones have crashed in major accidents around the world since 2001, a record of calamity that exposes the potential dangers of throwing open American skies to drone traffic, according to a yearlong Washington Post investigation. Since the outbreak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military drones have malfunctioned […]

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New This Week

AVweb’s weekly review of the news in aviation revealed a weather research project looking for pilot volunteers, new sunglasses from Scheyden Precision Eyewear, the schedule for the first ICAO Global Aviation Cooperation Symposium and new dates for the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo. Researchers at Purdue, Western Michigan, and Kent State Universities are conducting FAA-sponsored research […]

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IAI Westwind Training Crash Near Huntsville

Three men are reportedto have been killed in the crash of an IAI Westwind II on the northwest side of the Huntsville, Ala., Airport Wednesday afternoon. The airplane appears to have been on a training flight, with flight instructor Robin Gary Smith of Yukon, Okla., and operator of the training company Jet Contrails, reportedly among […]

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FlyersRights: Boeing 787 ETOPS Certification Flawed

FlyersRights.org, an airline passenger advocacy organization, has released a statement expressing criticism of the FAAs Extended range Twin Operation (ETOPS) approval for the Boeing 787 and the 787-9 for up to 330 minutes flying time from a primary or alternate airport. It allows the aircraft to be used over routes traditionally reserved for three- and […]

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USA Today’s GA Indictment

While reading over USA Todays exhaustive-and exhausting-indictment of general aviation, I was struck by the inescapable feeling that Id been given the Disney tour of every plaintiffs file room for the past 40 years, without benefit of hearing what cross examination revealed in the court cases this reporting obviously leaned so heavily upon. So much […]

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Podcast: GAMA’s Pete Bunce on GA Safety

An extensive report on general aviation safety in USA Today this week doesn’t convey the whole story, says GAMA President Pete Bunce. He took a break from his work in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to talk with AVweb’s Mary Grady about ongoing efforts to build safer airplanes. Duration: 8:47 File Size: 8.0 MB download here

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The Weekender: Air Races to Candy Drops

Our weekly review of SocialFlight found everything from a fly-in at an Intergalactic Spaceport, through a run-what-you-brung air race, the annual Waco Club’s fly-in and a kid’s candy drop. The Second Community Spaceport Day will be held at the Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport, Green River, Wyo., on Saturday, June 21 from 8:00 a.m. to […]

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USA Today’ Story Evokes Strong Response

General aviation advocacy groups were quick to respond today to an extensive report in Wednesday’s USA Today, “Unfit for flight,” which is critical of GA safety.AOPA called the article “deeply flawed,” and said AOPA staffers had spoken to reporter Thomas Frank for an hour last week, but the article doesn’t mention AOPA’s contention that GA […]

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USA Today’ GA Safety Investigation Ignites Controversy

A USA Today story titled “Unfit For Flight” on the safety record of general aviation aircraft has painted a picture of government and industry inaction and coverup on what its author Thomas Frank calls “a massive and growing death toll from small aircraft crashes.” The extensive article, which appears in the June 18 paper and […]

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