News

Four of six people aboard an Airbus A400M military transport were killed with the aircraft crashed in a field in Seville, Spain, Saturday. The new four-engine turboprops are assembled in Seville and the aircraft was on a test flight when it hit an electrical tower while attempting an emergency landing. The nature of the emergency […]

During a test flight on Friday, Aeromobil’s flying-car prototype crashed, after the pilot, designer Stefan Klein, pulled the parachute. Klein suffered no injuries, according to Aeromobil’s statement, and the airplane was “only partially damaged.” News photos show the aircraft apparently mostly intact, with some damage to the fuselage. “Experience and data from the test flight […]

The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles that were rescued from freezing Cape Cod waters last winter with the help of volunteer general aviation pilots are now ready to return to the sea, and the airlift organizers haven’t forgotten their GA supporters. “In celebration of the turtles’ release, on May 16, GA pilots are invited to fly […]

A Piper PA-32 Saratoga crashed on Interstate 285 in Atlanta about 10 a.m. Friday morning, killing all four on board. Nobody on the freeway was hurt, but the highway was shut down in both directions for hours, to secure the crash site for investigators. The airplane had departed from Runway 3R at Dekalb Peachtree Airport, […]

The FAA contractor who started a fire at the Chicago Air Route Traffic Control Center during a suicide attempt last fall will plead guilty to federal charges in June. In court on Thursday, Brian Howard’s attorney entered a not guilty plea as a formality that buys time to process a deal with prosecutors, the Chicago […]

The brief test flight of an unmanned SpaceX capsule on Wednesday was the first trial for a system that will allow astronauts to abort their launches should something go awry. It also marked progress for NASA’s plans to once again transport astronauts, replacing the retired space shuttle program with commercially made spacecraft. “I think this […]

The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft and its crew are ready to fly from China to Hawaii, and waiting for the right weather window, which the crew now says won’t happen before Sunday. The 5,000-mile leg, which will be the longest nonstop flight on the solar-powered electric airplane’s round-the-world trip, is expected to take about five […]

The FAA wants to make it easier for drone operators to know if they’re flying legally so on Wednesday, it announced a new geographically sensitive smartphone app that will instantly inform drone pilots if they’re legal to fly in the airspace they’re in. The new app is called B4UFly and will be available later this […]

The FAA will work with several partners from private industry to “explore the next steps” in allowing unmanned aircraft operations in the national airspace, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced Wednesday at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in Atlanta, Georgia. “This is a big job, and we’ll get to our goal of safe, […]

During the flight from Dusseldorf to Barcelona immediately prior to the fatal crash on March 24, Germanwings first officer Andreas Lubitz repeatedly reset the A320’s altitude to 100 feet while alone in the cockpit, according to a preliminary report (PDF) released Wednesday by the French BEA safety board. Lubitz didn’t activate a descent, but the […]