Risk Management

When Los Angeles Times reporter Nigel Duara was fishing for a third-day lead on the tragic balloon crash in Texas Monday, the graph practically wrote itself: “The pilot of a hot-air balloon that crashed into a Texas pasture had four convictions for drunken driving on his record, but was not required to submit to the […]

The NTSB said Sunday that the hot air balloon that crashed in Texas early Saturday killing 16 people likely hit power lines before the balloon’s basket crashed to the ground. Although witnesses reported hearing popping sounds and seeing a fireball, it still hasn’t been determined whether the fire occurred before or after the balloon appeared […]

The great book Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann well describes the grip of fear that most have observed in our fellow pilots and perhaps in ourselves. Fear is of course a primordial, natural, and quite healthy reaction to unknown and threatening situations. Flying perfectly describes such a situation—an obvious venture away from […]

If you didn’t take time to click on and watch this week’s video on a Navy E2C carrier mishap earlier this year, I recommend it. Put yourself in the pilot’s seat of the Hawkeye and you’ll appreciate the remarkable outcome. As the story explains, the Hawkeye was involved in carrier workups off the North Carolina […]

Two pilots who spent almost 24 hours swimming for shore from the airplane they ditched have been released from the hospital. David McMahon and Sydnie Uemoto put down in the ocean between Oahu and Kona, on the Big Island, after unspecified technical problems with the plane. They issued a Mayday about 3:15 p.m. Thursday and […]

The other day, I was driving down a Florida road and had to slow for a power company crew repairing a live line—a big one, one of those kilovolt distribution jobs. It was raining lightly and there was lightning in the distance. “No way in hell I’d ever do that job,” I thought to myself. […]

Now that the summer ditching season is in full swing, it’s time for my periodic public service announcement to remind you about beach landings. The last couple of weeks saw a bumper crop of unplanned water landings, three off beaches and one on a beach near Galveston, Texas.As I’ve said before, I’ve taken it on […]

Many of our ranks are professional pilots because they simply love to fly. They find a way to fly no matter what. For them, retiring from a career in aviation simply means they no longer get paid to fly, but they’ll find a new ride. These are usually superb pilots—pilot’s pilots—but they can sometimes struggle […]

Two polar station workers in need of medical care were successfully evacuated from the Amundsen-Scott station as the South Pole on Wednesday, according to the National Science Foundation. CBC reported that the Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air flew the two workers from Amundsen-Scott to Rothera, on the Antarctic Peninsula, a distance of some 1500 miles. The […]

Aviation news events covered at a distance—by us, or anyone else—don’t always convey, shall I say, a lucid reality. I’ve been following the Kenn Borek Aviation rescue mission to the Amundsen-Scott Station in the Antarctic a little more closely than I might otherwise because I’ve got a little Twin Otter time and I’m curious about […]