Aviation Safety & Regulation News

Aviation Week • Graham Warwick

Merlin Labs Secures New Zealand Experimental Airworthiness for Autonomous Flight Testing

Merlin Labs has received an Experimental Certificate of Airworthiness from the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, authorizing flight tests of its Merlin Pilot autonomous system on fixed-wing aircraft. The approval marks the final phase in its push for a supplemental type certificate enabling takeoff-to-touchdown autonomy.

2025-05-22T07:48:22.832641-07:00

FlightGlobal

Boeing’s 2025 Safety Report Shows $250M AI Spend, 220% Jump in Incident Reporting and 12% Accident Drop

2025-05-21T07:18:31.136454-07:00

Urban Air Mobility News

Wisk and NASA Ink Five-Year Pact to Integrate Autonomous Flights into NAS

2025-05-21T05:26:33.398231-07:00

Associated Press

Bomb Threat Grounds Hawaiian Airlines San Diego–Honolulu Flight, Passenger Arrested

2025-05-20T14:04:26.181619-07:00

Aviation Safety & Regulation News Timeline

FlightGlobal

RAF Gears Up to Ramp Up Protector Flights as 31 Squadron Pursues Instrument Ratings The Royal Air Force plans to step up operations of its new Protector remotely piloted air system over the coming months. Pilots from 31 Squadron are securing the instrument ratings required to begin MQ-9B flights in UK airspace as the service readies for operational expansion.

2025-05-23T05:58:35.232928-07:00

RAF Gears Up to Ramp Up Protector Flights as 31 Squadron Pursues Instrument Ratings

FlightGlobal

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NTSB Finds Delta 717’s Right BR715 Engine Nearly Oil-Free After Cabin Smoke Emergency The NTSB has determined that the right-side Rolls-Royce BR715-C1 engine on a Delta Air Lines Boeing 717 was nearly devoid of oil when the aircraft made a smoke-induced emergency landing in February, underscoring a critical lubrication failure that flooded the cabin with ‘tremendous’ smoke.

2025-05-23T04:54:14.206399-07:00

NTSB Finds Delta 717’s Right BR715 Engine Nearly Oil-Free After Cabin Smoke Emergency

FlightGlobal

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Frontier A321neo Loses Nose Wheel Fragments, Suffers Engine Failure After San Juan Hard Landing A Frontier Airlines Airbus A321neo experienced a left-engine failure after ingesting fragments of its nose wheel during a hard-landing attempt in San Juan in April. The gear detachment and subsequent engine damage underscore ongoing concerns over landing gear reliability and maintenance practices on A321neos.

2025-05-22T22:46:26.789469-07:00

Frontier A321neo Loses Nose Wheel Fragments, Suffers Engine Failure After San Juan Hard Landing

Aviation Week

Regulators and Avionics Makers Roll Out Fixes to Thwart ADS-B Signal Misuse As low-cost receivers allow widespread access to ADS-B signals, unauthorised parties have tapped into aircraft surveillance channels, sparking privacy and security concerns. To counter this, regulators and avionics makers have rolled out fixes—ranging from signal authentication to data encryption—to secure ADS-B transmissions.

2025-05-22T14:14:35.810238-07:00

Regulators and Avionics Makers Roll Out Fixes to Thwart ADS-B Signal Misuse

Paddle Your Own Kanoo

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Thick Smoke Triggers Emergency Evacuation of Delta Flight From Atlanta, Preliminary Report Shows Investigators say smoke inundated the cabin of a Delta Air Lines flight departing Atlanta in February, forcing the lead flight attendant to struggle with commands and the crew to initiate an emergency evacuation upon landing. The preliminary report highlights visibility and communication failures under dense smoke conditions.

2025-05-22T08:23:49.893348-07:00

Thick Smoke Triggers Emergency Evacuation of Delta Flight From Atlanta, Preliminary Report Shows

Reuters

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Victims’ Lawyers Push DOJ to Try Boeing in 737 MAX Fraud Case In a new court filing, lawyers for relatives of passengers killed in the 2018 Lion Air and 2019 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashes urged the US Department of Justice to reject a non-prosecution agreement and take Boeing to trial on criminal fraud charges, citing safety disclosures.

2025-05-22T08:06:29.428961-07:00

Victims’ Lawyers Push DOJ to Try Boeing in 737 MAX Fraud Case

Aviation Week

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Merlin Labs Secures New Zealand Experimental Airworthiness for Autonomous Flight Testing Merlin Labs has received an Experimental Certificate of Airworthiness from the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, authorizing flight tests of its Merlin Pilot autonomous system on fixed-wing aircraft. The approval marks the final phase in its push for a supplemental type certificate enabling takeoff-to-touchdown autonomy.

2025-05-22T07:48:22.832641-07:00

Merlin Labs Secures New Zealand Experimental Airworthiness for Autonomous Flight Testing

The Air Current

UK CAA Certification Debate Pits Joby Aviation Against Vertical Aerospace Joby Aviation and Vertical Aerospace have signaled contrasting expectations for the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority’s forthcoming eVTOL safety and certification requirements, spotlighting a transatlantic split over regulatory stringency that could dictate entry-into-service timelines for urban air taxis.

2025-05-22T05:13:11.763860-07:00

UK CAA Certification Debate Pits Joby Aviation Against Vertical Aerospace

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