The National Transportation Safety Board has investigated a series of in-flight structural breakups of Zodiac CH-601XL airplanes designed by Zenair, Inc., that occurred in the United States in the last 3 years. The Safety Board is also aware of several in-flight structural breakups of CH-601XLs that have occurred abroad. It appears that aerodynamic flutter is the likely source of four of the U.S. accidents and of at least two foreign accidents. The Safety Board believes urgent action is needed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to prevent additional in-flight breakups.

Austria’s Hannes Arch collected the first point of the 2009 Red Bull Air Race World Championship by recording the fastest time in Qualifying on Friday ahead of Saturday’s season-opener in Abu Dhabi. The defending champion beat Britain’s Paul Bonhomme into second and France’s Nicolas Ivanoff to third in a thrill-filled Qualifying battle over the turquoise waters of the Arabian Gulf. There were an extraordinary number of pylon hits on a blazing hot and windy afternoon along the shores of the capital city of the United Arab Emirates as the 15 pilots in the largest and most competitive field in the race's history explored the limits for faster timings.

Imagine having to land a Beech King Air having never flown anything bigger than a Cessna and with only 130 hours in your log book.  The ordeal began about 1:30 p.m when a Super King Air two-engine turboprop with four passengers on board, was headed to Jackson, Mississippi, from Marco Island, Florida, about 18 miles south of Naples.  Onboard were passengers Doug White, his wife and two daughters.  The family was returning from White’s brothers’ funeral when they noticed the pilot slumped back in his seat – dead!

What was to be the most advanced very light jet on the market has been nothing but disaster for owners and investors. With the departure of founder Vern Raburn last year things began to unravel quickly and ended up in bankruptcy court early this year.  Hopes were kept alive with potential bidders but as of today the state of the art manufacturing facility in Albuquerque, NM and an 8 million service center at Albany sits empty and all employees has been laid off.

A thirty-one year old Ontario man remains in custody in the United States after stealing an airplane and leading military aircraft in a four state chase.  The Cessna 172 was stolen from Confederation College in Thunder Bay, Ontario and intercepted by F-16 jet fighters over Wisconsin but kept flying south through Illinois and Missouri.

A $10.5 million Predator aircraft, which flies at 19,000 fleet, carries no weapons, but can spot a person crossing the border from 25 miles away is slated to start patrolling the Michigan-Ontario border before long.   U.S. authorities plan to use this unmanned aircraft to patrol the porous border between the two these two nations.