This Month in Aviation
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.
Spirit Airlines closes for good — Spirit, one of America’s best-known low-cost airlines, has shut down completely. After years of losing money, the company could not find a way to survive. Its aircraft have stopped flying and thousands of staff have lost their jobs. Spirit was famous for very cheap fares, but it charged extra for almost everything else.
A jet engine runs on 100% hydrogen — Rolls-Royce and the airline easyJet have tested a modern jet engine that runs only on hydrogen. Hydrogen is a clean fuel: when it burns, it produces water instead of carbon dioxide. The test was done on the ground, not in the air, but it is an important early step towards cleaner flying.
A jet hits a truck while landing — A United Airlines Boeing 767 struck a ground vehicle as it landed at Newark airport, near New York. The truck should not have been on the runway. Investigators are now trying to find out how it got there. Incidents like this, where a vehicle or aircraft is wrongly on a runway, are taken very seriously.
Electric air taxis get the green light — The US aviation regulator, the FAA, has approved electric air taxis to operate in 26 states. These small electric aircraft take off and land like helicopters, but they are quieter and cleaner. Companies hope to use them to carry a few passengers on short trips across busy cities.
China orders 200 Boeing jets — China has agreed to buy 200 new aircraft from the American manufacturer Boeing, as part of a trade deal between the two countries. It is very good news for Boeing, which had sold few jets in China in recent years. Such a large order keeps factory workers busy for a long time.
A warning about pilots and medicines — US safety investigators (the NTSB) looked at pilots who died in crashes over many years. They found that about half had some kind of drug in their body — often ordinary medicines, not only illegal ones. The report reminds every pilot to check carefully whether a medicine is safe before flying.
Over to you: Which of these stories matters most to you — and why? Let us know in the comments.
CEFR Level B1 / ICAO Level 4