Aviation Safety

According to the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), there are about 2,700 flights that cross the world’s oceans every day. When you’re halfway between continents and your airplane suffers an in-flight emergency, sometimes the only option is to ditch in the angry ocean below. Surviving this kind of “blue water ditching” was the subject of […]

All too often, pilots think air traffic controllers are just voices in their headset handing out instructions designed to keep them separated from other nearby aircraft—and also to annoy them, some pilots might add. But when pilots fly themselves into danger, or find themselves in charge of a malfunctioning airplane, grabbing the mic and calling […]

Early yesterday morning, FAA Administrator Steve Dickson signed an official “Recission of Emergency Order of Prohibition.” In lay terms, that meant operators of the Boeing 737 Max may again begin flying the aircraft subject to the conditions laid out by the agency related to maintenance and pilot training. Max aircraft around the world have been […]

At the age of 27, having just made my first film, Boiler Room, I found myself riding a brand new BMW K1200RS south on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan. The bike was a gift from Ben Affleck (it’s customary to buy the director a modest gift when you wrap a film, but this was […]

OK, picture some far-in-the-future archaeologist exploring an area that ancient maps call North America and stumbling on an odd-looking site—long strips of concrete radiating out from a once-paved, open area. Combing through the ruins of a nearby structure, he unearths a barely discernible, crumbling document covered with peculiar characters. If only there were accompanying hieroglyphics, […]

Recent data from the National Transportation Safety Board says, over the past decade, the trend in general aviation accidents has been headed in a positive direction—down. In 2012, the board recorded 1,471 GA accidents, 273 of which were fatal. Those accidents claimed the lives of 440 people. The NTSB data available from 2017 lists 1,233 […]

The US Government Accountability Office recently published a report about the methodology used by the FAA’s Office of Aviation Safety to assess the competency of its engineer and inspector force. The GAO says there’s a need to respond to workforce changes brought on by retiring personnel, as well as the host of new technologies needed […]

An adventurous pilot falls for his aircraft with fatal results.

Premier Aircraft Sales, the Diamond Aircraft dealer for much of the eastern US and the Caribbean said in a news release that it recently delivered the first Diamond DA40 NG with a brand new jet-fuel-powered Austro engine (at 168 hp) to UFLYVI, based in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. The news release said, “UFLYVI is […]

The crash of a T-6 Texan II in Alabama last week—in addition to the loss of an F-18 Hornet near China Lake California earlier in the week—was enough for the head of Naval Air Forces to call for a one-day safety stand-down that grounded all non-deployed units in an attempt to determine the cause of […]