Pilot Proficiency

The National Transportation Safety Board’s determination that a** 29-year-old Cessna pilot’s use of his cell phone to take selfies in flight caused a crash** that killed him and a passenger has a lot of folks scratching their heads. For starters, there’s no evidence that the pilot was taking pictures with his cell phone when the […]

An incident that was caught on amateur video has highlighted the incredible precision with which a fire bomber can hit a needy target. A heavy truck caught fire after it collided with a motor grader on a remote section of the Trans-Labrador Highway, which transitions the provinces of Labrador and Newfoundland in eastern Canada. Being […]

“Gentlemen, start your engines!” The crowd cheered as Mitchell Municipal Airport reverberated with the sound of 50 piston power plants rumbling to life. Dozens of slick homebuilt airplanes with flashy paint jobs and neatly applied race numbers taxied in a long line to the runway. “Race 38, cleared for takeoff,” boomed the loudspeaker, and a […]

The Cirrus SR22 pilot who pulled the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) and was saved by a cruise ship about 250 miles east of Maui this week has released a selfie video of the incident. Leu Morton’s facial expression is incredibly calm despite the stressful situation and, through an open door, Morton’s video shows the […]

The stall warning system aboard the AirAsia Airbus A320 that crashed near Indonesia after encountering violent storms in late December sounded moments after the jet began a steep ascent and continued for more than three minutes until the jetliner impacted the Java Sea, crash investigators say. Based on flight recorder data, investigators now know the […]

Last night, after an eight-hour flight across the North Atlantic ocean, I flew into the world’s busiest airspace, acting as the pilot monitoring. I suddenly found myself perplexed by a right roll into an unexpected course change. My monitoring had obviously failed. The pilot-flying had made a mistake in his automation input, and the result […]

Despite the hard work from every segment of aviation, we have to reluctantly admit that there are still unforeseeable factors that can lead to incidents and accidents. From TWA Flight 800 to Air France 447, seemingly standard missions can be hit by disaster, with flight crews left unable to respond adequately, if at all. Through […]

Eleven people were killed and close to two dozen more injured on Monday when a Greek F-16 crashed shortly after takeoff during a NATO exercise in Albacete, Spain. The F-16 was taking off from Los Llanos Air Base around 3:30 p.m. local time when it crashed into a hangar housing French and Italian aircraft preparing […]

As a pilot, you can experience many things that non-pilots can’t. You can defy gravity and watch as the world below floats by like a movie. You can travel to faraway places and land in areas inaccessible by other means. But have you ever realized that you can use the airplane as a time machine? […]

The pilot of a Cirrus SR22 is safe after successfully ditching the Cirrus he was flying 250 miles short of Maui. Details are still sparse, but a Cirrus Aircraft representative told Flying that the pilot was ferrying the airplane from the West Coast of the United States to Australia when the ditching occurred. Flight tracking […]