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Building New Edifices, Filling Old Slots… The folks at the FAA were busy last week, creating a new safety office, filling a long-vacant executive post, and hosting the annual forecast conference. The common theme: Change is coming swift and sure, and the feds are racing to keep up with it. Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta […]

The NTSB numbers need to be interpreted with a grain of salt, says Bruce Landsberg, executive director of AOPA’s Air Safety Foundation. “Although the NTSB reports rates to two decimal places, that implies a far greater level of accuracy than the system can possibly measure. The slight change [in the overall GA accident rate] may […]

Although Overall Rate Remains Low… The number of fatalities in general aviation accidents rose slightly last year — from 581 in 2002 to 626 in 2003, the NTSB reported Monday. However, the overall accident rate increased only slightly, from 6.69 per 100,000 hours of flight time to 6.71. That overall rate has generally been decreasing […]

The FAA is working to develop a wildlife-hazards advisory system that would integrate radar data with the Bird Avoidance Model, or (it’s not April 1, yet) BAM, that has been used with some success by the U.S. military. (There also exists a military Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard … [BASH] team.) The BAM approach is not […]

Warning systems that try to locate and track birds in flight and communicate real-time information to pilots are still experimental. The Avian Research Laboratory, in Panama City, Fla., is working on an automated ground-based radar system to detect birds at a Scotland military base. Jerry Grimm, director of the laboratory, told AVweb the system is […]

As Spring Gets Everyone Flying… Welcome to migration season. The birds are out there — even (and in some cases, especially) after dark. The conflict between aircraft and birds is a real and growing problem — about 60,000 bird strikes to U.S. aircraft were reported to the FAA from 1990 to 2003, and perhaps four […]

Meanwhile, an important emergency landing site in the Pacific Ocean that figures in ETOPS planning for airline flights and long-range business aircraft flights will remain open … at least until Sept. 30. Midway Island’s airport was to have closed on Jan. 30 because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which used to maintain it, ran […]

Under the rule, operators would be required to remain within 180 minutes of an “adequate airport” on all flights outside the continental U.S. But by meeting additional ETOPS operational and equipment requirements, the FAA would permit a 240-minute (four-hour) single-engine diversion. In its comments, the NBAA echoed NATA’s concerns about the lack of information and […]

Postponement Requested… Alphabet groups claim the FAA hasn’t done its homework in a proposal to set a maximum 180-minute diversion time limit for the extended operations (ETOPS) of Part 135 aircraft (qualified commercial aircraft could be allowed to fly up to three hours from any suitable landing site). In written comments on the Notice of […]

If the $13.3 million check and financial records aren’t in Washington by April 10, Flannagan said he’ll turn the affair over to the Office of Inspector General for an investigation. The FAA has also threatened to cut off maintenance and upkeep grants for the airport, which the Dispatch says run between $100,000 and $500,000 a […]