Risk Management

I’ve never felt it was appropriate that a pilot could obtain an instrument rating without flying in the clouds. From a safety standpoint—no matter what type of flying the pilot intends to undertake—it seems beyond ludicrous. I received instrument dual in IMC at a small airport in rural Iowa; one would think that it would […]

High-profile aviation accidents usually get a public hearing in which the NTSB reveals what it knows and allows input from other parties on the road to establishing probable cause. Such hearings offer tantalizing factuals but they rarely reveal jaw-dropping lack of judgment. But rarely is not the same as never and this week’s hearing on […]

Aeronautical decision-making (ADM) is essentially the mental process of gathering and evaluating information pertinent to a flight; listing the options and their attendant risks; and then choosing the best alternatives. It is an iterative process due to the nature of the changing variables inherent in flight. ADM is often a relatively simple and subliminal process […]

With winter on the way for much of the U.S., the FAA has released a new training video about the dangers of ice-induced stalls. “Much has occurred since NASA’s original 1998 ice-contaminated tailplane stall video,” the FAA said. “The information in this training video supersedes, supplants, and replaces the instruction in all previous NASA tail […]

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 atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports […]

The FAA says safety and not media suppression was behind temporary flight restrictions that were imposed on drone flights over the site of a massive pipeline protest in North Dakota. In a statement released Monday, the agency said it’s just trying to keep drones from hitting law enforcement helicopters patrolling the Standing Rock protest and […]

Every year, just before Christmas joy descends upon on us like the shallow, weak excuse to buy yet more useless crap that the season has become, our sister publication, IFR, publishes its annual Stupid Pilot Tricks report. This is a summary of the most boneheaded, incomprehensible accidents and incidents that the skill-challenged among us manage […]

Once every four days, on average, there is a fatal general aviation accident involving loss of control, the FAA says, so they are working to educate the GA community on best practices to ensure safe flight. “You can help make a difference by joining our Fly Safe campaign,” said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “I know […]

Masimo is marketing its new MightySat wireless pulse oximeter/personal health monitor to both pilots and endurance athletes. The device has a rich feature set that measures far more than blood oxygen saturation and has a $399 ($299 scaled back) retail price. Aviation Consumer editor Larry Anglisano has been using the device for flying and athletic […]

EAA Vintage Aircraft Association board of directors member Ron Alexander was killed Thursday in the crash of his recently restored Curtiss Jenny at Peach Tree Airport in Williamson, Georgia. An unidentified passenger was also killed. A local newspaper is reporting that the passenger was an FAA official but that has not been confirmed. Initial reports […]