The crash of a private jet in Central Virginia on Sunday has striking similarities to air disasters that resulted from the incapacitation of pilots due to a loss of pressurization and one noticeably unusual  (if not unprecedented) element. When pilots of the Cessna Citation failed to respond to numerous radio calls fighter jets were dispatched to check things out. Speeding toward the wayward Citation, at least one of the six Air National Guard F-16s broke the sound barrier, generating a sonic boom heard across the Washington DC region. That more than any other reason explains the headlines about what would be another fatal general aviation… Read More…

Boeing’s decision to keep from investigators text messages from 2016 in which a 737 Max test pilot, Mark Forkner, worried that there were egregious problems with the airplane’s flight control system prompted the Administrator of the Federal Aviation  Administration two weeks ago to demand answers from Boeing. In a letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, Steve Dickson wrote that he expected an immediate explanation. Likely, members of the Senate Commerce Committee will make a similar demand of Muilenburg when he testifies on Tuesday. To be clear, however, this is not the first time that Boeing purposefully withheld information that would have been useful to investigators…. Read More…

Anyone who has ever watched one of those air disaster programs on television can be forgiven for believing that there is always an “ah hah” moment, the penultimate step to discovering what went wrong. From the disappearance of aviatrix Amelia Earhart in 1937 to the still-missing flight of Malaysia 370, accident probes are never easy and rarely are they independent. They are clouded with complications; The biases of the investigators, the agendas of interested parties and the pressures from industry and government. In his new book, Scapegoat, A Flight Crews’ Journey From Heroes, to Villains, to Redemption, author and airline pilot Emilio Corsetti III tells… Read More…