News

Homebuilt aircraft saw a drop in fatal accidents in the most recent year reported by the FAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association reported Wednesday. Aircraft in the FAA’s experimental category had 40 fatal accidents from October 2014 through September 2015, down 20 percent from 51 accidents in the previous fiscal year. There also was a drop […]

The Port of Seattle has partnered with Alaska Airlines and Boeing to set an ambitious goal — powering all airline flights at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with sustainable aviation biofuel. The partners have launched a $250,000 study to assess the costs and infrastructure they would need to deliver a biofuel/jet-fuel blend to all airline flights at […]

The entrepreneurs behind Morgan Aircraft, a startup based in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, planned to develop and build a twin turboprop VTOL business aircraft, but they have now shut down the company and filed for receivership, according to local news reports. The receivership process is similar to bankruptcy, and allows the company’s assets to be sold off […]

The pilot of a Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172 that crashed into a building in Anchorage on Tuesday was a five-year member of the organization but was not authorized to fly the plane that day. The Civil Air Patrol has confirmed that First Lt. Doug Demarest was killed after he took the plane on an […]

Vandals cut though a chain-link fence Sunday night at the Van Nuys Airport near Los Angeles and sprayed three corporate jets with graffiti. It was the first time vandals have struck at the airfield since a similar incident two years ago. The jets were parked on a ramp outside of a hangar. “This happened in […]

This year has been the most profitable ever for China’s airline industry, growing 76 percent from last year and generating $8.5 billion in profits, according to local reports, despite an overall slowdown in the economy. Over the last five years, passenger traffic grew about 10 percent per year, nine new airlines launched, and the number […]

Two recent news reports have cited bird strikes and fuel-fed fires as safety concerns for helicopter operators. According to an Associated Press story published over the weekend, operators reported 204 helicopter bird strikes in 2013, a 68 percent increase from 2009. While some of that is due to increased reporting by pilots, the AP says […]

We’ll find out this week how successful the FAA’s effort to register the thousands of mostly hobby unmanned aircraft that were received as gifts over the holidays was, but in the meantime the radio control model world continues to expand the limits of its technology. RC Media World has declared a German man’s 1/13th scale […]

Pakistani authorities have charged a Shaheen Airlines captain with flying while under the influence of alcohol following a landing accident on Nov. 3. Capt. Asmat Mehmood is accused of having a blood alcohol content of .083 percent when he landed a Boeing 737 hard, blew the tires and ended up on the grass with some […]

Mitsubishi has pushed back the certification and delivery schedule of its MRJ regional jet by at least a year, saying the aircraft might not be strong enough to meet certification requirements. In a surprise announcement on Christmas Eve, Mitsubishi Aircraft President Hiromichi Morimoto said the 90-seat aircraft meets so-called “normal use” requirements but the company […]