Aviation may be the only mode of transportation where frozen water can lead to a fireball. The case at hand involves the Nov. 28 crash on takeoff at Montrose, Colo., of a Challenger 601 twinjet in which icing is the leading culprit. Three of the six persons aboard were killed, including the pilot ...

The root cause of more than half of aviation accidents can be traced to design deficiencies, according to a new study by the Eurocontrol Experimental Center in France. The study contradicts the widespread belief that pilot error is the predominant cause of aviation accidents and nearly triples a ...

'To make an intractable problem go away - redefine it.' - Anonymous The plan to provide a stable vision of progress toward a higher level of safety is itself unstable, with some measures of safety performance dropped and others likely to be modified significantly to put the best face on an expected ...

Equipping airliners with defensive systems against terrorist surface-to-air missile attacks may be the one of the least efficient ways to spend aviation security dollars, according to a RAND Corp. study. A potentially more life-saving approach would be to speed up passenger processing to shorten ...

Hundreds of disciplinary actions for such things as sleeping on duty and misuse of government equipment show the need for tightened management and oversight of the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS ...

With monikers like the "do nothing" option, the "changing the numbers" option and "follow another country's rules" option to describe alternatives, Australian officials are calling for a new approach to managing and minimizing flight crew fatigue. It attempts to go ...

Interviews with Scandinavian pilots and flight attendants Everybody except one agreed that communication to the cabin had been lost. Example: "It has gone from fairly good communication to zero communication. The small verifications and confirmations have disappeared. Cabin crew will not make ...

One date already has come and passed since the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) urged the installation four years ago of cockpit video recorders, and another is fast approaching. At a symposium hosted by the board last week to apply pressure for action on its unrequited recommendations ...

For the second time in recent months, calls for required safety actions have resulted in advisory, not required, responses. The most recent case involves a bulletin issued March 3 by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on maintenance record-keeping for horizontal stabilizer jackscrews on ...

'Sleep Will Not be Denied' ASHBURN, Va. - Factors used to examine the role of human fatigue in accident investigations might also provide a useful scheduling template to help avoid fatigue-related crashes. Biological needs can be translated into scheduling factors. "The goal is to make sure ...