Latest Aviation Headlines
All the headlines from our Aviation Topic Page, ordered by recency.
U.S. Issues Draft Rules on Commercial Use of Drones; Insurers Welcome
Feb 16 2015 // The U.S. aviation regulator proposed rules on Sunday for commercial drone flights that would lift some restrictions but would still bar activities such as the delivery of packages and inspection of pipelines that have been...
Valuable Routes, Insurance Cover Insulate TransAsia From Grim Crash Record
Feb 5 2015 // Even after two deadly crashes in seven months, TransAsia Airways Corp. will likely rebound quickly as insurance covers any financial losses and its coveted routes through Taipei’s downtown airport keep it popular...
TransAsia Turboprop Crashes Near Taipei; 2nd Fatal Accident Within Year
Feb 4 2015 // A TransAsia Airways Corp. turboprop plane crashed into a river near Taipei moments after taking off, killing at least 19 of the 58 people on board in the second fatal accident in less than a year for the Taiwanese...
Malaysia Says U.N. Must Make Conflict Zone Air Risk Reporting Mandatory
Feb 3 2015 // Malaysia, which suffered two commercial air disasters last year after one jet disappeared and another was shot down over Ukraine, said on Monday the United Nations must make reporting of risks to airlines over conflict...
Update: Investigators Say No Evidence AirAsia Captain Left His Seat
Feb 2 2015 // Indonesian air crash investigators said on Monday they had not so far found evidence that the pilot of an AirAsia jet had left his seat, or that power to an automated control system was shut off, shortly before the...
AirAsia Captain Left Seat Before Jet Lost Control: Sources
Feb 2 2015 // The captain of the AirAsia jet that crashed into the sea in December was out of his seat conducting an unusual procedure when his co-pilot apparently lost control, and by the time he returned it was too late to save the...
Pilots Disabled Critical Computers Just Before AirAsia Crash
Jan 30 2015 // The pilots of AirAsia Bhd. Flight 8501 cut power to a critical computer system that normally prevents planes from going out of control shortly before it plunged into the Java Sea, two people with knowledge of the...
AIR Worldwide Reports on This Week’s Northeast Blizzard
Jan 29 2015 // A blizzard in the Northeast this week primarily impacted eastern Long Island in New York, southeastern Connecticut, Rhode Island, eastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod and the islands, New Hampshire, and Maine, with record...
New Englanders Facing Snowy ‘Big Dig’ After Blizzard
Jan 29 2015 // New Englanders savaged by a blizzard packing knee-high snowfall and hurricane-force winds began digging out Wednesday, grudgingly praising forecasters who got grief from New Yorkers and others spared its full fury. The...
AirAsia Plane Rose to Unauthorized Altitude Minutes before Crash
Jan 29 2015 // AirAsia Bhd. Flight 8501 climbed to an unauthorized altitude fast and steep before the aircraft fell into the ocean, Indonesian investigators said in their first description of the last moments of the ill-fated plane. From...
New York City Blizzard Proves Dud as Weather Forecasters Miss Mark
Jan 28 2015 // Reopen Broadway, start up the trains, get the commuters back on the road. The great New York City blizzard of ’15 was a bust. Not that there was no snow — Manhattan’s Central Park had 7.9 inches (20...
N.Y. Region Revives With Travel Bans Lifted as Blizzard Fizzles
Jan 27 2015 // The New York region lurched back to life after a storm advertised as a potentially life-threatening blizzard ended up as a mundane winter snowfall. Travel bans for automobiles in New York and New Jersey were lifted and New...
AirAsia Probe Vets Possible Computer Glitch, Crew Response
Jan 27 2015 // Investigators probing the crash of an AirAsia jetliner are examining maintenance records of a key part of its automated control systems, and how the pilots may have handled the plane if it failed, two people familiar with...
White House Drone Landing Complicates Regulation Debate
Jan 26 2015 // The discovery of a radio-controlled copter on the White House lawn injects a new complication into the debate over the growing popularity of drones used by civilians. The unintentional security breach Monday at the U.S....
New York, Northeast May Get 3 Feet of Snow in Historic Storm
Jan 26 2015 // A blizzard forecasters call “life-threatening” that may drop three feet of snow from New York to Boston has caused more than 1,800 flight cancellations and will likely block road and rail traffic, close schools...
Drone Pilot Who Challenged FAA Authority Settles
Jan 23 2015 // The drone pilot who challenged the U.S. government’s authority over unmanned aircraft agreed to pay a reduced fine of $1,100 to settle his case. Raphael Pirker, a Swiss citizen who flew a small unmanned plane without...
U.S. to Back New System Warning Airlines in Conflict Zones
Jan 23 2015 // The United States will throw its support behind a proposal by the U.N.’s aviation agency to share information about risks to commercial aircraft over conflict zones after the downing of a Malaysian jet in Ukraine...
How AirAsia Investigators Will Use Black Box to Crack Crash Mystery
Jan 14 2015 // Listening to a recording of ValuJet Flight 592’s last moments, investigator J.F. Joseph kept hearing sounds the pilots hadn’t talked about. “You could hear this noise clicking on and off like a pinball...
After Jet Crashes, Aviation Industry ‘Struggling’ to Re-Train Pilots
Jan 12 2015 // As investigators hunt for what caused an AirAsia jet to crash in an equatorial storm on Dec. 28, the aviation industry is still struggling to apply the lessons of accidents in similar weather over the past decade. It is...
Insurance Policies – Too Clever by Half
Jan 12 2015 // I recently bought one of the new airline travel insurance policies. I’m on planes all the time visiting agencies and speaking across the country, so this new product appealed greatly to me. Many of my flights suffer...