Free Republic

Five years ago this month, two pilots aboard Colgan Air Flight 3407 made a series of fatal errors as they descended near Buffalo, N.Y. The plane spluttered in mid-air, tilting unnaturally, then made a terrible grinding sound as it fell near-vertical from the sky. It hit a house, exploding loudly; neighbors could see the flames from blocks away. All 49 people aboard the flight perished, as did one occupant of 6038 Long Street, which was totally destroyed. Tragedies trigger calls for action. Unfortunately, such pleas are often more emotional than rational, resulting in bad policy. The legislation passed in response...

CHILLIWACK, B.C. — A former British Columbia hang-glider pilot whose passenger fell 300 metres to her death during a flight that was an anniversary gift pleaded guilty Friday to criminal negligence causing death. William Jon Orders was charged in the death of 27-year-old Lenami Godinez-Avila, who plunged from Orders’ hang glider shortly after takeoff during a flight above B.C.’s Fraser Valley on April 28, 2012. Orders was also charged with obstruction of justice over allegations he swallowed a memory card that may have contained video of the incident. It wasn’t immediately clear what would happen to that charge.

A World War II fighter pilot who gained fame for dramatically flying beneath the Eiffel Tower's arches to take down a German aircraft has died aged 92. William Overstreet Jr. died on Sunday at a hospital in Roanoke, Virginia, according to his obituary, but there was no indication of the cause of his death. Overstreet's famously flew his P-51C 'Berlin Express' beneath the Eiffel Tower in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944, which has been credited with lifting the spirits of French Resistance troops on the ground. For his valiant service, the French ambassador to the United States presented Overstreet with France's...

One of the first things the pilot in a fatal crash off the Hawaiian island of Molokai did after being released from the hospital was climb into the cockpit of an airplane. [….] An autopsy was conducted Friday on Fuddy but results were not yet available.... [….] If the plane is recovered, Makani Kai staff will remove the engine under the supervision by NTSB officials, Schuman said. It will be placed in a box and sealed, with the NTSB likely taking it back to the factory of engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, where engineers will take it apart to find...

The health director who approved the release of President Obama’s birth certificate has died in a plane crash, Hawaiian officials said Thursday. Loretta Fuddy died after the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft she was travelling on went down shortly after leaving Kalaupapa Airport at around 3:15 p.m. local time (10:15 a.m. ET) on Wednesday. The other eight people on board were rescued, Richard Schuman, president of Makani Kai Air, told NBC News early Thursday, adding that that there was no indication as to why the plane had crashed. Fuddy hit the headlines two years ago when she approved a waiver request...

The "Affordable Aircraft Act" coming soon! The Affordable Aircraft Act, a new program under development which if enacted will allow every American to own a new approved (and in many cases cost subsidized) airplane. nickname: "Obamaplane". The U.S. government is contemplating new legislation called "The Affordable Aircraft Act" which declares that every citizen MUST purchase a new aircraft, by April 2016. These "affordable" aircraft will cost an average of $154,000 - $355,000 each. This does not include taxes, hangar fees, licensing and registration fees, nor ongoing costs of fuel, docking, hangar and storage fees, maintenance or repair costs or pilot...

The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday said it was making final a rule that says all commercial airline pilots hired by U.S. carriers will be required to have at least 1,500 hours of flight time. The Air Line Pilots Association, which praised the new rule, said it goes into effect Aug. 1. The FAA, in announcing that the rule will be published soon, said the new requirements were adopted in reaction to the crash of a Colgan Air airplane near Buffalo, N.Y., in 2009, in which both the captain and first officer were relatively inexperienced.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines, an Atlanta-based Delta connection regional carrier, recently made aviation history when one of its flights from Atlanta to Nashville was conducted by a crew comprised entirely of African-American women. This landmark event — which happened by chance — comes on the tail end of Black History Month. It's late but interesting to me in that I never saw a mention of these women anywhere, but there's plenty of free Obama phone ranters and race baiters in the news everyday.

