News

Oil rig operators in the stormy North Sea depend on sturdy helicopters like Eurocopter’s Super Puma to move personnel, but recently a series of scares and concerns has disrupted those flights. Last week, an L2 Super Puma with 16 passengers and two crew, bound for an offshore platform, declared an emergency and returned to Aberdeen […]

Piper Aircraft has not attained all the benchmarks that were set when the state of Florida invested $6.6 million in the company’s expansion four years ago, but given the state of the economy since then, the state has agreed to not seek payback from the company. As long as Piper stays in Florida and meets […]

A California climatologist says the Arctic Circle should be off limits to high-flying jets because their emissions are likely a major factor in the rapid melting of the polar ice cap. Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil engineering at Stanford University, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation he believes black soot particles from jet engines are […]

NTSB investigators are en route to Mexico to help find the cause of the fatal crash of a U.S.-registered Learjet 25. All seven on board were killed when the jet went down in mountainous terrain early on Sunday, including popular Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera, several of her staff members, and the flight crew. The jet […]

The NTSB says a misjudged high-speed, low-altitude pass led to the crash of a Piper Malibu that killed the pilot and two passengers last year in Monroe, Mich. (PDF) The board said pilot Rick Howell, 58, of nearby LaSalle tried to raise his flight instructor on the radio to alert him that he was doing […]

The head of the FCC has formally asked the FAA to allow greater use of tablet computers and e-readers in airline cabins, just as the latter agency is reviewing its rule on personal electronic devices for passenger use. In his letter to the FAA, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said that “mobile devices are increasingly interwoven […]

Stratolaunch Systems, which plans to launch satellites from an enormous airplane high in the atmosphere, has parted with its rocket subcontractor SpaceX, but Stratolaunch says it’s still hoping to fly the airplane in 2016. Stratolaunch has hired Orbital Sciences Corporation to come up with a new design by sometime in the spring of 2013. The […]

A Chinese consortium may be poised to take over what was the most important airliner leasing company in the world, but a leading analyst is wondering why. American International Group (AIG) says it is in talks with a group led by New China Trust Co. Ltd., New China Life Insurance Co. Ltd., P3 Investments Ltd. […]

An F-22 that had performed a flyover at a Pearl Harbor anniversary event, Friday, later scraped its tail on landing at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, causing an estimated $1.8 million in damage to the jet. The landing followed a training exercise that followed the ceremony and was otherwise safe. No injuries were reported. The damage […]

An FM-2 Wildcat that rolled off the deck of a ship on Dec. 28, 1944, after suffering an engine failure during takeoff, was plucked from Waukegan Harbor on Lake Michigan in Illinois, Friday, reportedly thanks to a donation from 78-year-old pilot Charles Greenhill. The aircraft’s pilot, William Edward Forbes, was rescued when the aircraft went […]