Check Out the Debris That Rained Down on a Colorado Suburb After a Plane's Engine Exploded

On Saturday, residents of a Colorado suburb witnessed a scene straight out of a disaster movie: The sound of an explosion overhead followed by huge chunks of metal raining down from above. Read more...
Tags: Science, Colorado, Transport, Aviation, Aviation Safety, Turbines, Aviation accidents and incidents, Human Activities, Disaster Accident, Turbine Engine Failure

FAA to Oversee Investigation of Crashed SpaceX Starship Prototype

The explosive crash of a SpaceX prototype Starship rocket this week has prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to oversee an investigation into the incident. The news follows recent reports that SpaceX violated federal safety regulations late last year.Read more...
Tags: Spacex, Elon Musk, Science, Transport, Faa, Spaceflight, Hyperloop, Federal Aviation Administration, Aviation Safety, Businesspeople, Spacex Raptor, SpaceX Starship, Spacex Launch Vehicles, Disaster_accident, Cargo Spacecraft, Spacex South Texas Launch Site

A Barely Successful Go Around

If you’ve already earned a Private Pilot certificate – a PPL they call it in some other parts of the world – you’ll probably remember those final words of encouragement from the government official who oversaw the checkride … “Remember, you now have a license to learn.” That’s instructor lingo for, “No one has enough time to teach you absolutely everything you’d need to know in order to become a safe pilot.” All any instructor can really offer is solid training in line with the airman certificat...
Tags: Safety, Walgreens, Chicago, Aviation, Continental, Phoenix, Tim, Lake Michigan, Cessna, Waukegan, PPL, VSI, Sky Harbor, Flight Training, Unicom, The Buzz

Confessions of a New Corporate Co-Pilot

By Rob Mark I knew life was going to become sweet now that I successfully passed my Cessna Citation III (CE-650) type rating check ride. It meant I’d be flying my first swept wing jet. Surprisingly, my first day at the new job at Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) would also be the first time I’d actually been up close to a Citation III since all the training—even the check ride—happened in the simulator. From my research though, I knew the 650’s cabin was roomy enough for eight and its rocket-like...
Tags: Safety, Los Angeles, Chicago, Aviation, San Jose, West Coast, Faa, Business Aviation, Operations, Nantucket, Cincinnati, Tom, ATC, SJC, The Buzz, Aviation Safety

The Surprising Way Keyhole Wasps Can Take Down an Airplane

Keyhole wasps like to build their nests in tiny holes, including the openings of devices used to measure the speed of aircraft. A recent investigation shows the problem is worse than we realized.Read more...
Tags: Pests, Science, Aviation, Insects, Aviation Safety, Keyhole Wasps

SLOP Mitigates Collision Risk Posed by GPS Navigation Paradox

Aviators live and die by their acronyms, so reading one unfamiliar motivates a frenzy of catch-up research. A short news item about changes ICAO recently made to special procedures for in-flight contingencies in oceanic airspace focused on something know as SLOP. Airliners flying in oceanic airspace such as the North Atlantic follow precise prescribed tracks to maintain separation from other airplanes doing the same thing. When they have a problem that prevents them from maintaining their spot ...
Tags: Europe, Education, Safety, Aviation, Airlines, North America, Air Traffic Control, Faa, Business Aviation, North Atlantic, Fl, ICAO, AIAA, Airline Pilot, Aviation Safety, GPS Navigation

ASRS Callback Humility Recalibration

Humility is the absence of vanity or excessive pride, a state or quality of being humble. Humble individuals are conscious of—and acknowledge—their defects or shortcomings. They are modest and not overly proud. Humility is an essential element in aviation safety, and it needs to be periodically recalibrated at least annually. This self-assessment depends, on large part, on how the aviator’s year has gone. If it could have been better, most likely these less than happy events have already recali...
Tags: Safety, Washington, Nasa, Aviation, Air Traffic Control, Faa, ATC, ASRS, Aviation Safety, Aviation Education, Pilot Currency, ASRS Callback

EFX Illuminates Aviation Danger Zones

Aviation danger zones exist in all phases of flight, and they most often catch people on the ground, especially when another task attenuates their situational awareness. Almost walking into a stationary prop protruding from the Innovation Showcase booth is how I met EFX Applied Technology at EAA AirVenture 2019. Instead of watching where I was going in the crowded venue, I was scanning the booths as I walked at the edge of the aisle—until a brightly colored flashing light in my peripheral visio...
Tags: Airports, Military, Aviation, Airlines, Faa, Aerospace, Helicopter, Flight Training, Aviation Safety, Aircraft Danger Zones, Ground Operations

