Accidents

(February 2012) Increasingly, flight is automatic. Navigation no longer requires an ounce of brains. Auto-pilots climb and descend, hold altitude, track waypoints and execute entire flight plans while idled crews ponder football scores. Autoland systems bring airplanes safely to earth, and even to the decks of aircraft carriers, in zero-zero weather. Only one phase of […]

A video capturing a Cessna 172 pilot landing the aircraft after the propeller fell off mid-flight made the rounds over the Internet during the weekend. While details about the video are slim, it was reportedly shot in Mexico by the 172’s back-seat passengers and features a flight instructor and student pilot at the controls. During […]

The CEO of Micron Technology, Inc., died when his Lancair kitplane crashed at Boise, Idaho, on Friday. Appleton was the sole occupant of the kitplane. An experienced airshow pilot who frequently performed at air shows around the country in both jets and aerobatic airplanes, Appleton was also an accomplished off-road racer and martial arts competitor. […]

Two well-known filmmakers were killed on Saturday in a helicopter crash in Eastern Australia. The men, 60-year-old American cinematographer Mike deGruy and 52-year-old Australian writer-producer Andrew Wight, died when the Robinson R44 helicopter Wight was piloting crashed shortly after takeoff from Jaspers Brush, an airfield approximately 100 miles south of Sydney. According to the Australian […]

A 41-year-old pilot was killed on Monday after being struck by the moving propeller of his 1974 Piper Cherokee. The accident took place around 8:30 a.m. at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California, just outside of San Diego. According to officials, the pilot, who has been identified as Gordon Trygve Mylo Woodard of Lakeside, California, […]

A New Hampshire pilot was indicted on Friday on charges of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the New Year’s Day 2011 crash of a Cessna 310 that killed his daughter. A grand jury indicted Stephen Fay, 57, for the death of Jessica Malin after it was determined that Fay was piloting his twin-engine Cessna without […]

The National Transportation Safety Board has reported that it has finshed up a six-month-long survey of owners and pilots of experimental-amateur built (E-AB) aircraft, as well as a study of more than 200 accidents of homebuilts, and is in the process of preparing its report on the segment, which it plans to release early this […]

(February 2012) At first glance the NTSB report seemed like a typical “non-instrument-rated pilot takes off into IMC conditions” accident. The pilot had accumulated close to 400 hours during the five years since he had earned his private pilot certificate, mostly in the accident airplane. He was eager to depart on a trip that he […]

The crash of a sightseeing plane just off the coast of Honduras on Jan. 11 that was reported on by NBC’s Today show on Monday raised questions here at Flying that the NBC report did not address. Andy Atkins, his wife Jenny and four-year-old son Logan, the story reported, were on an air tour of […]

The near miss between the 172 and an Embraer Regional Jet at Gulfport-Biloxi (Mississippi) Airport last year was caused by the controller handling the flights, according to the NTSB. The two airplanes were both cleared to take off, the 172 on Runway 18 and moments later the ERJ on intersecting Runway 14. The airplanes missed […]