Flight Safety

Even before I started taking flying lessons, I was exposed to aviation. Without a formal frame of reference, I absorbed what little I could from other pilots’ stories, reading about flying in books and magazines like this one and, tragically, learning how some of them came to grief. That usually involved poor weather. It took […]

FBO company Sheltair Aviation has launched a fuel discount program for pilots flying missions for nonprofit endangered wildlife rescue operation Turtles Fly Too. The program will be offered throughout Sheltair’s network, which includes 15 FBOs across Florida, Texas, Georgia and Colorado. As part of the partnership, Sheltair says it has also committed to sharing related […]

The goal of the first test flight in any aircraft is that it be uneventful, but there’s a reason test pilots are among the best in the business. In the warbird community, Steve Hinton is one of the go-tos and while many of his test flights do go off with barely a hitch, they can […]

The crew of a FedEx Boeing 767 landing at Austin Bergstrom International Airport had to go around and overfly a Southwest 737 taking off on the same runway early Saturday. The FAA and NTSB have confirmed they’re investigating the incident, which happened about 6:40 a.m. local time. The NTSB described it as a “possible runway incursion […]

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has joined the chorus of industry leaders calling on Congress for more money for the FAA. Buttigieg told Reuters legislators need to “pick up the pace” in approving budget money to upgrade the agency’s decades-old computer systems. A failure of the system that serves up NOTAMs prompted a nationwide ground stop […]

The FAA has apparently bent its own rules and allowed Aeromexico to launch a new route to the U.S. Last year, the agency downgraded Mexico’s safety rating to Category 2, meaning it doesn’t believe its aviation regulators can adequately monitor and enforce safety standards. Only a handful of countries have earned that status, and one […]

The pilot of a Lancair IV-P was injured when the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Connecticut’s Hartford-Brainard Airport (HFD) on Saturday. The pilot, who was reportedly ejected from the aircraft, was the only person onboard. According to officials, he was taken to a local hospital with burns and a possible fracture but was responsive. […]

It’s not unheard of to think thunderstorms are only a product of summer weather. Certainly they are more common in warmer months, but wintertime “thundersnows” are common enough that I’ve seen a few. The point is that we can encounter thunderstorms any time of year, not just in the summertime. These days, it’s easy for […]

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 Government Accountability Office says the FAA is dragging its feet on integrating drones into the National Airspace System and confounding industry efforts to get their businesses off the ground. In a report published last week, the GAO says the agency needs to step up its efforts to create a comprehensive strategy for drones to […]