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Aviation & Aerospace

Aviation and aerospace news covering airline disruptions, aircraft safety, drones, space missions and investigations that explain risks and recovery.

Airliner parked at a tarmac beneath an ash plume rising from a snow-flecked volcanic peak in Sicily

Etna Shuts Catania Airport, Cuts Landings From 12 to 4

One volcano, a 4-kilometer ash plume, and Catania's airport cut its landings from 12 to 4 an hour — stranding 140 travelers on the only Brussels flight. 🌋✈️ Etna's latest eruption is the second shutdown of the year, a red alert from Italy's INGV, and

A Boeing 737 MAX aircraft on a tarmac with maintenance crews inspecting its underside and flight control surfaces.

FAA Probing 737 MAX software flaw as Boeing delays operator notice by nearly two years

~2,430 Boeing 737 MAX jets in service face a software flaw that can silently disable vertical navigation during an aborted landing. ✈️ Boeing flagged the issue in Nov 2024 but says operators weren't meaningfully told until last month. Southwest and United have both refused affected deliveries — a crunch

Aerial view of a residential district with rescue workers and smoke rising from aircraft wreckage near Kenge, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Why another Congo crash signals governance failure, not geography

17 dead after a Let 410 went down in a residential district of Kenge, DRC on Sep 25 — equal to a full classroom lost. ✈️ Among them: the head of the military high court and the armed forces' top prosecutor, both anchoring the Kabila prosecution. The reflexive blame is bad

F-16 fighter jet streaking low over a suburban skyline, dark smoke rising in the background.

Two F-16 crashes in five days raise aging-fleet questions

Two F-16s down in five days—one bird-strike engine failure confirmed by ATC audio, one combat-seasoned squadron's jet on a German golf course. ✈️ That's 15 crashes since 2000, and the Air Force keeps calling each one an isolated incident. Pilots ejected safely. But

A Ukrainian Antonov An-124 heavy cargo aircraft parked on an airfield apron under overcast skies.

Europe's 120-tonne airlift gap: a study names it, no one closes it

By the early 2030s, Europe's outsized cargo airlift shrinks to a handful of aging Soviet-era An-124s — roughly two dozen airframes, most chartered, carrying the tanks and radar modern armies move. ✈️ An EU study (ESOCA) offers only two costly choices: modernize the old fleet or build a

Air traffic control radar screens showing flight paths at a UK control centre, with aircraft symbols on a dark display.

UK air traffic failures disrupt thousands twice in two weeks

60% of Scottish airspace capacity lost — twice in two weeks ✈️⚠️ NATS suffered its second air traffic control failure this month, a software defect at its Prestwick centre that disrupted 25,000+ Ryanair passengers on Monday, on top of a Sept 8 outage that grounded 2,145 flights and hit 330,

A Prime Air delivery drone flying low over a suburban backyard in Richardson, Texas, with a pool visible below.

📦🚁 Amazon Eyes 500 Cities for Drone Delivery With Little Local Say

A quiet Friday in Texas: 52 Amazon drone overflights in one day over one neighborhood. Amazon's fix? Raise altitude 75 feet and reroute some departures. That's the pattern nationwide. Amazon is scaling Prime Air from 11 hubs to nearly 500 cities by year-end—backed by