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Some of those who turn down the airlines have found flying jobs elsewhere, The Post says. They’re in corporate flight departments, or working for low-cost and regional carriers. Those jobs may pay less but offer more stability, and some pilots prefer the lifestyle or the choices of where to live. Other laid-off pilots have taken […]

Despite their emotional attachment to their jobs, furloughed airline pilots are turning down requests to return to the cockpit, says a recent report in The Washington Post. About 8,300 pilots have been laid off by the major carriers. Some have been on furlough for four or five years, since the post-9/11 turmoil hit the industry. […]

The NTSB wants the FAA to redesign the minimum safe altitude warning and conflict-alert systems to ensure they reliably capture and direct controller attention to potentially hazardous situations. Software changes should be implemented at all ATC facilities providing those services. Modifications also are needed to minimize false alarms. The FAA should also review the systems […]

The NTSB said last week its investigation into 11 recent aircraft accidents — 10 involving apparent controlled flight into terrain and one involving a midair collision — has raised “serious concern” about the FAA’s effectiveness in ensuring that air traffic controllers properly respond to imminently hazardous situations. In several of the accidents, alert systems provided […]

Cessna will roll out its brand-new, never-before-seen proof-of-concept Light Sport Aircraft at 9:30 Monday morning, right in the center of AeroShell Square. Later that day, company bigwigs will hold a news conference to address Cessna’s activity regarding the LSA market, plans to create a new line of propeller aircraft (the rumored “Cirrus-killer” project?), and an […]

American Airlines says it has fixed all the damage a rampant mouse infestation caused to one of its B-767’s (N320AA) but not soon enough for maintenance workers who discovered the rodents. According to documents obtained by KARE TV in Minneapolis, the first mouse sighting was in early May and the plane was only cleaned, repaired […]

Northrop Grumman says it has developed a laser-based system — a laser “bubble” — that can knock just about any kind of airborne threat out of the air within a five-mile radius of an airport and is effective against shoulder-fired missiles up to 20 miles away. And, once it starts selling the systems in quantity, […]

Boeing engineers say its 787 Dreamliner is gaining weight as they figure out ways to shed the enormous shock a lightning strike would bring to the airliner’s (nearly) all-composite composite airframe. Lightning strikes one or two airliners every year and it’s not normally a big deal. The big charge just passes through the very conductive […]

The co-pilot of the Challenger business jet that crashed at Montrose, Colo., in 2004, killing Teddy Ebersol, youngest son of NBC Sports head Dick Ebersol, and two others says the manuals for the jet should have been more specific about the dangers of flying the Canadair Challenger 601 in icing conditions. Eric Sloan Wicksell, of […]