Risk Management

Time to quit worrying about flying inverted yield curves and stay awake long enough to reignite virtuous ire over the Piper Navajo pilotwho allegedly fell asleep on a November trip between Tasmania and King Island, two places that, if you’re like me, you had to Google. The backstory in a conch shell: The pilot drifted […]

Distracted flying has been cited in the dynamic rollover of a light helicopter in Ireland in July. The country’s Air Accidents Investigations Unit said the pilot of an Enstrom 280FX helicopter was landing on a beach near Ardfert when his cellphone, which was mounted on the control panel, rang. The pilot told investigators he glanced […]

Southwest 737 Overruns Runway I was once taught (by my friend who turns 50 today), don’t think ‘how could they,’ think what got them to that place. That is how accident reports make you a better pilot. The first just makes you dismiss the incident. The report places weather at 1m vis, 1300 ovc, wind […]

The inflight breakup of a U.S. Marine Corps-operated KC-130T on July 10, 2017, was the result of “deficiencies in the propeller blade overhaul process,” according to a report released by the Marine Corps on Thursday. The report (PDF) states that a corroded propeller blade broke off in flight, sliced through the left side of the […]

Southwest Airlines Flight 278 slid off the end of the runway while landing at California’s Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) at 9:05 am local time on Thursday. According to a statement issued by the FAA, the Boeing 737 came to rest in the Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) at the end of Runway 8. No injuries […]

One Marine Corps servicemember is dead and five others missing after the collision of a KC-130J Hercules and an F/A-18D Hornet during a refueling exercise off the coast of Japan. A seventh servicemember has been recovered alive. According to a statement from the U.S. Marine Corp, the individual is in fair condition. Search and rescue […]

It was a Wisconsin-warm, winter-to-spring day. Roads and runways were plowed, but the heavy rains from the previous night did little to diminish several feet of snow on lawns and fields. My friend (let’s call him Bill) and I drove to the airport at 12:30 p.m. to practice some aerobatics in a rentable Super Decathlon. […]

Fly personal airplanes long enough and you’ll eventually have to deal with an open door or window. Usually it’s a cabin entry door that someone forgot to fully latch. Usually. Sometimes it’s a baggage door, and there goes your luggage, sliding down the runway at 70 knots. The thing is, inadvertent door or window openings […]

A skydiving instructor who fell to his death in a tandem jump in Lebanon, Maine last September committed suicide according to the Maine Medical Examiner’s Officeas reported by WBZ in Boston. As we reported in September, Brett Bickford became separated from the customer during the tandem jump. The medical examiner’s office has ruled Brett Bickford’s […]

Cable television being the reiterative swamp that it is, you can count on some things being more or less evergreen. One of these is the 1992 classic, A Few Good Men. And yes, that was 26 years ago. When it scrolls by on the guide, I never fail to watch it. A good night is […]