Flight Safety Detectives

The crew of a United Airlines 727 tried to turn back shortly after takeoff from Los Angeles, but did not make it back to the airport. The plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Greg Feith, Todd Curtis, and John Goglia discuss the crash of the 727-22QC in 1969. Electrical failures and electrical system design contributed to the plane crash. The accident happened on a night with limited visibility du...

Oil and oxygen don’t mix on airplanes. A crew doing maintenance on the Air Force One oxygen system ignored safety procedures resulting in $4 million dollars of damage the plane. The damage was caused by maintenance activity on the oxygen system of a U.S. Air Force VC-25A, a 747 aircraft that regularly flies the President of the United States. This event occurred in 2016. John Goglia and Todd Curti...

New evidence calls into question the NTSB's conclusions – and our reporting in Episode 193 - about a 2020 midair collision. Video and other information shows that there were two helicopters in the area before the midair collision. Miles O'Brien, Todd Curtis, and John Goglia revisit the 2020 midair collision of a drone and a helicopter. The NTSB used a video shot by the drone to conclude that a hel...

Two Piper airplane crashes show that pilots’ bad decisions can have devastating results. This episode covers two avoidable fatal crashes.  A 1991 accident involves a Piper Seneca in Florida. The NTSB found that the two occupants were partially disrobed and no evidence that either were wearing seat belts or shoulder harnesses. The report makes clear that the two occupants were attempting to join th...

Coming to you from the 2024 AMC Competition in Chicago! Miles O'Brien, Todd Curtis, John Goglia, Greg Feith, and aircraft mechanic and accident investigator Jason Lukasik share the experience of the competition. Every aspect of aviation maintenance and repair was on display as competitors worked to beat the clock. This year more than 400 competitors from nearly 90 teams from maintenance schools, a...

Special guest Henry Gourdji shares the work of the Laura Taber Barbour Foundation, which presents the Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award. The air safety award has been given in recognition of aviation safety leadership since 1956. Recipients include John Goglia in 2020.  The award grew out of the 1945 crash of a DC3 that killed all 20 crew and passengers, including Laura Taber Barbour. Her famil...

Miles O'Brien joins Todd Curtis and John Goglia to discuss two fatal general aviation accidents that involved aircraft that were just out of maintenance. In focus are the decisions and actions pilots and maintenance personnel could have taken to avoid the crashes or make them survivable. One crash involves a Piper Cherokee on its second flight after an oil pressure line was replaced. The pilot did...

A Beech Hawker 900XP jet crashed while doing a flight test of a stall warning system. Special guest Miles O'Brien joins Todd Curtis and John Goglia deconstruct the February 2024 aviation incident.  The accident occurred during a positioning flight that happened after completion of maintenance of the anti-icing component on the leading edge of the wing. The flight crew was performing a required tes...

A photo shoot in a dry Nevada lakebed went horribly wrong when the wing of an airplane hit the model in the head. Miles O’Brien, Todd Curtis, and John Goglia discuss the June 2023 accident that involved an Aviate Husky plane. The pilot, photographer and his wife, who was the model for the photo session, met early on the morning of the accident. On the fly, they planned a complex photo session invo...

Home-built aircraft are dangerous. Special guest Miles O'Brien joins Todd Curtis and John Goglia to discuss an August 2023 crash of a Kit Fox Model 3 aircraft that seriously injured the pilot. The FAA's approach to home-built aircraft allows owners to build their aircraft with little or no direct oversight. The accident rate is more than two times higher than general aviation aircraft. The pilot d...

An experienced flight instructor and student were killed when stall and spin practice in a Cessna 172 went horribly wrong. Flight data recorded by the aircraft and other evidence shows that the aircraft entered a very steep spiral turn nearly 6,000 above the ground and did not recover. “They set themselves up for the right conditions. This accident just doesn’t make sense,” John Goglia says. Todd...

More than 50 people were injured on March 11 when a Boeing 787 flying from Australia to New Zealand experienced a precipitous drop. John Goglia shares inside information that indicates one of the pilot seats was accidentally moved forward, jamming the pilot up against the control column and causing the sudden drop. Special guest Miles O'Brien joins Todd Curtis and John Goglia to discuss this and a...

