The United States government has launched a new website that lets anyone track how a $12.5 billion investment in air traffic control (ATC) infrastructure is being spent. Called Modern Skies, the platform was unveiled on 22 May 2026 by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It shows the progress of more than 10,000 projects at over 4,600 FAA facilities around the country.
Continue reading FAA Launches Public Tracker for $12.5 Billion ATC Rebuild
Two days of public hearings in Washington last week revealed that Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration had been aware of a critical cracking risk in the aft pylon of the Boeing MD-11 freighter for more than two decades before the component failed during the takeoff of UPS Flight 2976 in Louisville last November, killing all 15 people aboard. The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigators presented evidence of at least ten prior incidents involving the same spherical bearing — the part believed to have fractured and initiated the catastrophic separation of the left engine and pylon — dating back to 2002. For the aviation industry, the hearings revived questions about whether the mechanisms that translate known risk into mandatory corrective action are fit for purpose.
Continue reading NTSB: Boeing Knew of Engine Pylon Risk for Two Decades
Welcome to This Month in Aviation, our regular round-up of the biggest aviation stories from the last four weeks. Below are six short reports — a minute or two of reading each — with a link to the full story if you want to know more.
Continue reading News Roundup: This Month in Aviation
A new report by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has found that more than half of pilots who died in aviation accidents had at least one drug in their system. Released on 14 May 2026, the study examined toxicology results from 930 fatal accidents involving pilots in US civil aviation between 2018 and 2022. The findings have prompted safety experts to call for stronger drug monitoring for private pilots across the country.
Continue reading NTSB Finds Drugs in Half of Pilots Killed in Crashes
The United States Federal Aviation Administration published a mandatory airworthiness directive on 14 May 2026 requiring operators of all Airbus A350-900 and A350-1000 aircraft to address an undocumented change in a key maintenance specification that could compromise emergency oxygen delivery during a cabin pressurisation failure. The directive takes effect on 18 June 2026, giving airlines fewer than five weeks to achieve compliance.
In a significant breakthrough for both US-China commercial aviation and Boeing’s strained global order book, President Donald Trump announced on 14 May 2026 that China had agreed to purchase 200 Boeing commercial aircraft. The deal, confirmed by Boeing on 16 May, represents the planemaker’s first major re-entry into the Chinese market in nearly a decade, having been effectively locked out following a combination of the 737 MAX crisis, diplomatic tensions, and successive tariff rounds. With Trump suggesting the order could ultimately rise to 750 aircraft, the agreement stands as one of the more consequential commercial outcomes of his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Continue reading China Orders 200 Boeing Jets in Trump’s Trade Deal