Accidents

I have been thinking about some fascinating but challenging situations — events you hope never to encounter that involve decisions and require reactions to life-or-death consequences. “When to give up,” a decision not naturally part of most pilots’ DNA, has been rattling around in my brain for a long time, so here goes. Two events […]

17-year old student pilot Maggie Taraska did a fantastic job during a highly unusual solo flight this weekend at the Beverly Regional Airport (BVY), located just north of the Boston metropolitan area and under Logan International’s (BOS) Class B airspace. The Piper PA-28 Taraska was flying had just lifted off Runway 09, one of two […]

There’s truly good news for the GA community in this year’s Nall Report and analysis of general aviation accidents; GA pilots are flying more hours and having fewer accidents. The editors of the Joseph T. Nall Report view their goal in gathering and reviewing accident data pretty much the same way they have since the […]

Examining the aftermath of a mysterious, fatal crash of a 1950s Air Force trainer.

Remember that terrible hot-air balloon crash in central Texas a few summers back? The accident claimed 16 lives, including the pilot’s, when the balloon struck high-tension power lines following a short, early-morning flight. The crash claimed more lives than any other aviation accident in the previous seven years. Not to mention this was only a […]

The National Park Service has declared that it is too dangerous to recover the wreck of a sightseeing plane that crashed in Alaska earlier this month, according to a news release from the organization. On August 4, a deHavilland Beaver (DHC-2), operated by the “flightseeing” company, K2 Aviation, crashed about 14 miles southwest of the […]

Two men over the past few days took their own lives by using airplanes as instruments of their own deaths. Last Friday, a Horizon Air employee stole a Bombardier Q400 turboprop from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), and took it on an hour-long joyride that included aerobatics before crashing the airplane on Kentron Island in Puget […]

A WWII vintage German Junkers Ju-52 crashed in the Swiss Alps on Saturday, killing all 20 people on board. The 79-year-old aircraft, operated by the “adventure flight” company, JU-Air, was flying from Locarno, in southern Switzerland, when it crashed into Piz Segnas mountain. There were 17 passengers and three crew members on the aircraft, CBS […]

Pilots like to fly low, so what can we learn from this 2017 Cessna 172 accident?

When looking at images from the fiery crash of an Embraer 190 near the General Guadelupe Victoria International Airport in Durango, Mexico on Tuesday, it’s hard to believe that everyone on board the airplane survived the event. Aeromexico Flight 2134 attempted to take off in a storm on its way from Durango to Mexico City, […]