Stephen Pope

The National Transportation Safety Board says preliminary flight data recorder information downloaded from the Embraer Phenom 100 that crashed into houses while on approach to Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland on Monday shows that the stall warning system sounded continuously for the last 20 seconds of the flight, indicating that the twinjet had slowed dangerously […]

With media attention increasingly focused on the safety of UAVs, the House aviation subcommittee will hold a hearing this week on the status of drone integration into U.S. airspace. The hearing will focus on the state of the emerging UAV industry in the United States, including the FAA’s efforts to safely integrate unmanned drones into […]

A mother and her two young children were killed on Monday when an Embraer Phenom 100 crashed into their house about a mile short of Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg, Maryland, just before 11 a.m. local time. Three people on board the jet were also killed, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, including the […]

A recent report in the journal Human Factors found that the prevalence of automated cockpits may be hindering pilots’ ability to perform some key tasks, such as navigating without the aid of a moving map and troubleshooting systems problems. Researchers studied 16 experienced pilots as they flew routine and nonroutine flight scenarios in a Boeing […]

NetJets pilots are upset about an alleged effort by the fractional-ownership giant to use Twitter and other social media to impersonate union members as part of a would-be plot to “weaken and ultimately destroy the union.” Lawyers are suing NetJets Aviation over the alleged action directed against the 3,000-member NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots. […]

The FAA yesterday issued long-awaited rules that increase the number of hours pilots may log toward an instrument rating using approved aviation training devices, raising the limit to 20 hours in advanced training devices versus 10 hours under the old rules. In reality many simulator makers had received special authorizations from the FAA to allow […]

A Robinson R44 apparently broke apart in flight and crashed into a the roof of a building in North Salt Lake, Utah, on Tuesday, bursting into flames and killing the two men on board. Witnesses reported seeing the helicopter break into several pieces midflight. Debris was found over a widely scattered area, according to local […]

A U.S. Air Force pilot assigned to bomb ISIS targets in the Middle East was killed when his F-16 fighter crashed on Sunday, military officials said. The Fighting Falcon reportedly suffered a mechanical malfunction shortly after takeoff. The pilot attempted to return to an airstrip in Jordan but crashed short of the runway, according to […]

The National Transportation Safety Board’s final report on the June 2012 inflight breakup of a Pilatus PC-12 over Central Florida highlights the risks of flying a high-performance airplane in IMC with minimum training and experience. Weeks after the accident the NTSB issued a safety alert to pilots warning about the inherent latency of in-cockpit Nexrad […]

Insufficient testing and a poor understanding of a novel lithium-ion battery design contributed to the grounding of Boeing’s 787 fleet last year after two separate fire and smoke incidents in January 2013, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report issued on Monday. Boeing, the FAA and the 787’s Japanese battery maker shared the blame […]