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AOPA Critiques FAA “Flight Plan”… The FAA recently posted its revised “Flight Plan,” an effort to direct its goals and priorities for the next year, and asked for input. It got a substantial critique from the folks at AOPA, who said the plan doesn’t pay enough attention to general aviation. AOPA said the FAA needs […]

Lawyer Glenn Grenier, of the Toronto law firm Goodman and Carr, has filed a $30 million class-action lawsuit against Air Transat, Rolls-Royce and Airbus on behalf of 193 of the passengers. “Up to the point in time when the engines flamed out, the pilots were in error and they were negligent in the operation of […]

However, the report also found that there was not a “clear, unambiguous indication or warning that a critical fuel leak existed,” and the pilots had never experienced such a situation during operations or training. The investigators also said that Capt. Robert Pich‘s skill in conducting the subsequent engines-out dead-stick landing saved the lives of the […]

Official Report: Pilots Failed To Detect Fuel Leak… The pilots of an Air Transat Airbus A330 that glided to a landing in the Azores in August 2001 responded incorrectly to a fuel leak over the Atlantic Ocean, according to the official report on the incident, released Monday. The pilots, reacting to what they thought was […]

Meanwhile, when it comes to beating airport security, there doesn’t seem to be any better strategy than getting thoroughly drunk. Perhaps because of the focus on aviation security these days, maybe we’re just hearing about these incidents more, but it seems strange, indeed, that a young man “in a visible state of drunkenness” was able […]

ATC Computer Security Panned… The greatest threat to U.S. aviation security may come from cyberspace. According to the Register, a journal of IT-related topics, The Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General has found key air traffic control computer systems vulnerable to hackers. “While having limited exposure to the general public, en route center computer […]

Fortunately, all that can be harmed are the egos and reputations of a newspaper and an airline in a fracas over an incident in Hong Kong Aug. 30. The London Daily Telegraph, quoting unnamed sources, claimed in an Oct. 14 story that a Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-400 flew “uncontrolled” for three minutes over Hong Kong, […]

Engines have now become at least part of the focus of another unusual crash, this one an MK Airlines Boeing 747-200 cargo plane in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Canadian authorities are trying to figure out why the jumbo jet used practically every inch of runway (scraping the tail twice) and then scraped its tail along the […]

Both Engines Out In CRJ? They almost made it. Pilots of a Pinnacle Airlines CRJ2 apparently glided their powerless regional jet for 20 minutes and almost 100 miles before it crashed two miles short of the Jefferson City, Mo., airport late Thursday. Now, the NTSB is trying to figure out why both engines apparently stopped, […]

Meanwhile, Adam Aircraft is also getting ready for full-scale production of its push/pull piston twin. The first revenue-producing version of the A500 rolled out of the factory in Englewood, Colo., Oct. 10. “Although this is our sixth rollout, it is really special because it’s the first customer airplane,” said CEO Rick Adam. The unidentified buyer […]