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.

CEO of the Cockpit #45: Dead Dinosaurs

My entire career in aviation has had to do with the immolation of the remains of dead dinosaurs. Beginning with my early years as a bicycle-riding line boy right through the last 23,000 pounds of Jet A that I burned from New York to Dallas, the rotting remains of latter-day super lizards have driven my […]

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Say Again? #50: Lost Communications — NORDO — Part 1

I‘ve been threatening to write this article for a while now and it’s as good a time as any. If you want to start an argument among pilots you only have to ask one little question: “Yeah, but what happens if you go NORDO?” If you read any aviation forums on the Internet, you know […]

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From The CFI #7: Scenario-Based Training

In a previous column I called for the need to change the way we train pilots and I suggested that scenario-based training (SBT) would be a way to meet the needs of the growing numbers of pilots who use their airplanes as transportation tools without leaving behind the purely recreational flyer. (After all, somebody has […]

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The Pilot’s Lounge #87: Etiquette Isn’t Just Raising Our Pinkies

It was a sodden, April Saturday afternoon in the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport. The first unseasonably warm days of spring had brought out the tulips, hyacinths and optimistic pilots in droves. Frustratingly, on this weekend the weather had reverted to the precipitation that has been reputed to bring flowers in the subsequent month. […]

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Pelican’s Perch #20: Ground All Bonanzas?

Editor’s Note: Because of ongoing controversy with the Beech T-34 wing spars, John Deakin updated this 1999 column in May 2005. His updates are [bracketed in red], but the entire column is even more relevant today than it was then. Ground all Bonanzas?Well, no, not immediately, and all parties will deny that this is even […]

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CEO of the Cockpit #44: Raise The Nina!

It is nice to once again find myself within the confines of my trusty 767 cockpit. A lamb’s wool seat cover caresses my ample behind, as I sit ensconced in my little home away from home.This home has its advantages over my earthbound abode. I can get coffee just for the asking up here, people […]

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Regional Accident Analysis: Know Your Local Risk Factors

Flying is a lot of fun and isn’t particularly dangerous for pilots who actively manage the risks. Since three-quarters or more of accidents are pilot-induced, we’re largely in control of our fate if we pay heed to the missteps of others and avoid risky behaviors. Hence, it’s totally appropriate that many government and private safety […]

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Say Again? #49: Come Up a Bad Cloud

If you’ve ever been to the South, you might have heard the expression, “It’s fixin’ to come up a bad cloud.” It’s just our quaint way of saying that storm clouds are brewing. If you’ve ever flown in the South, you know when we say, “A bad cloud,” we mean bad. Big, bad thunderstorms are […]

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CEO of the Cockpit #43: Summit Talks on Aviation

The sun had gone down, the evening air show was over and it was time to for all tired pilots to bed down in their campsites at the Sun ‘n Fun campground in Lakeland, Fla.After a full day of roast-corn eating, trade-fair attending and craning our necks to a 45-degree up-angle, you’d think that everyone […]

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