airline safety Posts

Wait a second. “You want me to analyze the crash landings in a half dozen movies? And then tell you if they’re realistic?” I asked the Vanity Fair producer. Her response was quick. “Yes.”  I’ve had a few whacky assignments over the…

My memory of September 11, 2001, is, at best, a blur except for the images. The scenes, however, are indelibly etched in my mind. It was a sunny morning with temperatures in the low 70s and not a cloud in the sky. A perfect day, I thought. I’d just …

Capt. Beatty A disinformation campaign falsely links “DEI” to airline accidents – let’s check the facts. By Capt. Jenny Beatty There is no extant literature examining this question, so I accessed various sources to compile available data. I research…

February 11, 2025 by Robert Mark Leave a Comment The online magazine AvWeb published a poll on Monday asking readers whether “armchair accident analysis” has gotten out of hand. With slightly more than 600 people responding, readers said it absol…

While wandering around online the other day, I ran across Jenny Beatty’s post, which offered practical advice following the Azerbaijan Airlines E-190 and a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 airline crashes. The guidelines are simple but are well worth rememb…

Safe Initial Climbs Can Mean Tradeoffs A pilot’s first takeoff in a jet airplane is a true rite of passage, almost as eye opening as a first solo. Push those power levers forward, and a pilot’s body is soon pressed back against the seat. That feedba…

In Episode #355 of Aviation News Talk, Max Trescott and I discussed pilot decision-making behind the wrong runway landing of an American Eagle Embraer 170 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD) in late September. A few extenuating circumst…

Note: This story was corrected on August 10th at 10:23 am, thanks to the help of a sharp-eyed reader. Making an ATR-72 Spin I wasn’t in Brazil on Friday afternoon, but I saw the post on Twitter or X (or whatever you call it) showing a Brazil ATR-72…

Decades ago, when I learned to fly, it was well-known that a commercial co-pilot/first officer was allowed to occupy the right seat of a transport airplane only if they’d proven themselves subservient enough to understand that the guy in the left se…

It’s about trust I remember riding our crew bus with a bunch of other pilots, and flight attendants in the spring of 1991 not long after our employer Midway Airlines had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The old red and white school bus ra…

Given the capable reliability of aviation technology today, in the realm of a perfect world, single-pilots flying people-carrying commercial and military aircraft seems a logical hypothetical possibility. To prove the reality of this possibility, th…

If traveling from stockyard to stockyard on winged cattle cars is a fate just shy of death, drop what your are doing right now and click this link to the Federal Register: Request for Comments in Minimum Seat Dimensions Necessary for Safety of Air P…

It’s been slightly more than a year since I’ve flown on an airliner. I certainly didn’t miss airline travel in the middle of the pandemic, but this summer’s cancellation and delay insanity created an avoidance mindset that’s pale by comparison. If m…

by Micah Engber, contributor (Listen to the audio) In some ways, I’m very fortunate. Some of you know this from listening to my ramblings as I muse along on The Airplane Geeks Podcast. Sometimes it might be on The Airline Pilot Guy, or with Plane Ta…

An Aviation Minute Editorial by Rob Mark 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 …

I rather fancy myself as a translator of aviation speak, trying to be sure people who read about our industry really understand what I’m trying to explain, whether that’s in print or online. The past few weeks have been a nightmare for most journali…

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 © 2…

Photo by Michel Gilliand The Real Reason Why Air France Stopped Flying the Concorde By Rob Mark The creation and nearly 30-year operational life of the French/Anglo Concorde, the world’s first operational supersonic airliner, is a…

Could Knowledge of Undisclosed MCAS Have Saved Lion Air 610? By Rob Mark Having spent more than a few decades in the cockpit, I thought even I’d reached that plateau where I could claim I’d just about seen it all … until this week’s admission by Boe…

After 40 years of flying, flight instructing and communicating throughout the aviation business, it’s almost impossible for me to remember that of all my flight instructors, I almost allowed my first ago to drive me completely away from the business…

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 …

Malaysian Boeing 777 – @jetwhine There’s no small amount of irony in today’s announcement that the search for MH370 has officially been called off nearly three years after that Boeing 777 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lampur to Beijing and the …

Eastwood Got It Right With Sully Complete NTSB Accident Report: US Airway 1549  (click here) Most pilots tend to take airplane movies with a grain of salt because they’re usually riddled with mistakes or enough exaggerations to quickly make us nuts.…

MH370 Two Years Later: Has the Industry Changed? It’s anniversary time, but March 8 won’t be a happy day to reminisce. Two years ago, Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (MH370), a Boeing 777, disappeared from the night skies over the South China Sea on …