A tragic event occurred on Thursday. Disgruntled with the IRS and others, a man named Joseph Stack crashed his Piper Dakota into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. Sadly, one person in addition to Stack was killed in the event.

According to an article in the Denver Post, last Saturday was a great day for flying...scattered clouds and greater than 5 miles visibility in light haze. Several pilots took advantage of that weather, but unfortunately the results were tragic for three of them. At about 1:30 pm, a Cirrus SR-20 collided with a Piper Pawnee that was towing a Schweizer 2-32 near Boulder, Colorado.

The pilot of the glider was able to safely release from tow just before impact. He flew through burning debris and landed safely. Sadly, the three people aboard the other aircraft were all killed.

Have you ever dreamed of island hopping though the tropics? It is a personal goal of mine. One of the most interesting approaches in the islands of the America's is the approach to the airport on Saint Barthelemy island

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The beauty of the island is guarded by many challenges on the short 1600' usable strip. Two of the largest challenges are the bay on one side of the and a hill with a steeper grade than a standard approach on the other. For those of us preparing to fly there one day (I didn't say one day real soon) AvWeb has prepared a short clip showing some general tips to make your trip safe and relaxing.

Everyone has bad weeks from time to time. Apparently it even happens to government agencies. This week, it's the FAA's turn to be on their heels.

Among other things, the FAA was ranked #214 out of 216 best federal agencies to work at. It keeps going from there...

On Monday 19 October 2009, Delta Flight 60 was enroute to Atlanta’s Hartsfield airport (KATL) when a check pilot on board experienced a medical emergency in midflight. The crew decided to push on to Atlanta and were given clearance to land on Runway 27R. At just after 0600 eastern time the Boeing 767 landed on the parallel taxiway “Mike”, just north of runway 27R instead of runway 27R as directed. Not much has been heard about the taxiway landing incident because it was quickly overshadowed by two other airline pilots missing their destination airport by well over 100 miles because they were BOTH distracted on their laptops.

The college I went to had a habit of kicking people out for all kinds of things. Getting bad grades was a pretty easy way to get booted, but breaking other rules could cause a person a lot of trouble as well. I decided that if I ever started doing so poorly in class that I was in trouble, I'd start partying like crazy in the dorms and at least kicked out for having some fun.

Apparently a pilot by the name of David Riggs was influenced by an similarly flawed line of thinking about a year ago. According to a Los Angeles Times article, Riggs lost his license after repeatedly buzzing Santa Monica Pier at dangerously low altitudes in an L-39.

While that flight must have been a lot of fun, flying like that was definitely a bad decision!

The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an interesting story this week. It detailed the experience of several Northwest Airlines passengers who didn't realize that their A320 flown 150 miles past their destination and would probably have flown a lot further if a flight attendant hadn't asked why they were behind schedule. The scariest part of the story is that the pilots were as clueless as the passengers.

Here's a curveball for all you frequent fliers out there, looks like airlines are cracking down on what you can put in your seatback pocket. The New York Times ran an article after their editor was cautioned against putting anything "personal" in the seatback pockets. I wasn't aware that this was an issue, and I certainly haven't been on any flights where the crew made a mention of it. Anyone else heard of this going on?