If It Ain’t Boeing, I Ain’t Going …

An Aviation Minute Editorial by Rob Mark Click here to listen Years ago when I was still flying for a living, I remember seeing a cool little yellow sticker slapped on the side of another pilot’s Jepp bag. “If it ain’t Boeing, we’re not going.” The slogan was a nod of professional respect for the Seattle aircraft builder that brought America into the jet age with great airliners like the Boeing 707, or the three-engine 727 that followed. Air traffic controllers called the 72 a three-h...
Tags: Europe, China, America, Chicago, Aviation, Airlines, Seattle, Faa, Boeing, Max, Airline Safety, Lion Air, EASA, Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, The Buzz, MCAS

Labor Day 2019 – Why We Celebrate Here in the States

Today is Labor Day in the U.S., a day when we celebrate the hard-working men and women union members who actually do the work to create goods and services. Their efforts seldom win the praise of CEOs or Dow Jones, but they are necessary none-the-less. The first Monday in September is “Labor Day” in the United States. For many, the holiday symbolizes the end of Summer, but it is really intended to celebrate the American worker. The exact origin of Labor Day is the subject of some dispute, but it ...
Tags: Congress, United States, Aviation, Union, Labor Day, States, Air Traffic Control, PATCO, NATCA, Alpa, The Buzz, Aviation Safety, Rob Mark, Aviation Radio, National Air Traffic Controllers Association NATCA, Airline Pilots Association APA

Aviation Anniversaries and Complacency

Trying to be a good father, I spent a rainy weekend making a recycling run though boxes that have lived unopened for more than a decade in the closet of the spare bedroom. Accepting that my expiration date, while unknown, is growing ever closer, I didn’t want to burden my boys with this task should my last day arrive sooner rather than later. In the process, I found this, the inaugural issue of Flight Training, June 1989, the aviation anniversary of a transition in my journalism career. Slowly ...
Tags: Education, Aviation, Flight Training, Aviation Safety, Human Factors, Aviation History, Complacency

Malaysian Flight 370: Five Years Later

Md Nor Yusof, chairman of Malaysian Airline System Bhd., right, told reporters on March 25, 2014 that Flight 370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean with no survivors. The search for wreckage was suspended. (Photographer: Goh Seng Chong/Bloomberg © 2014 Bloomberg Finance LP© 2014 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP) On March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777 with 239 people went missing on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. As details emerged within hours of the airplane’s last communication with air traffic contr...
Tags: Aviation, Airlines, Airline Safety, Airline Pilot, The Buzz, Aviation Safety, Aviation History, Jetwhine Podcast

Pilot Pride and Keeping Current with the Airman Certification Standards

Photo courtesy David Massey – Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Pilot pride comes with the certificates and ratings achieved through successful checkrides. But like flying itself, maintaining one’s pilot pride properly is a never-ending effort. Human nature is an ever-present foe. Complacency replaces striving to be better on every flight, and boastful delusions take the place of yesterday’s abilities. Proper pilot pride abhors such delusions, and the Airman Certification Standards can help....
Tags: Safety, ACS, Aviation, Faa, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Flight Training, Aviation Safety, Aviation Education, Flight Review, Pilot Proficiency, David Massey, Airman Certification Standards, Knowledge Risk Management

NASA crash-test dummies take a beating to make aviation safer

Part of NASA's work includes subjecting sensor-laden dummies to all kinds of crash scenarios for research aimed at helping to make aviation safer. Check out the video to see the dummies take a battering in the name of progress. The post NASA crash-test dummies take a beating to make aviation safer appeared first on Digital Trends.
Tags: News, Trends, Nasa, Emerging Tech, Langley Research Center, Crash Test, Crash Test Dummies, Aviation Safety

Watch NASA’s crash-test dummies take a beating to make aviation safer

Part of NASA's work includes subjecting sensor-laden dummies to all kinds of crash scenarios for research aimed at helping to make aviation safer. Check out the video to see the dummies take a battering in the name of progress. The post Watch NASA’s crash-test dummies take a beating to make aviation safer appeared first on Digital Trends.
Tags: Trends, Nasa, Emerging Tech, Langley Research Center, Crash Test, Crash Test Dummies, Aviation Safety

N-Numbers, ICAO, and Your ADS-B Identity

Many owners like to personalize their prized aircraft with an N-number that represents them, often with their initials. Before the advent of NextGen, painting the new number on the airplane, and professing it to ATC, covered the customization. Now, unless an airplane’s ADS-B identity matches its new N-number, will likely scrub it from ATC’s scopes and the Traffic Information Services Broadcast to other aircraft with ADS-B. Aircraft transmitting erroneous information, whose ADS-B identity does...
Tags: Safety, Aviation, Air Traffic Control, Faa, Boeing, ATC, ICAO, Ads-b, Aviation Safety, Avionics, Aviation Education, Aviation Security, ICAO Address, Mode S Code, Traffic Information Services Broadcast, Focus Team

