News

The NTSB this week found the pilot at fault in a fatal medevac flight in Maryland in September 2008, but cited a lack of help from air traffic controllers as a contributing factor. The Aerospatiale helicopter, operated by the Maryland State Police, descended too quickly while on a nonprecision instrument approach in fog, and hit […]

The FAA has revoked the certificates of two Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew their destination airport last week while en route from San Diego to Minneapolis, the agency announced on Tuesday. The pilots were out of contact with air traffic controllers for an extended period of time and told NTSB investigators they were distracted while […]

Cessna has had no business jet order cancellations for the coming year. According to MarketWatch, however, the good news does not extend beyond 2010 and there are cancellations in 2011 and later. It quoted Scott Donnelly, incoming CEO of Cessna’s parent company Textron, as saying the future cancellations are “reflecting customer uncertainty … three years […]

The Montreal Gazette is reporting that Bombardier has confirmed it will build a corporate version of the CSeries airliner it currently has under development. The Gazette says Steve Ridolfi, president of Bombardier Business Aircraft, made the commitment during a meeting of aviation analysts at the National Business Aviation Association convention in Orlando last week. “Absolutely, […]

Two Northwest pilots who overflew their destination and went silent for over an hour last week were working on their laptops, in violation of company policy, the NTSB said on Monday. The first officer was showing the captain how to use a new crew flight scheduling procedure, and both pilots said they lost track of […]

Engineer Richard Whitcomb, whose innovative ideas are incorporated in the design of most aircraft flying today, died in Newport News, Va., on Oct. 13. Whitcomb “was the most important aerodynamic contributor in the second half of the century of flight,” according to historian Tom Crouch, of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Whitcomb won the […]

The Aircraft Electronics Association says the FAA’s approach to safety management systems (SMS) is “an excessive, unwarranted and unjustified administrative burden” that is poorly thought out and has no identifiable justification or goals. The association submitted detailed comments on the FAA’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (PDF) Monday and is clearly worried about the implications […]

The current president of the Experimental Aircraft Association says the process to pick his successor is progressing and no time line has been set for the recruitment. Tom Poberezny told AVweb in a podcast interview that the board of directors decided to hire a headhunting firm to find his replacement after an internal effort collapsed […]

No one was killed, but there were explosions after an F-16 dropped two external fuel tanks and munitions (including a 500-pound bomb) onto an unpopulated area of Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Thursday. The event took place just before 4 p.m. at Hill Air Force Base. The pilot later landed safely and the 500-pounder did […]

Airspace restrictions have kept the reins tight on China’s general aviation industry but, as part of a pilot project, those restrictions — for one Chinese province — will be relaxed, according to China Daily. Airspace around the Shaanxi province industrial park will have relaxed military control of low altitude airspace, which means general aviation flights […]