Accidents

When the pilot of a Cessna 172 lost consciousness over northern England on Tuesday, his passenger, 77-year-old John Wildey, knew enough to make a Mayday call. That initiated a flurry of rescue activity that resulted in a successful emergency landing, though the unidentified pilot later died after being taken to a hospital. Wildey and the […]

Fiscal year 2013 was less unlucky than 2012 for fatal accidents among the experimental category. There were 55 accidents involving fatalities this year, compared with 73 last year, a 25 percent decrease. The accidents resulted in 70 deaths, down 18 percent from the 85 who lost their lives in 2012. EAA also reports that the […]

Southwest Airlines said it has fired the captain who landed a Boeing 737-700 nose wheel first at New York LaGuardia Airport in July. The airline determined that the captain, who had flown for Southwest for 13 years, took control of the airplane from the first officer at about 400 feet on the approach in violation […]

The fiery crash of a Cessna Citation CJ2 into a hangar at Santa Monica on Sunday evening left four dead and raised many questions about just what happened and why. Killed in the crash were a Santa Monica businessman, Mark Benjamin, his adult son Luke, and two women also on the flight, whose names have […]

A 69-year-old man who had been giving rides at the Bloomsburg Fair in Pennsylvania was killed on Friday evening when he was struck by the helicopter’s rotor blade. The helicopter was being refueled around 7:30 p.m. when pilot Carl Enlow reportedly returned to speak with a replacement pilot. His hat blew off, and he was […]

If the George Zimmerman trial wasn’t enough to feed a media frenzy, a major airplane crash at one of the country’s busiest airports filled the remaining void. When I was contacted by a national TV network to validate a specific nuance of the 777 automation system, I actually considered that maybe this time the media […]

In March 2012 in southern Georgia, a hot-air balloon was sucked into a thunderstorm. Carried to 17,000 feet in an updraft, battered by 1-inch hail, its fabric envelope tore open and collapsed. Only four days later did searchers finally locate it in a forested area miles from the launch point. Large clumps of compacted hail […]

Several reports claim David Riggs, a pilot with a checkered past who lost his FAA license not once but twice, is missing after his Lancair 320 crashed in a lake outside Shenyang, China. Riggs’ passenger, an 18-year-old Chinese translator, died in the crash. The Los Angeles Times reported that Riggs took off in rainy conditions […]

A Schweizer SGS 2-33A sailplane came up a bit short of the intended runway on Sunday. The unidentified teenage pilot, a member of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets and an experienced glider pilot with a private pilot’s license, landed on the roof of a convenience store a half mile short of his intended runway at […]

The competition in the Unlimited Class at the National Championship Air Races taking place in Reno, Nevada, this week is off to an exciting start. On Tuesday, during the second day of qualifications for the Unlimited Class, part of the canopy on Strega, the airplane that won the class during the past few years at […]