Safety

The Raytheon Company was recently selected to improve the usability and reduce operational costs for the FAA’s Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, a critical element in the efforts to modernize the national airspace system. Raytheon’s STARS team, collaborating with the FAA’s NextGen modernization program, aims to achieve a historic first—a single national software and hardware […]

Santa Paula Airport is a 20-minute flight from my home base, Whiteman Airport. The fuel there is $1.25 per gallon cheaper, however, so when I’m flying around the local area, I often stop at Santa Paula to refuel. The precise economics of fuel tourism are an SAT-level problem, but if I’m over Santa Paula anyway, […]

The Aviation Safety Network, an arm of the Flight Safety Foundation, reported 2019 was still one of the industry’s safest, despite the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max in March that claimed 157 lives. Last year wasn’t accident-free, however. ASN says 20 airline accidents around the world claimed 283 lives. Even when accounting […]

It stands to reason that if a passenger pays for a charter flight, they’re entitled to expect a significantly better level of safety than if they accept a free ride from a neighbor in their single-engine trainer. That’s because the FAA has said, “Pilots who transport paying passengers must have the required qualifications and training, […]

Viewing the Manhattan skyline from any vantage point is impressive, but when seen from aloft the Big Apple skyline becomes a breathtaking experience. In March 2018, a New York tour operator launched an Airbus AS350 helicopter with a pilot and five passengers for what was expected to be a 30-minute dusk flight near the East […]

FLYING takes a behind-the-scenes look at the ideas and analysis that went into the development of this innovative addition to aviation safety.

A regular highlight of the NBAA conventions—which this year took place in Las Vegas—is the well-attended Single Pilot Safety Standdown, typically held the day before the show begins. The topics focus on single-pilot operations like fatigue, the intricacies of dealing with complex cockpit technology and loss of control inflight, still the largest single cause of […]

Following an accident on Southwest Airlines (SWA) Flight 1380 in April 2018 that resulted in the death of passenger Jennifer Riordan, the National Transportation Safety Board announced the probable cause during a public board meeting held last week. A fractured fan blade from a CFM International CFM-56-7B engine, powering a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700, led […]

The NTSB last week said its preliminary data showed U.S. civil aviation deaths in 2018 rose from the 347 reported in 2017 to 393 last year with most of those 2018 fatalities occurring in general aviation operations. General aviation was in fact responsible for 1,275 accidents in 2018 that included 381 of the fatalities, fully […]

Each aviation generation sees a handful of revolutionary concepts, those leading-edge technologies that, once introduced to the airplane—because they are so game-changing—undergo a transition period before we fully understand the increase in safety that they can provide. Garmin announced today its entry into that rarefied space: the first Autoland system developed exclusively for use in […]