Accidents

An adventurous pilot falls for his aircraft with fatal results.

The crash of a T-6 Texan II in Alabama last week—in addition to the loss of an F-18 Hornet near China Lake California earlier in the week—was enough for the head of Naval Air Forces to call for a one-day safety stand-down that grounded all non-deployed units in an attempt to determine the cause of […]

A Daher TBM 700, N965DM, departed Manchester, New Hampshire (KMHT), on October 2 at approximately 19 minutes past 10 am bound for Buffalo, New York (KBUF), some 374 miles to the west. The pilot, a prominent New York attorney, held a private pilot certificate with an instrument rating and filed an appropriate IFR flight plan […]

It’s a well-known fact too much alcohol can alter a person’s mood, behavior and coordination, not to mention impairing their decision-making abilities. Aviators are not immune to the complications surrounding alcohol as some professional pilots have learned when they were removed from revenue flights after another crewmember or gate agent smelled alcohol on their breath. […]

Uncertainty makes for an accident waiting to happen.

A 2016 Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) study of 16 years of runway excursions determined that “83 percent could have been avoided with a decision to go around. In other words, 54 percent of all accidents could potentially be prevented by going around.” Failure to conduct a go-around is the number one risk factor in approach […]

A US Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II crashed after the pilot ejected, following a collision with a Marine KC-130J Hercules tanker during refueling in a military operations area (MOA) near the Naval Air Facility El Centro in California. The KC-130J landed in a field near the Jacqueline Cochran Airport in Thermal (KTRM), with the eight […]

If you don’t know where it went, is it really gone?

The Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand says an amateur built Van’s Aircraft RV-7 broke up in midair during a January 1, 2018, VFR flight, killing the pilot and passenger. The CAA believes the pilot lost control of the aircraft after possibly conducting an aerobatic maneuver that far exceeded the RV-7′s never-exceed speed (VNE). The […]

Aircraft accident investigations often take years as the players sift through the physical evidence, voice and radar recordings and interview witnesses trying to piece together the cause. The ongoing investigation into last January’s crash of the helicopter (N72EX) carrying basketball legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others, took an interesting twist last week after […]