Aviation

Following a number of recent aviation tragedies in Southeast Asia, it is being reported that the Indonesian Ministry of Transportation plans to publish safety ratings of all scheduled Indonesian airlines perhaps as early as next month. It also is being reported that the Ministry of Transportation plans to encourage the entire airline industry to put safety as a priority, according to a statement by the transportation minister as reported by the Aviation Safety Network: http://news.aviation-safety.net/2015/01/29/indonesian-ministry-of-transportation-to-publish-airline-safety-ratings/…

The Malaysian government officially declared the disappearance of Flight 370 an “accident”, on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, thus allowing the families of the victims on board to officially begin seeking compensation, according to the Chicago Tribune (“Malaysia Declares MH370 Crash An Accident To Clear Compensation,” 1/29/2015). Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation released a statement that all 239 passengers aboard Flight 370 are now presumed to be dead, NBC News Reported (“Malaysia Airlines MH370 Declared An…

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday (Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015) released a number of recommendations, some of which it has been asked to consider for decades, calling for improvements in locating downed aircraft and to obtain flight data more quickly and without the need for underwater retrieval. Many of these recommendations, which were issued to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for action, have been demanded by families who have lost loved ones in recent…

On Tuesday (Jan. 6, 2014), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a final rule requiring most U.S. airlines to implement Safety Management Systems (SMS) by 2018, according to an FAA press release. SMS is a formal, organization-wide approach that assists in managing safety risks by providing airlines a set of business procedures to compile data from everyday operations, the FAA press release explained. With this data, airlines are able to isolate trends that may be…

An Airbus AIR.PA A320-200 operated by Indonesia AirAsia disappeared on Sunday morning on course from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore, Reuters reported. As the plane was traveling over the Java Sea, it reportedly encountered a string of violent thunderstorms and massive clouds, at which point the pilot requested to ascend some 6,000 feet to circumvent a cloud, according to the Washington Post. However, Indonesian dispatchers denied the request, and the plane disappeared within minutes with no…

Clifford Law Offices has dealt with many cases involving aircraft that have crashed due to the stalling of one or more engines and a pilot’s failure to recover from the upset. After a press conference today held by officials of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), it was revealed that the initial cause of the plane crash that left six people dead, including two small children, Monday in Gaithersburg, Maryland, was due to just such…

The black box containing information regarding the plane crash in Gaithersburg, Maryland, has been recovered by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators. Monday’s (Dec. 8, 2014) crash left six people dead, including two small children, in the suburb of Washington, D.C. The black box contains the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. Investigators also are reviewing a series of 911 calls that came in after the twin-engine Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 reportedly broke into…

A small jet plane crashed on Monday morning (December 8, 2014) into a home located in the residential neighborhood of Gaithersburg, Maryland. ABC News reported that the impact of the plane in the Washington D.C. suburb resulted in a fire that spread to several nearby houses. It was also reported by the Associated Press that the death toll has not reached six – three people who were inside a house that was hit were killed…

A Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two rocket plane exploded and crashed during a test flight Friday, Oct. 31, killing one crew member and seriously injuring another, according to authorities. The fiery crash was captured on video and played on media outlets across the world as the plane dropped away from its carrier airplane and fired up its hybrid rocket engine. The blast scattered debris across a two-mile area of the desert north of Mojave outside of…