A Beechcraft King Air 200 crashed shortly after takeoff from Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, killing all five aboard the plane. No one on the ground was injured. The FAA and NTSB are investigating. Officials say the plane was carrying employees of CTEH, a Little Rock-based environmental practices consulting firm. The …
How to Become a Pilot
Commentary: Chinese Spy Balloon Hysteria… or Not?
By the time you read this, it’s very likely that another spy balloon or spy cylinder or UFO or who knows what will have been detected by U.S. and/or Canadian sky watchers and somebody will likely have already shot it down. What’s going on? Nobody is saying, and that’s the alarming part. The whole big …
Traveling Icelandair residential from Reykjavik to Akureyri on a 757 and also a Dash-8
An Icelandair De Havilland Canada DHC-8, much better called a Q400 or Dash 8, taxies to the ramp in Akureyri, Iceland Flying locally in Iceland resembles going back in time. Safety? Not required below. Simply sign in for your trip at the ticket counter, wait on the boarding phone call, and also hop on the …
Cirrus Grounds Its Planes; Continental Has Big Problem
Details are still emerging here, but Plane & Pilot has confirmed that Continental Aerospace Technologies is working with the FAA on possibly developing an Airworthiness Directive (AD) on aircraft powered by late models of several of its engine models. These include 360-, 470-, 520- and 550-series engines. Continental is urging owners of planes with any …
75 Feet from a Collision at Austin Between Fedex 767 and Southwest 737
Two planes nearly collided this past Saturday at Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), and quick thinking by the pilot of one of the planes is being credited with likely saving many lives. The incident, which the NTSB and FAA are investigating, happened at AUS when a FedEx 767 cargo plane was approaching to land on …
Final 747 Leaves Seattle Skies in Regal Fashion
As we reported earlier, Boeing delivered its final 747 jumbo jet amidst much pomp and circumstance, and rightly so. The 747 was an aircraft that changed aviation for the better, ushering in an era of previously unattainable travel opportunities for air voyagers worldwide. It was just what the 747 was, though that was a lot. …
Boeing Delivering Final 747 Today
Boeing will make the final 747 delivery today, the end of a 50-plus-year span of building the revolutionary jet, which brought to the aviation lexicon the term “jumbo jet.” The final 747, a cargo version, will go to Atlas Air in Seattle. It’s hard to discuss the 747 without buying into the marketing hype that …
An All-Electric Zenith CH-750 Takes to the Air
A UK non-profit is developing an all-electric version of the popular Zenith CH-750 for use as medical transport for personnel to use in hard-to-reach places. The organization, which goes by the unlikely acronym of NUNCATS and even less likely name of “No Unnecessary Novelty Community Air Transport,” says that the goal is to provide clean …
First Solo Disaster: Piper PA-28 Loses Wings In Flight
First solo flights for student pilots are typically a nerve-wracking affair. For one ill-fated student, that first flight became the last earlier this week, as the small trainer they were flying in crashed after, according to reports, both wings came off in flight. The Piper PA-28-161 crashed in Madagascar. While details are sketchy, at least …
That Close Call at JFK? It’s Worse Than We Knew.
The near-miss on the runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City last week got a lot of attention, and for good reason. The near-collision happened when an American Airlines 777 preparing to depart for London taxied onto an active runway as a Delta Airlines 737 bound for the Dominican Republic was …