The Cirrus SR20 burst into flames on impact. The pilot’s wife died inside. The pilot escaped from the wreckage, but died from his burn injuries in the hospital.
Some say that a properly designed aircraft should not catch fire in an otherwise survivable accident. We know this crash was survivable, because the pilot was
I really like the Avidyne PFD, MFD, and autopilot in my Cirrus.
In a nutshell, the Avidyne PFD and MFD tell the pilot flying in instrument conditions which way is up and how to steer a course that keeps you from hitting a mountain. The Avidyne autopilot is loaded with great safety features that can
A jury in Washington state handed down a $26 million verdict against Avco Lycoming as a result of a fatal Cessna 172 crash that killed three people in 2008. The jury’s award included $6 million in punitive damages, designed to punish Lycoming for consciously disregarding the safety of the flying public.
It’s the second time a jury has
An Fixed-Base Operator will sometimes tell the pilot to whom it rents an aircraft that, in the event of an accident, the pilot may be held responsible for the FBO’s deductible. From that, pilots sometimes conclude that their liability will be limited to the amount of the deductible, and that everything else is "covered."
Not
The NTSB has determined that the probable cause of the Galloping Ghost’s crash at last year’s Reno Air Races was flutter. No surprise there — I wrote about flutter within hours of the accident. At its presentation, the NTSB even showed the same NASA video demonstrating flutter that I had posted last year.
Flutter can
Why doesn’t the FAA do a better job of promoting aviation safety?
1. The FAA’s Inherent Conflict of Interest. When the FAA was created, it was charged with both
regulating aviation and promoting it. But most aviation regulations don’t promote aviation — they constrain it. The FAA’s inherent conflict of interest explains why the
At first glance, one might expect that high density altitude was the cause of last week’s fatal Comanche crash at Truckee-Tahoe airport. The pilot first attempted to depart with three aboard, but aborted the takeoff. He then offloaded his two passengers and tried again. It was on the second attempt that the pilot crashed into
Pilots have come to accept that aircraft fuel gauges just don’t work well. In fact, many pilots simply assume the fuel gauge is wrong, believing it’s safer to rely on their own calculations concerning the amount of fuel remaining rather than on the gauge. As the old saw goes, “never trust your life to
More than 30 Cessna 208 and 208B Caravans have crashed when their wings iced up in flight. Victims’ families have filed many product defect lawsuits against Cessna, claiming that Cessna concealed from the pilots defects in the aircraft’s deicing system. Silvey v. Cessna is the first case to reach trial. At least the first that I
No conclusion yet as to exactly what caused the Galloping Ghost to crash last September at the Reno Air Races. But the interim report the NTSB issued today disclosed that the Galloping Ghost experienced an “upset” 6 seconds before it lost its left elevator trim tab. That, in turn, caused the aircraft to go out of control.