Accidents

A California airshow was cut short on Sunday when longtime aerobatic pilot Eddie Andreini crashed in his modified “Super” Stearman while attempting an inverted cut-the-ribbon pass. The vintage blue-and-silver biplane hit the ground and caught fire in front of the crowd, killing the 77-year-old. Andreini, an experienced aerobatics pilot who had performed in nearly 1,000 […]

Malaysian officials released a preliminary report on Thursday detailing missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s mysterious journey on March 8, providing the first complete glimpse of the timeline with maps showing the Boeing 777-200ER’s presumed flight path. According to the official account of what happened, Flight 370 departed Runway 32R from Kuala Lumpur International Airport at […]

A Piper Lance flying in foggy weather in central South Dakota yesterday crashed into the blade of a wind turbine, killing the pilot and three passengers. The FAA has confirmed that the 1978 Piper PA-32R-300 struck a blade of the wind tower outside Highmore, South Dakota, in poor weather, but offered no explanation as to […]

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for a Cessna 210, which crashed into the waters of San Pablo Bay near Richmond, California, after it collided with a WWII-era Hawker Sea Fury T Mk.20 at 4:05 p.m. on Sunday. The FAA issued a temporary flight restriction over the search area to protect Coast Guard […]

When something went wrong in the air during a practice flight, aerobatic pilot Dan Marcotte jumped from his Ultimate Aero 10-200, parachuting to safety as the single-seat biplane crashed in a fireball onto a northern Vermont interstate. Marcotte, an experienced aerobatic pilot, bailed out of the airplane last Friday over Highgate, Vermont, near the Canadian […]

In the third week of November 2011, a Rockwell 690 made a night VFR round trip from Safford in eastern Arizona to Falcon Field in Mesa, just east of Phoenix. On the return leg, the pilot turned right immediately after taking off from Falcon’s Runway 04R, remained at 4,500 feet until emerging from under Phoenix […]

The United States Helicopter Safety Team (USHST), a group made up of FAA and industry representatives, shared some good news this week regarding helicopter accident statistics. The group analyzed accident data during two three-year periods and found that the accident record has improved by 21 percent. USHST compared accidents that occurred during the three-year period […]

My friend Justin is a superb flight instructor with considerable experience in real-world flying and is charmingly full of himself. He amuses me by constantly working deals that involve flying really nice airplanes to major league games, rock concerts, ski resorts, airshows, Mardi Gras festivals, NASCAR races and weekends at somebody’s oceanfront condo. Last week, […]

Since 2009, 42 Air Force MC-12Ws have been deployed to war zones in the Middle East. The MC-12W is a modified Beech King Air 350, externally similar except for a plethora of antennas and several unsightly bulges, including a huge belly pack. Communications and surveillance equipment and stations for two technicians replace the usual executive […]

The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been halted by rough weather in the southern Indian Ocean, where investigators now say they are certain the Boeing 777 with 239 people on board went down. Malaysian officials said yesterday that satellite data examined by the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch and Inmarsat had led them […]