Aviation Safety

At 0906 eastern time, a Cessna 150H struck trees during a forced landing in Senoia. The flight instructor and student pilot were not injured. The flight instructor said they were performing a simulated engine failure and had descended to 500 feet above the ground when the engine would not respond to attempts to increase power….

When used airplanes turn into vintage airplanes, theyre easier on the budget but harder to own

As two owner groups demonstrated at Oshkosh, it takes planning, training and discipline to pull off group flights

If youre doing maintenance yourself, follow accepted maintenance procedures – and ask a mechanic for help if necessary

Healthy fear can turn to paralyzing panic if youre unprepared for an emergency. With preparation, its all second nature

By ignoring a few rules, pilot takes three friends to the bottom of a lake instead of a hockey playoff

Flying while intoxicated doesnt happen often, but when it does the results are usually tragic. A single DWI may point to trouble ahead in airplanes

I was planning a flight in a Cessna 172 to maintain night flight currency. Another pilot, who also held a commercial certificate and claimed 900 hours total time (to my 377) agreed to split the cost of the rental and we would each do three landings.

I got a standard weather briefing and filed a VFR flight plan. I asked my companion if he wanted to make the flight out or the flight back. He said he hadnt flown in a while and just wanted to get familiar with the airplane.

I said I would be PIC for the flight to a nearby airport, and he could be PIC on the trip back if he so desired. He didnt respond.

We took off from Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego at about 1910 and m…

Recently when closing out a logbook and starting a new one, I wandered back through the remarks column to see what memories might come forth. I was surprised, however, when it turned out that the majority of my most memorable flights had nothing in that column, or the remarks were limited to instrument approach flown or some other flight minutia.

The reason, of course, was because the flights that stand out most vividly usually involve something I dont really want to reduce to writing. Yeah, these are the flights where you drive away from the airport with the unsettling feeling that youve just dodged disaster.

Its interesting how those disasters evolve as the years pass and the ho…

The following information is derived from the FAAs Service Difficulty Reports and Aviation Maintenance Alerts.

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The crew of a Beech E90 King Air experienced a loss of empennage flight controls, which resulted in total loss of aircraft control, and the airplane crashed into a building during an instrument approach. The six occupants sustained only minor injuries.

Investigators looking into the crash found the problem may have begun under the floor at a heater register forward of the lavatory.

Two inches from the heat ducting is a tubing that supplies pneumatic pressure to the deice boots on the empennage. The heater register was at fuselage station 277. The pneumatic tu…