Flight Safety

So-far-unnamed senior FAA officials overruled their own engineers who called for the immediate grounding of Boeing 737 MAX after the second fatal crash in five months in Ethiopia in March of 2019. The Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General issued its report on the decision chain within the agency on Friday. It said the engineers […]

Spirit Airlines has partnered with Illinois-based Lewis University to launch a pilot pathway program at the university’s College of Aviation, Science and Technology. Another addition to the airline’s Spirit Wings Pilot Pathway program, the agreement allows students pursuing an aviation technology degree to apply for the program once they complete their sophomore year and receive […]

The FAA has formed a blue chip panel of aviation industry experts to recommend safety enhancements industry-wide. The members of the new FAA National Airspace System Safety Review Team include: former NASA Administrator and astronaut Charles Bolden Jr.; former Air Line Pilots Association, International President Captain Tim Canoll; former National Air Traffic Controllers Association Executive […]

The FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook (AFH, FAA-H-8083-3C) describes energy management as “the process of planning, monitoring, and controlling altitude and airspeed,” which seems straightforward enough. Using the available tools, primarily pitch and power, we’re expected to attain and maintain “desired vertical flightpath-airspeed profiles, detect, correct and prevent “unintentional altitude-airspeed deviations” and prevent “irreversible deceleration and/or sink rate” […]

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 […]

Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen has announced he’s leaving the agency this summer, leaving an even bigger leadership void in an organization that hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed leader for more than a year. Nolen announced his departure in a letter to FAA staff first reported by the Wall Street Journal. He told staff he wants […]

How many of you file your own flight plan? How many of you file VFR flight plans? Of course, airlines have their own operations and dispatch departments who do all the background work and file the flight plans. With most Part 91 and some 135 operators, “Who filed what?” often gets to the person working […]

The House Aviation Subcommittee heard polar opposite views of the pilot shortage in testimony during a hearing focused on the approaching FAA reauthorization bill on Wednesday. The Regional Airline Association appeared before the committee saying the pilot shortage has already cut the number of available flights by 25 percent as major airlines poach the most […]

The NTSB has denied an appeal filed by pilot and YouTuber Trent Palmer related to a suspension of his private pilot certificate. As previously reported by AVweb, the suspension arose from a flight on Nov. 24, 2019, when Palmer conducted a low inspection pass in preparation for a possible landing at a private airstrip used […]

We’re good pilots—by and large. Getting our certificates and ratings wasn’t easy. Face it, we sweat blood training to master the skills, knowledge and judgment needed to cause an inanimate object to rise into an often unforgiving sky and return to the planet not only safely, but with some degree of panache.  In the process […]