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Meanwhile, the report into last year’s crash of a passenger jet in Cyprus is nearing completion. The Helios Airways 737-300 ran into a mountainside after running out of fuel, after the cabin’s loss of pressure led to the incapacitation of the cockpit crew. It has been reported that a flight attendant with minimal experience as […]

The pilot of a twin-engine turbo Beech Baron 56-T-C was headed home to St. Paul, Minn., from Glendive, Mont., on a business trip, when he apparently lost consciousness somewhere above Wisconsin last Friday night. The airplane continued on course until it ran out of fuel near Charleston, W.V. Two F-16s intercepted the Baron and attempted […]

AOPA’s Air Safety Foundation (ASF) does an exhaustive assessment of aircraft accidents each year called the Nall Report but it’s a year behind. That’s because it tries to include as many NTSB final reports as possible and it usually takes the NTSB six months to a year to complete a file. For 2004, 82 percent […]

Accident statistics in 2005 bucked a hopeful trend that developed over the past few years but there are still some bright spots in the totals. In its preliminary report for 2005, the NTSB reported last week that the total number of aircraft accidents went up in 2005 over the previous year but the number of […]

The report pays more than passing attention to the recently-introduced sport pilot certificate, noting it allows pilots of “low and slow” light sport aircraft (LSA) to skip the biannual trip to an aviation medical examiner and use a driver’s license as proof of medical fitness. The report says the new certificate “made it easier for […]

According to the AP’s research, pilots older than 50 were involved in 55.8 percent of accidents over a five-year period even though they constitute only 36.8 percent of certificated pilots. And, apparently, the older a pilot gets, the greater the risk. Pilots between the ages of 50 and 59 had 26.4 percent of accidents, marginally […]

Statistics compiled by The Associated Press suggest that the older you are, the harder you’ll fall. The news gathering organization pored over FAA and NTSB records and determined that pilots older than 50 have a significantly greater chance of crashing than younger pilots. The stats perhaps take on even greater significance considering the fact that […]

At the heart of Spectrum process is a composite material and fabrication process called fibeX. Rocky Mountain Composites (RMC), of Spanish Fork, Utah, has been developing the material for 15 years and all Jones will say is that it combines the attributes of hand lay-up with those of pre-impregnated materials and cancels most of their […]

For a company that came out of nowhere at last year’s National Business Aviation Association convention, Spectrum Aeronautical LLC seems to be going places fast. Details are slowly starting to emerge about the company’s all-composite Spectrum 33 prototype but the fundamental question of how the company can build a 400-knot, 45,000-foot-ceiling, eight-passenger airplane that weighs […]

Martin, a “business consultant” from Akron, Ohio, says the fundamental problem with flight training is that it’s carried out independently by hundreds of “mom and pop” schools scattered at small airports all over the country. His answer is a chain of up to 250 franchised schools all teaching the same comprehensive curriculum. Martin claims that […]