Aviation Safety

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

Pilots of piston-powered twins know of the need to feather the prop on a dead engine, but occasionally the task does not get accomplished – sometimes through human error, sometimes through mechanical blockages.

In a recent accident, the pilot encountered a blocked propeller that could not be feathered.

The FAA began investigating the potential for additional accidents of a similar nature involving a propeller that could not be feathered either with or without engine rotation. In most pilot operating handbooks and Aircraft Flight Manuals, there are warnings of the…

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

The FAA has issued a special airworthiness information bulletin in a continuing attempt to get owners of Beech prop airplanes to use proper gust lock procedures.

Numerous incidents and accidents have resulted from the failure of a pilot to remove the flight control gust lock prior to attempting to take off. Many involved the use of a makeshift gust lock, including such things as a common bolt or nail inserted through the holes in the control column provided by the manufacturer.

Obviously, this tactic did not provide the pilot with any kind of reminder that a gust…

You put out an amazing issue in October. In getting in from the office at 11:00 last night, I stayed up until 1:30 reading the issue cover-to-cover. John Lowerys Concorde piece, Fallen Icon [Reality Check] – was well done. It was a breath of fresh air to read a realistic piece about the Concorde crash.

Its a bit sad to see the way both companies and governments sometimes react to crashes. BEA blames Continental for their DC-10 dropping a metal strip; BEA similarly blamed the pilots of the ATR at Roselawn, claiming the pilots did not react correctly to the situation. Im not attempting to blame the Europeans, but it does seem to be a consistent pattern in different accidents/incident…

I just read Ken Ibolds article, Pick Your Potion [Training, April]. I started flying in 1986 and can appreciate a lot of the arguments made by people regarding CFIs. However, Ive been a CFI for seven months now and can appreciate what its like on the other side of the fence also.

I now realize how hard, tiring, stressful and sometimes tedious it can be instructing. I work part time at the local airport and can attest to the low pay received. As Mr. Ibold pointed out, its only received when instructing – not for paperwork or waiting for the student to do their pre-flight inspection.

When asked how much I get paid to instruct, Im embarrassed to say. Still, there is no excuse for…

The following briefs were selected from the 99 preliminary reports filed with the NTSB in February 2002. Statements in quotes were taken directly from the NTSB documents. The information is subject to change as the investigations are completed.

Feb. 03, Joshua Tree, Calif.
Beech Baron
At 0953 Pacific time, a Beech 95-B55 was damaged in an off-airport landing following a loss of power while on approach to Joshua Tree Airport. The pilot and passenger were not injured. The pilot, with about 600 hours in the airplane, said the airplane had come out of its annual inspection just over four flight hours earlier. The engines lost power in the traffic pattern. Both auxiliar…

The next generation of training devices look and feel more like real simulators. Thats a big improvement, but theyre still not perfect.

Buzzing and hot-dogging are the leading spin scenarios, often by highly qualified pilots who ought to know better.

When faced with a controlled forced landing, water offers little danger. Surprisingly, the same is true of heading for the trees.

VFR pilots who stumble into IMC have a chance if they can resist the urge to overcontrol the airplane.

You often see what you expect to see rather than whats really there, a deadly combination on a Sarasota runway.