Accidents

One of Gulfstream’s G650 ultra long-range business jets crashed on the runway at Roswell, NM, on Saturday, fatally injuring the two test pilots and two flight test engineers on board. The FAA said the accident happened after the jet attempted to lift off, struck a wingtip on the runway, which caused the gear to collapse […]

(March 2010) — The girlfriend of a student pilot, eager to see how his flying skills were coming along — he had recently soloed — arranged to accompany him and his instructor on a flight. They took off in a 172 on a beautiful June evening. She was sitting behind her boyfriend, who was in […]

Last October the French magazine Jeune Afrique reported that the cause of the mysterious crash of a twin-turboprop L-410 Turbolet at Bandundu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Aug. 25 had been revealed. According to the sole human survivor of the accident, a crocodile concealed in a “sports bag” stored at the back of the cabin […]

(January 2011) — It happened nearly seven years ago, but the accident remains a shining example of a confluence of unlikely circumstances causing a catastrophe when none of them, by itself, would have amounted to more than a nuisance. Five airplanes belonging to Pan Am International Flight Academy were flying from Deer Valley Airport in […]

The pilot, 69, had almost finished a six-month refurbishment of a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser. He had been rebuilding airplanes for 40 years, and his habit was to have a certain A&P mechanic perform a “semifinal” inspection as each project neared completion. The mechanic would give him a list of things that needed to be […]

According to an eyewitness whose attention was caught by the loud gunning of its engine as it approached the airport, the little two-seater’s wings both vibrated visibly before the left wing folded back against the fuselage. The airplane pitched downward and began to spin; the right wing then bent upward, and it too folded back […]

En route from Miami to Medellin, Colombia, the cockpit satellite phone rang on board Kalitta Air’s 747-200. Dispatch was calling with a request. A competitor’s 747 freighter was experiencing mechanical problems in Bogotá. The competitor would be unable to transport a large load of flowers back to the United States. Would the crew divert into […]

Early on June 23 of last year, two men and three teenage boys left Spirit of St. Louis Airport in a Cherokee Lance for some trout fishing at Gaston’s White River Resort, which is located in the Ozarks of northern Arkansas. The 170 nm flight took an hour and a quarter. Three days later, on […]

A look at the NTSB’s report on the February 2009 crash in Buffalo, New York.

The e-mail we received here at Flying from Col. Sid “Scroll” Mayeux, chief of aviation safety at the United States Air Force Safety Center, was a little hard to believe. “Last year (Fiscal Year 2009),” Mayeux’s e-mail read, “was the USAF’s safest year in aviation safety, with 17 Class A Aviation Flight Mishaps for a […]