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.

Fake Airline Pilot Removed From Cockpit

Frenchman Philippe Jernnard is being held on $1 million bond after being found in the cockpit jump seat of a US Airways flight at Philadelphia International Airport, Wednesday, posing as an Air France pilot. Jernnard was found by the flight’s crew at some point during the boarding process. When questioned, he identified himself as a […]

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FAA Tower Closures By The Numbers

The FAA will close 149 federal contract towers beginning April 7, in response to sequestration’s budget cuts, the agency announced Friday. The newly revised list is online here (PDF). The agency says closures will be phased in over a four-week period. At least 38 states are affected. Florida is one of the nation’s most populous […]

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DFW Reopens Fire Center With Mock A380

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has reopened its aircraft rescue firefighting training and research facility and announced a partnership with Embry-Riddle after a yearlong expansion that includes a new burn pit and “the only” Airbus A380 training hull in the United States. The $29 million expansion was designed to enhance the facility’s real-world training environment and […]

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Paragliders Rally To Save Mountain

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to watch on YouTube. A mountaintop in Utah that’s a popular launch site for paraglider and hang-glider pilots is being destroyed by a mining operation, and the fliers have launched a protest. “This is a jewel, this is […]

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NTSB: Jet Crashed On Go-Around

A Hawker Beechcraft Premier I jet that crashed into a house on Sunday had made two attempts to land, the NTSB said Monday afternoon. The airplane hit two houses before crashing into a third near South Bend [Ind.] Regional Airport. The owner of the aircraft, Wesley Caves, 58, of Tulsa, Okla., and his friend Steve […]

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Air France Crash Report: Captain Had Just One Hour Of Sleep

According to a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder, the captain of the Air France Airbus 330 that crashed into the Atlantic in 2009 said he had not had enough sleep the night before, a detail that was not previously released, according to the French magazine Le Point. Le Point says that in a judicial […]

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Tower Decisions Delayed Till Friday

The FAA was expected to announce Monday which control towers will close due to federal budget cuts, but now that announcement has been delayed until Friday, March 22. The FAA plans to eliminate funding for as many as 232 towers, most of them run by contractors, but operators of the affected airports were invited to […]

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Bizjet Crashes In South Bend Neighborhood (corrected)

Two people were killed when a Beech Premier 1 crashed into three houses in South Bend, Ind., Sunday evening. Reports say the pilot of the aircraft reported mechanical problems before the plane, which was on a flight from Tulsa to South Bend, clipped one house, plowed through a second and came to rest inside a […]

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New Study Challenges Pilot Shortage

A young upwardly mobile first officer for a major airline says the math doesn’t support the notion of a pilot shortage anytime soon. Brant Harrison naturally has a vested interest in the pilots ahead of him on the seniority list moving on and when he heard about studies like one from Boeing suggesting the looming […]

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