Risk Management

AVweb’sGeneral Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine, and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s website atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after […]

The government shutdown is delaying an urgent update of the World Magnetic Model, the underlying basis for all modern navigation systems, and those systems are in danger of becoming unacceptably inaccurate. Magnetic North, the wandering point near the North Pole that is the reference for navigation services, is racing away from Canada toward Siberia. It’s […]

After celebrating a series of successful launches, including the final shipment of Iridium satellites to low earth orbit last week, SpaceX has announced it’s laying off about 10 percent of its staff. The company told Reuters that it faces some “extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead” and needs to lean out its operation. “To continue delivering for […]

In a show of solidarity with their unpaid U.S. counterparts, Canadian air traffic controllers ordered pizza for FAA controllers at facilities across the U.S. over the weekend. It started with controllers in Edmonton, Alberta buying pizza for the staff in Anchorage. The movement quickly spread and by Sunday, every Canadian ATC facility had been paired […]

A French helicopter pilot got the job done in a tight rescue operation in a back country ski area of the Alps on Jan. 2. A skier was climbing up the mountain in the Pass of Anterne in Passy, France, when he fell and hurt himself. His companions called for a rescue and got out […]

A year and a half ago, it dawned on me that what I most enjoyed about my previous career as a science communications consultant was when I got to commute to visit clients in my faithful Cessna 180. With some 1500 hours in my logbook—accumulated primarily on those business trips—I sent out my rsum to […]

AVweb’sGeneral Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine, and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s website atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after […]

A meticulously rebuilt prototype of the P-82 Twin Mustang, designated the XP-82, became the only flying version of the type on New Year’s Eve but it wasn’t supposed to work out that way. Test pilot Ray Fowler was conducting the latest of a series of high-speed taxi tests at the XP-82 Prototype Project’s home base […]

As part of an ongoing effort to raise pilots’ awareness about avoiding landing on the wrong surface—which could be the wrong runway, a taxiway or even the wrong airport—the FAA is hosting special safety meetings this month at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) on Jan. 9, and at Nashville International Airport (BNA) on Jan. 30. All […]

Over time, many of the features in a personal airplane cockpit have become more or less standardized. Power controls are color- and shape-coded, flight instruments consistently work the same way and when we push on the pitch control, houses get bigger. Not so much for many other controls, especially those for important systems. The Cessna […]