News

The Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant helicopter successfully completed its first flight on Thursday. The aircraft was developed by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky in partnership with Boeing to be part of the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift program. It was designed using technology developed from Sikorsky’s X2 Technology Demonstrator, which won the Collier Trophy in 2010. Features […]

The FAA issued Airworthiness Directive 2019-01-02 back in February 2019 to address a safety-of-flight-issue with many Aspen Avionics Evolution flight displays, and the company this week announced a fix with a new software modification. The AD affected Aspen Evolution Flight Displays (EFD1000/500) loaded with software version 2.9 because of the potential for uncommanded inflight resetting […]

The FBI has reportedly joined a criminal investigation into the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX in the wake of the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610, according to The Seattle Times. The report comes after Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Elaine Chao issued a memo (PDF) on Tuesday confirming […]

Ethiopian Airlines Thursday disputed a New York Times report that claimed the captain of the 737 MAX that crashed on March 10 with the loss of all aboard hadn’t received simulator training on the aircraft. The airline said all of its pilots had completed differences training from the 737 NG to the newer MAX. However, […]

New reports claim that conversations captured by the Lion Air Flight 610 cockpit voice recorder (CVR) confirm that the pilots were unable to diagnose the control issues encountered in the minutes before the accident that claimed the lives of all 189 people onboard on Oct. 29, 2018. Although a complete transcript of the CVR recording […]

More than 4,500 people attended Women in Aviation International’s (WAI) 30th Annual International Women in Aviation Conference last week. Southwest Airlines captain and former F/A-18 Hornet pilot Tammi Jo Shults, SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell and tactical mission lead on the Mars Curiosity Rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Nagin Cox were among the conference’s keynote […]

Image: Embraer Embraer has announced that CEO Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva will be stepping down on April 22, 2019, at the end of his current two-year elected term. The announcement comes after one of Silva’s primary initiatives—a partnership with Boeing that will see Boeing take over 80 percent of the Brazilian company’s passenger […]

In this image from the FAA, the arrow shows the correct presence of safety wire securing the bolt head. On the accident SR20, the bolt was missing, presumably from breakage of the safety wire or the failure of maintenance personnel to reinstall it after maintenance. The FAA issued an Aviation Maintenance Alert this week pertaining […]

Last month, the Aircraft Electronics Association reported a 17.6% bump in overall avionics sales. And while a good portion of that gain was attributed to a generally stronger new-airplane market, the bulk was pegged on the looming deadline for ADS-B Out equipage. That sounds plausible enough, but we decided to see what’s really happening down […]

Image: Delta Former Delta Air Lines executive Steve Dickson has been nominated by President Trump to become the next FAA Administrator. Recently retired as senior VP of flight operations at Delta, Dickson will, if approved by the Senate, take over an agency whose aircraft-certification procedures are under tremendous scrutiny after the second fatal crash of […]