Risk Management

All 71 people aboard a Saratov Airlines An-148 regional jet were killed Sunday when the aircraft went down shortly after takeoff from Domodedovo Airport near Moscow. There were 65 passengers and six crew on the aircraft, which was on a flight to Orsk. Some Russian media are reporting the flight crew reported a technical malfunction […]

Three people were killed and four badly injured when a sightseeing helicopter went down in the Grand Canyon Saturday. The aircraft was destroyed in the post-crash fire and at least two survivors were seen running from the wreckage before it exploded. The condition of the injured wasn’t immediately available. The helicopter was operated by Papillon […]

By normal aviation standards, seaplanes are boring as hell. They’re slow, tend to be fuel hogs, often don’t carry much because they’re hauling around a boat or two and, like boats, they have to be pumped out and they rust. Who would want one? Yet, in the dedicated community of pilots who fly these things, […]

Although a friend of mine in the Detroit area just told me it was so cold that he saw a dog frozen to a hydrant, there’s a rumor that spring—and its high winds—will be eventually put in appearance at airports north of the equator. Spring: that time of year when airport managers’ thoughts turn to […]

The further one gets from the regulated lower 48, the less those pesky rules get in the way. That necessariy leads to some really interesting accidents.Alaskans fly a helluva lot more than most humans and operate off some mind-bogglingly rough terrain, such as hillsides, glaciers, remote gravel bars or other unlikely surfaces. To fully grasp […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine 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 web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

The FAA has proposed an AD involving 14,653 U.S. Cessna 172, 182, 206 and 210 models after cracks were found in the lower area of the forward cabin doorpost bulkhead. That’s where the wing strut attaches and the AD requires repetitive inspections of the area. After one owner reported finding cracks, more inspections revealed them […]

One of the side effects of the implementation of BasicMed and the longest-running period of economic growth in our country’s history has been that quite a few pilots who stopped flying because of medical and/or economic concerns have decided they can return to the sky. For those affected, it’s splendid news. But the good news […]

Our Stearman, otherwise known as the Queen, has been around awhile. An open-cockpit biplane built in 1941, there’s quite a bit of anachronistic hardware on her that I find every once in a while. The latest bits that required urgent replacement were all the old pre-World War II fuel line fittings. Someone in the past […]

Authorities in India are investigating whether a kite string caused the crash of a powered parachute, killing the pilot and injuring his passenger. Various Indian media are reporting that Manav Mewada, an experienced powered parachute pilot, was operating a commercial sightseeing flight when the engine failed and the aircraft crashed in a residential area. Police […]