Aftermath

Clouds are mostly harmless, but sometimes they turn on you.

In September 2014, a Cessna 172 overtook and collided with a homebuilt Searey amphibian on final approach to the Buffalo-Lancaster Regional Airport (KBQR) in Lancaster, New York. The 172 pilot, 78, with 2,500 hours, and his 14-year-old passenger died when their airplane spiraled out of control and crashed. Remarkably—since one tends to think of midair […]

The C35 Bonanza, N5946C, was cruising at 6,500 feet when there was a sudden loud bang from the engine compartment, followed by a smell of oil.

The investigator concluded that the probable cause of the accident was improper soft-field-takeoff technique.

In June 2010, a Cessna T310R crashed in fine weather while on final approach at Ruidoso, New Mexico. Five people perished, two survived. The survivors were 12 and 16 years old, and I suspect that they were probably in the aftmost seats. Another young person, an 11-year-old boy, was double-­belted in the right front seat […]

There can be many reasons for running low on fuel sooner than expected: headwinds that prolong a flight, tailwinds that make you optimistically skip a planned stop, tanks not filled to the brim, too rich a mixture, a miscalculation in flight planning.

After decades of faulting pilots involved in collisions or near-misses for inadequate vigilance, the NTSB now officially concedes that see-and-avoid is a highly unreliable system.

The Hawker jet was descending through 13,500 feet, near the end of a 34-minute hop from Dayton, Ohio, to Akron Fulton Airport, when one of the passengers leaned through the cockpit door. “You guys know where we’re going, right?” It was a joke, but it wasn’t far off the mark. The National Transportation Safety Board’s […]

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