The NTSB blamed the pilot for the last Blue Hawaiian helicopter crash into the side of a mountain. The NTSB concluded that while flying near bad weather, the pilot inadvertently entered clouds, became disoriented, and lost control of the helicopter. According to the NTSB, the probable cause of the accident was:
The pilot’s inadequate decision by which he
It looks as though it was the twin-engine Seminole that caused the mid-air collision between it and a Beech Bonanza near Newberg, Oregon. The crash killed the the 58-year old Bonanza pilot. The Oregonian quotes sources saying that:
the larger Piper PA-44 Seminole was executing training maneuvers in the area,
making a series of rapid
The NTSB is underfunded and understaffed. So it investigates accidents using the "party system." That means the NTSB relies on those who may have caused the accident for help in investigating the accident’s cause. Unfortunately, the "party participants" seldom point the NTSB towards evidence in their files that would tend to incriminate them. As a result, NTSB reports
go easy
Philip, South Dakota is the site of the second fatal Robinson R66 crash. This time, only the pilot was on board the helicopter. The first fatal R66 crash, which happened in July, killed two.
How does the R66 safety record stack up so far? 
Since there are only 41 R66’s on the US registry, the record stacks
The NTSB excludes family members from its accident investigations. But it allows those who may have caused or contributed to a crash to participate. That’s an obvious conflict of interest. As a result, NTSB probable cause findings are not always impartial. Instead, they tend to favor the industry players. 
The industry players have long argued that, while they
The air in an airliner’s cabin has been compressed by the aircraft’s engines. Most of the time, the air is safe to breathe. But if a leaky seal in the engine allows the air to first mix with heated engine oil, the cabin air can be contaminated with toxic fumes.
When a cabin fills with toxic chemicals from an
There are obvious dangers inherent in events such as the Reno Air Races. The victims of the disaster were undoubtedly aware of those dangers and attended the event anyway. Does that mean they should not be able to file lawsuits to obtain compensation for their loss?
Not at all.
Granted, Life is Full of Risks
There are
The FAA was supposed to protect the Reno Air Race spectators by, among other things, assuring that the race course design was safe. It failed to do so. Do the victims have a right to bring a lawsuit against the FAA?
Sovereign Immunity.
The FAA or, more accurately, the United States government can be sued
Hall of Fame aerobatic champion Patty Wagstaff says that it was just bad luck that Jimmy Leeward’s accident involved spectators.
At the speeds Leeward was moving, had the malfunction occurred four seconds earlier or later, or almost anywhere else on the course, it would have terminated in the desert. This was not an accident waiting to
That’s what some press reports are saying. Had Jimmy Leeward not maneuvered the stricken plane as he did, things could have been much worse.
"The way I see it, if he did do something about this, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives because he was able to veer that plane back toward the tarmac,”