Flight Safety

As expected, President Joe Biden has renewed the nomination of Phil Washington to head up the FAA. The agency has been without an administrator for almost a year and there were no hearings to confirm him in the last Senate. The new Senate sat on Jan. 2 and Washington was among several second-time nominations put […]

I basically live at an airport, and taxi to and from the airpark’s runway over what are residential streets the rest of the time. My normal taxi route includes a stand of bamboo, decades-old oak trees, mailboxes, a power pole and assorted fences. Tuesday is trash-collection day, and it can be a deal if your […]

That aviation is a highly regulated activity should come as no surprise to readers. Many other applicable rules are unwritten, developed by pilots after a mishap or mistake, which not necessarily resulted in an accident or incident. How we tackle becoming comfortable with new avionics aboard a familiar airplane is a question FAA regulations don’t […]

Four people were killed and eight injured in a midair collision involving two tour helicopters operating out of Sea World in Queensland, Australia, on Monday. According to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the accident occurred while one helicopter was taking off and one was coming in to land. The helicopter taking off, which had […]

NASA has crash-tested a version of an eVTOL fuselage and the crumpled result will provide plenty of data on some NASA innovations included in the mock-up. The composite structure was hoisted about 30 feet in the air and sent on an inclined trajectory to the concrete below in a simulation of an emergency landing by […]

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 […]

More than 160 people, fresh from a stay in Barbados, were evacuated to the cold snowy asphalt at JFK on Saturday after what may have been a laptop fire. The aircraft was at terminal 5 when the cabin began filling with smoke from the rear. Slides were activated and the passengers and crew headed for […]

The Regional Airline Association is accusing the Air Line Pilots Association of “gatekeeping” to limit the supply of pilots and ensure the continuation of fat contracts for its members. “It is long past time for industry and policymakers to call this harmful tactic exactly what it is: gatekeeping, which stands as an affront to all who […]

A former mayor of Santa Monica, Rex Minter, 95, died after the Cessna 150A in which he was a passenger flipped during a forced landing on Santa Monica Beach just south of the pier on Thursday. The unidentified pilot is in a local hospital. The pilot requested a return to Santa Monica Airport just after […]

Don’t you hate it when this happens? “November 12345, I have an amendment to your clearance…advise when ready to copy.” Then ATC gives you the barely pronounceable name of a waypoint you never heard of. You’re given a re-route around restricted airspace or a military operations area (MOA) that just went hot. Or you’re making […]