Flight Safety

Owning an aircraft is an empowering experience. Winged assets in your hip pocket can open up all kinds of opportunities and adventures free of many concerns associated with traditional clubs and aircraft rental operations. It’s also an awesome responsibility, often isn’t kind to your wallet and can bring many new and unanticipated challenges. For one […]

Polly Trottenberg, the current Deputy Transportation Secretary, is expected to take over as acting administrator of the FAA in the next few days. She will replace current Acting Administrator Billy Nolen, who will leave the post on Friday, according to Reuters. It was reported earlier that FAA Chief of Staff Katie Thomson would get the […]

The Flying Musicians Association (FMA) has awarded its 2023 FMA Solo scholarship to high school senior and pianist Justin Duval. Duval, the program’s sixteenth scholarship recipient, was one of five finalists selected from a pool of 87 nominees. The FMA Solo program offers scholarships to high school music students for flight training through their first […]

Since starting in 1984, I’ve logged over 1800 hours in more than 45 aircraft types. As much of this has been in the past four years under the employ of a major avionics shop, the recent experience factor provides a bit of confidence, especially since I’m quite familiar with most avionics offered today. A trip […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

The passenger who opened an emergency exit door in flight in South Korea on Friday had the simplest reason possible for his actions. He wanted off the plane even though it was still 600-700 feet above the ground. Police detained the Asiana passenger after he managed to open a mid-cabin exit on the A321 while […]

The FAA has proposed a rule that would remove the 24-month expiration date on flight instructor certificates and instead establish 24-month recent experience requirements. According to a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published on Tuesday, the methods of demonstrating recent experience would be the same as the current renewal methods established in 14 CFR § 61.197(a), […]

Boeing is sending experienced pilots to new customers to ensure their pilots get properly trained. In the wake of the fatal crashes of two 737 MAXes, airline officials told a media event in Washington that they now send “flight operations representatives” to airlines as they get their new aircraft. Boeing customarily sends maintenance and engineering […]

Despite a major awareness and training campaign, the National Air Transportation Association says diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) remains a potentially catastrophic hazard for aviation. In a news release, the organization said a business jet in the southeastern U.S. recently experienced a double flameout and glided to a dead stick landing 280 miles away. There were […]

If you studied aviation accident reports as much as we do, one of the many phrases you’d often see is “failure to control airspeed.” It crops up in runway overruns a lot, but primarily appears when discussing in-flight loss of control accidents, of which there are enough the probable cause has earned its own acronym: […]