Accidents

The sole pilot aboard an S-2T died on Tuesday when the air tanker crashed during a firefighting mission at Yosemite National Park. The pilot has been identified as 62-year-old Geoffrey “Craig” Hunt. The FAA said the airplane went down “under unknown circumstances,” but a California Highway Patrol officer who witnessed the crash says the airplane […]

On a Thursday in March 2013, the 500-hour pilot of a Mooney M20E arrived at Angel Fire, a ski resort east of Taos in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. With him were his girlfriend, his sister and his sister’s 13-year-old daughter. They came from San Antonio, stayed with a cousin of the […]

What started as a fun-filled Young Eagles event on Saturday at the Buffalo-Lancaster Airport in Lancaster, New York, with philanthropic pilots giving rides to young potential aviators, ended in tragedy as a Cessna 172 and an experimental Searey collided. The pilot of the Cessna and his 14-year-old passenger died in the crash that resulted from […]

On Sept. 29, 2013, a Cessna Citation CJ2 landing at Santa Monica Airport near Los Angeles suddenly veered off the runway and crashed through a hangar, bursting into flames and killing all aboard. Three months later, on Jan. 5, 2014, the pilots of a Challenger 601 landing with a strong, gusting tailwind in Aspen, Colorado, […]

General aviation accidents showed a welcome decline in 2013, falling from 1,471 crashes in 2012 to 1,222 last year, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. In fact, by every measure GA flying was safer last year than the year before. The accident rate per 100,000 flight hours dipped to 5.85, continuing a steady historic […]

The U.S. Navy has identified Lt. Nathan Poloski, a 26-year-old from Lake Arrowhead, California, as the pilot who was presumed killed in a collision between two F/A-18C Hornets over the Pacific Ocean on September 15. Poloski was declared presumed deceased after the two Hornets collided during a routine flight off the USS Carl Vinson, the […]

Winter storms approach southern California from the Gulf of Alaska, the low center descending off the Pacific coast and then swinging inland to spend itself in Arizona and New Mexico. When the low is abeam Los Angeles southwest winds race across the coastal plain, leap over the San Gabriel Mountains and tumble head over heels, […]

The August 2013 crash of a UPS cargo plane short of the runway in Birmingham, Alabama, was caused by a combination of crew errors and pilot fatigue, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its final accident report released on Tuesday. UPS disagrees with the findings, saying the carrier provides adequate rest for crews and […]

An airplane flying a qualifying race in the Sport Class at the National Championship Air Races near Reno, Nevada, crashed yesterday, killing the pilot on board. The pilot was identified by the Reno Air Race Association (RARA) as Lee Behel, one of the founders and the current president of the Sport Class, who was flying […]

In a preliminary accident report of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 released by the Dutch Security Board on Tuesday, investigators said the Boeing 777 “broke up in the air probably as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.” The report did not, however, assign […]