Aviation Safety Sample Articles

Please enjoy these sample articles from Aviation Safety Magazine. You will discover in-depth accident analysis and practical aviation articles for pilots on how you can develop the judgment that will keep you in the air and out of the NTSB's files.

Taxi Smack
Driving the airplane to and from the runway is a piece of cake, right? Not for the dozens who prang something each year. Many pilots appear to have the attitude that a flight begins with takeoff and ends when the airplane departs the runway after the landing roll. However, ground operations certainly cause their share of grief. While many taxi accidents are unavoidable, such as during bush operations, the majority fall into categories that can only be described as stupid human tricks.

Thou Shalt Not
The most-violated FARs are sometimes true safety problems, sometimes merely legal ones. Sometimes you look at an FAR and have to scratch your head. What, you ask yourself, can that possibly have to do with flight safety? The various rules, placards and limitations seem to be written more for the FAA’s lawyers than for pilots and their passengers.

Why Can’t We Land?
Hard landings, loss of control, runway overruns – is kissing pavement so hard? Landing accidents account for more than a third of all general aviation accidents. While landing accidents are not as likely to be fatal as other kinds of crashes – only 3 to 4 percent of fatal accidents are caused by poor landings – they are responsible for nearly 500 bent airplanes per year.

Flying a Fleet
Pilots who fly a variety of airplanes need some tricks to keep ’em straight. For the average owner/pilot, it’s not hard to stay knowledgeable about the systems and procedures of the airplane you’re flying. You fly not only the same make, model, and year, but the very same airplane every time you fly.