Aviation Safety

Excessive heat “kills” integrated electrical circuits, the kind found in modern avionics. Unlike many other electronic devices, avionics also may be exposed to sunlight filtered only slightly by a transparency. Combining the two sources—as when on the ground on a hot, sunny day, engine running and with all the electrical equipment active—is fairly common. While […]

A lot of ink and pixels have been spilled over the years to discuss, explore and define what is called aeronautical decision-making, or ADM. The overall topic has its own chapter in the FAA’s Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK), a rather dated Advisory Circular—AC 60-22, “Aeronautical Decision Making”—and a series of FAA FAASTeam courses […]

In discussing how to determine if an alternate is required for an airport that does not have a TAF (“Non-Towered IFR,” July 2021), Mr. Motte advises we consider the “oft-forgotten area forecasts.” Not only were they oft-forgotten in the past, the NWS decided that rather than have pilots forget them, it was simply better to […]

With the news during July’s Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture Oshkosh fly-in that the FAA has approved a supplemental type certificate (STC) for an unleaded aviation gasoline, we’ve all transitioned from the early phase of the decades-long effort to rid ourselves of leaded aviation fuels. It wasn’t easy to get this far, and it won’t be […]

May 1, 2021, Hutchinson, Kan. Beech 23 Musketeer At 0925 Central time, the airplane settled into terrain shortly after takeoff, sustaining substantial damage. The pilot received minor injuries; the three passengers were uninjured. Visual conditions prevailed for the Young Eagles flight. During takeoff, the pilot later reported, the airplane would not climb higher than treetop […]

Cessna 172N Skyhawk Broken Pushrod The #3 cylinder exhaust valve pushrod broke due to a valve stuck in the closed position. No marks were seen on the top of the piston through a borescope. The lifter came apart as a result of the broken pushrod but appears to have been operating properly previously. Part total […]

I’m part of a pilot’s breakfast group that flies from the airport in Big Bear City, Calif., elevation 6700 feet, to lower-elevation airports in the Los Angeles Basin airspace. On this day, we were headed to the Corona (Calif.) Municipal Airport (KAJO) and its good restaurant. Upon departing our home airport, we request VFR flight […]

Every now and then, I come across an NTSB accident report that leaves me shaking my head. After absorbing the facts and the outcome, I want to reach out to grab the pilot and shake him—it’s always a “him”—into some more enlightened state of awareness regarding the possible consequences of his actions. So it is […]

Separate bills passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in mid-June were developed to help improve the Notice to Airmen (Notam) system and allow incentive payments for early completion of airport projects. The legislation, H.R. 1262, the Notice to Airman Improvement Act of 2021, introduced by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) and cosponsored by U.S. […]

Each month in the back of this magazine, we chronicle recent accidents we hope are of interest to readers. A glance at a random month’s entries likely would reveal that a substantial portion of them involve total or partial failure of a piston single’s engine. Yes, there’s selection bias involved—we typically try to highlight the […]