Air Safety

Fault Tolerance Versus Fault Containment When you design a fly-by-wire system (FBW) and hook it up to a central nervous system and then plug in a brain, it’s prudent to […]

Investigation Into Fatal Crash Continues Even though the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) was apparently more damaged than the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), only the FDR has yielded information on the […]

The Air Safety Consequences Of China’s Satellite Destruction In a display of maximal machismo, apparently to prove its status as an emerging Super Power, China on Jan. 11 blew up […]

The NTSB Examines The Other Side of Ice The NTSB has again addressed the other side of icing — airborne accumulation. In last week’s Air Safety Week (Feb. 26 issue) […]

The Need To Be Tactically Tactile The expression "show ’em a clean set of heels" is often used by runners, when seeking to leave the competition behind. In aviation, without […]

Stowaways Are Human Tragedies That Also Raise Troubling Security Issues Sadly, it’s a recurring theme: a human body is found within (or plummets from) the wheel well of a long-haul […]

The Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Boeing Laptop Tool BLT stands for a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, but for the average airline crew it’s also a Boeing Laptop Tool. […]

Incidents Are Often More Complex Than Press Or Officialdom Can Fathom When it comes to aviation, the average journalistic hack or government layman has little hope of arriving at a […]

How Cockpit Inaccessibility Adversely Affects Air Safety Locked and hardened cockpit doors are an increasingly prevalent security initiative, but evidence is mounting that they entail a safety downside. As is […]

An Illegitimate Son Of DREADLE? After years of carping irritation from the NTSB, the FAA has decided to proof-test a system that will alert a pilot directly if there’s an […]