The Aesthetics of Collision Avoidance

When it came time for Dennis Hutchinson to paint the Davis DA-2 he’d restored, he picked red and white with gold and blue accents, “because I like them and think they go well together.” Aesthetics had little do with how he arranged those colors on the airframe. Collision avoidance was top of mind: “As small as the Davis is, I wanted it to be as visible as possible in flight, to pop out of the background, not blend in,” said Hutchinson, who’s based at the Indianapolis Regional Airport (MQJ) in G...
Tags: General, Education, Airports, Safety, Davis, Aviation, Hutchinson, Paint Scheme, Aviation Safety, Collision Avoidance, Aviation Education, Dennis Hutchinson, General Aviation, Sport Aviation, Indianapolis Regional Airport MQJ, Greenfield Indiana

How the worst airline accident in history was avoided

https://youtu.be/3sEOwMfF7MA?t=1m18s My favorite air disaster documentarian, Allec Joshua Ibay, recreated last month's SFO taxiway near-miss, complete with real radio traffic. I skipped the scene-setting in the above embed: an inbound pilot mistaking a taxiway, with a bunch of loaded planes on it, for the runway. I find these quiet, unvarnished real-time recreations far more harrowing than mouthy cable TV dramatics. A few moments of distraction and confusion, then sudden realization, and it's ...
Tags: Post, News, Disasters, Sfo, Aviation Safety, Allec Joshua Ibay

Have ALPA’s Efforts Actually Threatened Advances in Aviation Safety

It all began last month with the White House’s infrastructure plan that included severing the decades old ties between the FAA and its air traffic control system. President Trump said he supported the split, an effort that would be financed by user fees. Obviously no one, except the airlines pretty much support the effort. Then came the FAA Reauthorization bill to keep the FAA alive past September 30. The House of course thinks their version, including a privatized ATC system, is the best answer...
Tags: Safety, Congress, Obama Administration, Washington, Senate, White House, Mit, South Dakota, Alaska, House, Aviation, Airlines, Air Traffic Control, Faa, Boeing, Business Aviation

Erudite Aviators Provide Solace & Solutions

Looking at the challenges aviators face foretells of a seemingly insurmountable struggle to sustain our beloved avocation that is, for a lucky few, also an occupation. What makes this situation worse is that most of these challenges pit aviator against aviator. The summit of challenge mountain is the proposed privatization of ATC. Supported by airline aviators, the user fees that would support it would, it is safe to assume, eliminate the ticket taxes the airlines pay on each passengers base tic...
Tags: General, Education, Safety, Aviation, Airlines, Faa, Aerospace, ATC, Airline Pilot, Flight Training, Aviation Safety, Richard Bach, Aviation History, Aviation Education, Aviation Training, Recurrent Training

Former Seattle FAA official gets top aviation safety post, after a stint at industry group

The FAA appointed Ali Bahrami to head its Aviation Safety division. Formerly a senior air safety manager with a 24-year career at the government agency, he was more recently a vice president at the major lobbying organization for the biggest aerospace companies.
Tags: Business, News, Faa, Boeing & Aerospace, Aviation Safety, Seattle FAA, Ali Bahrami

Aeronautical Decision Making and ‘Being Wrong’

Aeronautical decision making is a key ingredient in aviation safety, but but I’ve just finished an excellent book that has revealed a side to this important topic that’s little discussed. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz takes an in-depth look at why humans find being right so gratifying, and how maddening it is to realize we’re wrong, and wrong so often. This is not a book for pilots, and the author doesn’t offer any aeronautical examples. But as an aviator, on a...
Tags: General, Safety, Aviation, Kathryn Schulz, Schulz, IFR, Flight Training, Aviation Safety, Aviation Education, Human Error, Aeronauticla Decision Making, Aeronautical

Want to Fly at AirVenture?

Want to Fly at Airventure? Is there anything sadder than a bunch of pilots standing around watching a handful of other aviators fly past looking like they’re having all the fun? Ho hum. But it happens to all of us at AirVenture … every single year. But this year, there is an option sure to plant a big smile on the face of any aviator, even if you’re only a student pilot … a visit to the EAA’s Pilot Proficiency Center at Four Corners, right in the middle of all the AirVenture action. Inside you’l...
Tags: Education, Safety, Blogging, Ppc, Long Beach, Aviation, John Wayne, Cessna, EAA, IFR, Redbirds, Flight Training, The Buzz, Aviation Safety

A drone pilot came within 20 feet of crashing into an Air France plane. Here’s what happened

Photo: Yann Caradec Many drone pilots have endured some classic ‘oh shit’ moments when flying, whether it be a near miss with a tree, building or person. But how about almost crashing into an Air France plane that was flying at 5,500 feet, preparing to land? A drone recently came within 20 feet of a potentially deadly crash with an Air France plane in what’s being described as the closest shave yet. The pilot was getting ready to land in Paris when a drone on his left side came into view. ...
Tags: UK, France, US, Bbc, Drones, Paris, Drone Safety, British Airways, Air France, All, BEA, Yann Caradec, Airprox Board, Aviation Safety, Steve Landells