Accidents

After seven months of examining data from the hypersonic HTV-2 vehicle that was lost during a test flight over the Pacific last August, DARPA says it has zeroed in on the vehicle’s skin, and its inability to withstand the stresses of incredibly fast speeds, as the source of the malfunction. According to DARPA’s report, ground […]

Authorities have suspended the search for the body of the Cessna 421 pilot who crashed into the Gulf of Mexico Thursday afternoon after remaining unresponsive to air traffic control calls for several hours. The Cessna 421 took off from Slidell, Louisiana, on Thursday morning and headed southeast over the Gulf, but drew concern from air […]

Each month I receive the NTSB Reporter (ntsbreporter@aol.com), which provides an abbreviated version of some of the more interesting NTSB reports that have been issued recently, along with a paragraph or two on a number of recent accidents and other stories of interest. As I read through the weather and other information available to a […]

The photograph is haunting, if you know when it was taken. Most of the upper part of the frame is filled with a bright yellow wing, banked fairly steeply to the right. The flap is down a notch; the aileron too is deflected slightly downward. The lower part of the picture contains a patch of […]

The ** crash of an F8F Bearcat** at Breckenridge, Texas, last week that claimed the life of well known air racer and airshow performer Howard Pardue came during an abortive aerobatic maneuver. According the NTSB’s preliminary report on the crash, Pardue was executing a low-level manuever that somehow went terribly wrong. A witness, a pilot […]

Photos released by the U.S. Navy of the fiery F-18 crash on Friday show a stark contrast between the extensive material damage caused by the aircraft when it went down in a Virginia Beach residential area and the surprising lack of any serious injuries on the ground. Officials announced on Saturday that all residents of […]

Jose Wejebe, host of the Outdoor Channel’s popular Spanish Fly fishing show, died on Friday when his homebuilt Comp Air 8 crashed shortly after takeoff from Everglade Airpark (X01) and caught fire. The aircraft was destroyed and Wejebe, who was 54 years old, died at the scene. He was the sole occupant of the airplane […]

A jury on Tuesday ordered General Electric to pay $70 million in damages for its role in the August 2008 crash of a Sikorsky S-61N helicopter. The verdict came after the surviving pilot and the family of the co-pilot killed in the crash filed a $177 million lawsuit against General Electric for negligence associated with […]

A video showing footage of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache crash that took place in the mountains of Afghanistan last month has made its way onto the web. The footage, captured in the village of Marzak, shows the helicopter flying low and fast over a U.S. outpost before pulling up, doubling back and descending sharply. […]

Five people died on Thursday afternoon when a Cessna Citation 501 crashed while attempting to land at Macon County Airport in Franklin, North Carolina. According to the Miami Herald, eyewitnesses said the aircraft appeared too high during its first steep, fast descent into Runway 25. On the second attempt, the Citation, again according to witnesses, […]