Latest Aviation News

Boeing did not tell Southwest, its largest 737 Max customer, that a safety feature was turned off. The safety feature is an alert that lights up in the cockpit if a plane's angle-of-attack sensors transmit faulty data about the pitch of the plane's nose. Southwest did not know about the change until after the fatal Lion Air crash. The FAA even considered grounding Southwest's Max fleet while they weighed whether or not the airline's pilots needed additional training about the safety alert, according to The Wall Street Journal. Boeing  did not tell  Southwest Airlines , its largest 737 Max customer, that a standard safety feature designed to warn pilots about malfunctioning sensors had been deactivated on the jets. The safety feature is an alert that lights up in the cockpit if a plane's angle-of-attack sensors transmit faulty data about the pitch of the plane's nose. This feature is known as an angle-of-attack disagree light and was inclu...

Airbus has just released a two-minute video showing the assembly of an A330-900 jetliner, from delivery of components to the final assembly line, and finally to flight. The video starts with the parts being unloaded from Airbus Beluga 3, one of the company's original fleet of five whale-shaped cargo planes which fly its aircraft components between European production sites and its final assembly lines in Toulouse, Hamburg and Tianjin. The plane we're watching being assembled is Air Mauritius' first A330-900, which it took delivery of in Toulouse, France, on April 18. The A330-900 is the extended-fuselage member of the A330neo family, making Air Mauritius the first A330neo operator based in the southern hemisphere. Courtesy Airbus The plane's named Aapravasi Ghat, after a Mauritian UNESCO World Heritage site, and it will feature a two-class cabin with 28 business class seats and 260 economy class seats. The engines are latest-generation Rolls-Royce Tre...

A United Airlines employee accused of directing racialslurs at a customer has been charged in Texas with disorderly conduct, according to court documents. The charge, a misdemeanor, was filed in Municipal Court for Houston in March, a month after the Houston Police Department issued the employee, Carmella Davano, a citation for profane and abusive language in a public place. She was accused of repeatedly calling Cacilie Hughes, a black woman and United customer, “a monkey” and “a shining monkey.” Ms. Hughes, an actress and co-founder of the Big Sister Little Sister Mentoring Program, a nonprofit group, had returned home to Houston on Feb. 26 from a speaking engagement in Michigan when she encountered Ms. Davano in the United terminal at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. “I walked up to the woman, Carmella, and said, ‘Hi, do you have a refund code available?’ and she started yelling at me, calling me a monkey,” Ms. Hughes said in a phone interview on Monday. “I ...

Shortly after a government jet took off from Berlin, pilots lost control of the aircraft. As they attempted to land they were jolted away from the runway and forced to land on the grass. A German government jet suffered considerable damage in an emergency landing at Berlin, according to a report by  Der Spiegel  on Friday. The medium-ranged Bombardier Global 5000 jet was reportedly  forced to land alongside the runway at Schönefeld airport last Tuesday.  Pilots reported serious flight control issues shortly after takeoff, having reached 6,000 meters (roughly 20,000 feet), the publication found. As the pilots attempted to land, the jet shifted sharply to the right at a height of 300 meters, causing them to miss the runway. The flight was a test run after several weeks of maintenance and not on official government service. A subsequent investigation by the Bundeswehr found the jet suffered far more severe damage than initially thought, the news magazi...

A small twin-engine aircraft has crashed at Fullerton Municipal Airport in Fullerton, California, according to scanner traffic and media reports. Several fire and emergency crews have rushed to the scene, and are reporting that the aircraft is fully on fire. A large explosion was heard in the neighborhood, according to ABC 7. NBC LA reports that the plane is a twin-engine aircraft and KCAL says that it is a Beechcraft Duke plane. The fire has reportedly completely destroyed the plane, which caught fire as it hit the ground. The plane was reportedly heading to Utah. LIVE Breaking News @NewsBreaking BREAKING VIDEO: Plane on fire at Fullerton Airport in California 156 3:17 AM - Apr 19, 2019 196 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy In a tweet posted on Thursday night, Fullerton police confirmed the crash and asked that people avoid the area. The FAA has also confirmed the incident. Vie...

Sculpted side walls, a cabin that's four inches wider than its predecessor, pressurization that alleviates jet lag -- plus, every passenger can see out the window. This is the promise of the new Boeing 777X, a hotly anticipated next-generation aircraft that is coming closer to readiness, in the first full mock-ups of its interior. The new aircraft's possible internal configuration was on display at the recent  Aircraft Interiors Expo 2019 (AIX)  in Hamburg,  Germany. Interest in the new Boeing remains high, despite the continued investigation into Boeing's 737 Max airplane -- which  remains grounded following two fatal air crashes. Overshadowed by the recent tragedies, the first fully built 777X was unveiled at a low-key event in March. At AIX, the focus was on the positives of the 777X concept and how it will deliver improved levels of passenger experience, compared to earlier versions of the venerable Boeing aircraft. "We've learned a lot since the 7...

Abu Dhabi: Regularly flying across the world, traversing different time zones and flying the world’s largest passenger aircraft — the Airbus A380 — is all in a day’s work for Emirati pilot Aisha Al Mansouri, a senior first officer with Etihad Airways. It all started when her sister, who was already a pilot, took her to an air show in Al Ain. “While visiting the event there were some people working there who told me that a national cadet programme was opening at Etihad, so I looked into the programme and decided to join, and within eight months I was hired.” Her first flight on the job was on an Airbus A320 to Ammam, Jordan. “I had already done so much flight training — including flying a Cessna 172 — but once I was in the cockpit it was a very different feeling.” She flew the A320 for five years before eventually moving up to bigger aircraft like the A330 and, the biggest of all, the A380. Aisha Al Mansouri (UAE) Senior First Officer of Etihad airwa...