Flight Safety

A veteran pilot helped guide a young student on her third solo to a safe emergency landing after the nosegear fell off her Diamond Star on takeoff from an airport in Pontiac, Michigan, Wednesday. Chris Yates, the former director of aviation for SpaceX, saw the wheel fall off and quickly got on the radio to […]

Three of the world’s largest pilot organizations have joined forces to fight the growing lobby to allow single-pilot operations in airliners. The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA), the European Cockpit Association (ECA) and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), representing more than 250,000 airline pilots worldwide, plan to lobby regulators all over […]

The FAA says BasicMed is safe but it will continue to monitor its impact on GA. The agency sent a report to Congress on March 10 based on a study of aviation activity and accident data accumulated in the first three years after the relaxed medical standards for recreational pilots went into effect in January […]

In less than 25 years, the “miracle” of GPS transformed how even the smallest and least expensive aircraft navigates. Thanks to the wide area augmentation system (WAAS) in the U.S. and similar technologies deployed in other countries, GPS is more accurate, more reliable and more repeatable than what came before. If you need proof, look […]

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 […]

A fatal mishap that was originally reported as turbulence-related turned out to be a suspected issue with the stabilizer trim on the Challenger 300, according to the NTSB preliminary report. The privately operated flight left Keene, New Hampshire, on a flight to Leesburg, Virginia, in the late afternoon of March 3. A passenger aboard the […]

Beyond separating and sequencing aircraft, air traffic controllers are responsible for managing expectations. When I’m working traffic, I must ensure that what each pilot expects to be doing matches with what I expect him to be doing. Otherwise, it’s like trying to act out a play when all the actors are reading from different scripts. […]

Over 700 people attended a “200 Free Flights” event held by California-based flight school Sling Pilot Academy earlier this month. The event brought high school and college students to Torrance Municipal Airport (KTOA) for free introductory flights and other aviation-related activities including simulator sessions, a tour of Sling’s aircraft manufacturing facility and a one-hour presentation […]

A bipartisan group of senators is calling for the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots to be raised to 67 from 65. A similar bill was proposed by Sen. Lindsay Graham and other Republicans last year. This time Democrats Joe Manchin and Mark Kelly have joined the effort. The current proposal would require “rigorous medical […]

The FAA has made official its call for safety vigilance across all sectors of the industry with a safety alert for operators (SAFO) based on the results of its Safety Summit in mid-March. The SAFO makes recommendations and clarifies existing regs and standards but does not mandate anything. The SAFO’s main theme is to adapt […]