Todd Curtis, Greg Feith, and John Goglia discuss the crash of a Joby JAS4 eVTOL aircraft to highlight safety concerns and regulatory challenges. Propulsion units used in eVTOLs pose significant safety risks. The eVTOL in this crash was being remotely flown during a test flight. The aircraft is powered by six electric motors and is designed to take off and land vertically like a helicopter and crui...

Todd Curtis and John Goglia discuss the February 9, 2024 crash of a Challenger 604 jet on I75 in Florida. The plane landed on the road, but then crashed into a wall, killing the pilot and copilot. John and Todd discuss why a better outcome was possible. The jet, which had three crew members and two passengers, was nearing the end of a flight from Columbus, Ohio, when the flight crew declared an em...

The helicopter crash that killed the CEO of a major Nigerian bank and his family appears to be the result of similar pilot errors that caused the Kobe Bryant crash and other high-profile accidents. Greg Feith and John Goglia cite several recent accidents that show that poor decisions among pilots who fly for Part 135 operators may be the common contributing factor. The Flight Safety Detectives exp...

Most general aviation pilots hesitate to declare an inflight emergency fearing negative consequences. Greg Feith, John Goglia and Todd Curtis use a Beechcraft Bonanza plane crash to illustrate how declaring an emergency can be the safest move. The fatal Beechcraft Bonanza accident in the spotlight of this episode is featured in the book, "Single-Pilot IFR Pro Tips" written by 2019 National CFI of...

Singer Jenni Rivera’s tragic plane crash was a tragic accident and not the result of a conspiracy. This special episode of the Flight Safety Detectives features the January 24 interview Todd Curtis gave on the KIQI radio show “Hecho en California,” about the 2012 crash that killed Jenni Rivera.  Todd shares with hosts Isabel and Marcos Gutierrez the conclusions shared by the Flight Safety Detectiv...

The pilot of a Beech Bonanza F33A made an off-field landing when the engine lost power shortly after takeoff. John Goglia, Greg Feith and Todd Curtis dig into the information gathered by the NTSB and find this crash was caused by poor decisions made by the pilot. Greg, Todd, and John analyze the information from the Public Docket of the crash investigation. They find that the pilot's lack of under...

The events that led up to the crash of a MD82 in Detroit are used to illustrate the critical role of operational discipline. Greg, Todd and John give insight into the issues that led to Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashing and disintegrating. This is just one example of bad decisions taking an airplane out of the sky. This aviation disaster killed two people on the ground and nearly everyone on...

Jenni Rivera was a huge celebrity at the time of her death. Was the plane crash that killed her an accident or do the conspiracy theories point to the real cause?  In a continuation of the examination of this aviation incident that started in Episode 203, Greg Feith joins John Goglia and Todd Curtis to discuss why the conspiracy theories related to the crash are unlikely to be true. They use the e...

Todd and John analyze the plane crash that killed singer Jenni Rivera. The report from the Mexican accident investigation found that the Learjet 25 aircraft lost control during climb for reasons that could not be determined.  Key items are missing from the report that concluded that the crash was a loss of control event: No analysis results of the flight controls No flight data recorder recovered...

Latest on the Alaska Airlines Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 737 MAX 9 aircraft plug door separation and rapid decompression. Todd, Greg, and John discuss recent developments, including the recovery of the plug door. They talk about the value of having the plug door for inspection. They share the sequence of events that led to the door separation based on factual evidence. The spotlight is now turnin...

Runway images show that the Coast Guard Dash 8 involved in the collision with Japan Airlines Flight 516 was in the wrong place. The crew was to hold on the taxiway, but were actually on the runway. The plane standing still on the center line would have been virtually invisible to the pilots of the JAL Airbus A350.  The scenario is similar to a runway collision involving US Air Flight 1493 that Joh...

United Airlines has reported loose bolts on five of their 737 MAX 9 aircraft plug doors. This is the latest in the unfolding look at what happened in the incident involving Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. John and Greg use insights from their decades of experience inside NTSB and other aviation safety incident investigations to explain the latest developments. They cover the information that has been...

What happened to Alaska Airlines Flight 1282? What is going on at Boeing? In this special episode, Greg and John provide expert insight into the rapid decompression and inflight separation of an exit door panel on a Boeing 737-9 Max airplane. The Flight Safety Detectives dissect issues surrounding this incident and the regulatory response that is already happening. They discuss similar incidents,...