For the crime of “buzzing” a crowd of European adventurers so close that he clipped one of their cars with the wing of his single-engine plane, on Friday a Yukon RCMP constable was stripped of his pilot’s license for two years.

"My dad fought a war so this can never happen in America. I will not dishonor my father's memory by giving up what he fought for. No, sir. With all due respect, I will not consent to a search without a proper warrant." James Fallows May 21 2013, 11:34 AM ET Over the weekend I related the story of Gabriel Silverstein, a businessman and pilot who for no apparent reason was subjected to a two-hour detention and invasive search by Homeland Security officials as he traveled across the country in his small plane. The picture above is not from that...

KNOXVILLE — The FBI has Pilot Flying J headquarters on lockdown Monday afternoon. Neither the FBI nor a Pilot spokesman was immediately available for comment. Media were barred from the Pilot campus, and the entrance was blocked. Pilot employees were being escorted off the corporate campus on Lonas Road. Knoxville-based Pilot is the operator of the largest travel center network in North America.

KNOXVILLE — The FBI has Pilot Flying headquarters on lockdown Monday afternoon.

SNIPPET: "Washington: A US court has sentenced an Iranian and an American national for their roles in a plot to ship aircraft and its parts to Islamic Republic Iran. While the Iranian citizen Hamid Asefi, 67, was sentenced to 23 months, a US citizen Behzad Karimian, (52), also known as "Tony" Karimian who holds a valid Iranian passport and is employed as a Mesaba Airlines Pilot, was sentenced to 52 months in prison yesterday."

Phillip (alternately, "Philip") Marshall, 54, a career airline pilot who claimed to have once served as a contract pilot for the CIA and DEA during the Iran-Contra affair, shot and killed his two teenage children, and the family dog, then killed himself. The apparent murder-suicide was discovered at the family home in an upscale gated golfing community in Murphys, California. According to local news reports, teen friends of Alex Marshall, 17 (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), and Macaila Marshall (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), 14, noticed the siblings had not been active via text or social media updates since Thursday and went by the...

Past seven days of work 8x faster. 9 min. Music- Tycho - "Past is Prologue"

The Miami Herald Posted on Sat, Sep. 01, 2012 Al Jaffe, WWII hero who inspired movie role, dies in South Florida BY ELINOR J. BRECHER ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com Al Jaffe was a scrappy, streetwise Jewish kid from the Bronx who climbed into a P-51 Mustang fighter plane in the last year of World War II and flew it into history. Second Lt. Abraham “Al’’ Jaffe completed 77 reconnaissance missions in Europe, including one that helped turn the tide of the war during the pivotal Battle of the Bulge. He was also involved in holding the bridge at Remagen, Germany, enabling U.S. troops...

RAF Bomber Command RAF veteran defies health and safety to take to the skies A 91-year-old former RAF pilot, who was told it was too dangerous to sit in the cockpit of a Spitfire, has taken off once more, flying in the face of health and safety rules. Telegraph News By Telegraph reporters 8:18AM BST 20 Aug 2012 Eric Carter, the last surviving member of Force Benedict, a secret mission to protect the northern Russian port of Murmansk, flew Spitfires during the Second World War. But he was shot down earlier this year when he wanted to sit in the...

Earlier this month, an attempt by the Obama Administration to slash funds for the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program (FFDO) was rejected by the House of Representatives, which passed legislation to ensure that the program, which permits qualified and trained airline pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit of commercial flights, remains alive and well. “Pilots are the first line of defense against terrorist attacks in the sky, and the most cost-effective layer of security that we have in a system that’s prone to security breaches,” said Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John L. Mica (R-FL), in a press release....

Congress refuses to gut the one program the Transportation Security Administration has offered to minimize: pilots who pack guns. The House just passed an amendment in its Homeland Security appropriations bill that would boost funding for armed-pilot training by $10 million. That throws a sharp rebuke at both the TSA and the Obama administration, which proposed chopping financing in half. The showdown exemplifies a larger tension over which programs created in the aftershock of Sept. 11 should endure — and what actually keeps Americans safe. “The last line of defense is the pilot’s ability to defend the cockpit,” Rep. Chip...