Aviation News

Crop dusters and firefighter pilots in Europe now have a new airplane option as Thrush Aircraft Company has received the sign off from the European Aviation Safety Agency for its Thrush 510G. With a price tag of around $900,000, the turboprop single received FAA certification in 2012 and has also been approved in Canada, Argentina […]

An experimental Lancair 320 crashed around 1:15 p.m. on Friday shortly after departing from Van Nuys Airport in Southern California, an FAA spokesman said. The Lancair ended its short journey at the busy intersection of Hayvenhurst Ave. and Vanowen St., at the departure end of Runway 16R. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the […]

The National Transportation Safety Board today released its 2015 list of “Most Wanted” transportation safety improvements, and at the top of the list cited loss of control in general aviation as among the most pressing dangers demanding urgent attention. “While airline accidents have become relatively rare in the U.S., pilots and passengers involved in general […]

The massive search in the Java Sea for AirAsia flight QZ8501 has at last borne fruit that takes the investigation a large step closer to solving the questions behind the crash of the Airbus A320-200 on December 28. The cockpit voice recorder, which contains the last two hours of conversation between the pilot and copilot, […]

The U.S. Sport Aviation Expo kicks off tomorrow in Sebring, Florida, with a renewed emphasis on showcasing dozens of affordable light aircraft including LSAs, Experimentals and even refurbished airplanes. On display for the first time at the Expo will be AOPA’s “Reimagined 152,” a partnership with Aviat to build and sell fully refurbed Cessna 152s […]

CNN has become the first news organization in the United States approved to use UAVs for reporting after the FAA granted the cable news network a special flight exemption. CNN is partnering with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to test camera-equipped drones for newsgathering and reporting. The FAA will analyze data from the tests to […]

After wrapping up a year of several successful regional fly-ins, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has announced it will be continuing its focus on smaller, local events in 2015. The association has unveiled five new fly-in locations for the new year, and they span the continental U.S., with one to take place on May […]

In a decision that is sure to evoke emotional responses from observers on all sides of the political and aviation spectrum, OSHA announced in a press release that it has reinstated a pilot who refused to fly a medevac flight for his employer, Air Methods, because the helicopter’s ELT was faulty. The agency said that […]

Flytenow, the Uber-style flight-sharing service that the FAA shut down last year for allegedly acting as a de facto conduit for illegal air charter activity, has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the decision. Flytenow’s website lets private pilots post upcoming trips that travelers can then arrange to ride along on provided they help […]

In an effort to make already-safe airlines even safer, the FAA yesterday issued a final rule requiring most U.S. carriers to create formal safety management systems (SMS) by 2018. Many airlines have already voluntarily created SMS programs, which include formal, top-down, organization-wide approaches to managing safety risk. An SMS gives an airline a set of […]