Flight Safety Detectives

John Goglia and Todd Curtis examine an all-too-common aviation incident: fuel exhaustion. 

Two pilots recently took off on a training flight that would start after midnight and end before dawn. They planned 10 takeoffs and landings at a towered airport, a 100-nautical-mile cross-country flight, refueling, and waiting until sunrise to practice additional maneuvers. 

Unfortunately, they ran out of fuel short of the refueling stop and had to dodge wind turbines and power lines to safely land on a road. Because there were no damage or injuries, no report was published by the FAA or NTSB. 

However, the incident was reported to the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS). John and Todd use that information to examine what happened and point out that they may have created avoidable dangers by planning to perform a challenging set of tasks for a single flight. 

This episode also demonstrates how to use the ASRS to learn from those who submit reports, including events that could have ended in disaster. This episode could help you avoid this and other common aviation safety issues.

Don’t miss what’s to come from the Flight Safety Detectives - subscribe to the Flight Safety Detectives YouTube channel, listen at your favorite podcast service and visit the Flight Safety Detectives website.

Want to go deeper with the Flight Safety Detectives? Join our YouTube Membership program for exclusive perks like members-only live streams and Q&As and early access to episodes. Your membership support directly helps John, Greg and Todd to deliver expert insights into aviation safety.
Interested in partnering with us? Sponsorship opportunities are available—brand mentions, episode integrations, and dedicated segments are just a few of the options. Flight Safety Detectives offers a direct connection with an engaged audience passionate about aviation and safety. Reach out to fsdsponsors@gmail.com.

Music: “Inspirational Sports” license ASLC-22B89B29-052322DDB8

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Todd Curtis and John Goglia share their real time research into unapproved parts in aviation. They use the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) database to do their research. 

See what they uncover as they investigate unapproved parts in aviation. They search reports from 1995 and later years to find instances of suspected unapproved or counterfeit parts. 

Most of the five cases they dive into are found to be paperwork issues rather than actual fraudulent parts. John adds some historical context, discussing how events like Eastern Airlines going out of business and the U.S. leaving behind a substantial amount of aviation assets after the Vietnam war led to many undocumented parts and helicopter engines entering the global aviation market.

Learn about the history and issues surrounding unapproved parts in aviation maintenance from two aviation safety insiders.

Don’t miss what’s to come from the Flight Safety Detectives - subscribe to the Flight Safety Detectives YouTube channel, listen at your favorite podcast service and visit the Flight Safety Detectives website.

Want to go deeper with the Flight Safety Detectives? Join our YouTube Membership program for exclusive perks like members-only live streams and Q&As and early access to episodes. Your membership support directly helps John, Greg and Todd to deliver expert insights into aviation safety.
Interested in partnering with us? Sponsorship opportunities are available—brand mentions, episode integrations, and dedicated segments are just a few of the options. Flight Safety Detectives offers a direct connection with an engaged audience passionate about aviation and safety. Reach out to fsdsponsors@gmail.com.

Music: “Inspirational Sports” license ASLC-22B89B29-052322DDB8

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Can artificial intelligence (AI) make aviation safer? In this episode, Todd Curtis and John Goglia explore ways that AI tools are being used to analyze safety data, identify trends, and improve communication across the aviation industry.

Todd shares a project that uses the AI platform Claude along with reports from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) database to create a customized safety report modeled after the ASRS CALLBACK publication. The discussion highlights how AI can help aviation professionals uncover valuable insights from large volumes of safety data.

Todd and John discuss how aviation professionals can get better results by understanding how to guide AI tools and evaluate their output.

The conversation also explores how safety management system (SMS) managers can use AI to better understand organizational risks, identify emerging issues, and improve safety decision-making.

Todd demonstrates how AI can transform written content into concise, media-ready sound bites and shares a downloadable resource that viewers can use to create their own custom audio clips.

Whether you're an aviation professional, safety manager, mechanic, pilot, or simply interested in emerging technology, this episode offers practical examples of how AI may help shape the future of aviation safety.

Also in this show, John calls out the disservice of incorrect information being shared by one commenter on the UPS crash in Louisville, Kentucky. A prominent aviation safety podcaster who is also an airline pilot repeatedly talks about the #2 engine being affected by foreign object digestion (FOD), a fact not directly supported by the NTSB preliminary report.

Don’t miss what’s to come from the Flight Safety Detectives - subscribe to the Flight Safety Detectives YouTube channel, listen at your favorite podcast service and visit the Flight Safety Detectives website.

Want to go deeper with the Flight Safety Detectives? Join our YouTube Membership program for exclusive perks like members-only live streams and Q&As and early access to episodes. Your membership support directly helps John, Greg and Todd to deliver expert insights into aviation safety.
Interested in partnering with us? Sponsorship opportunities are available—brand mentions, episode integrations, and dedicated segments are just a few of the options. Flight Safety Detectives offers a direct connection with an engaged audience passionate about aviation and safety. Reach out to fsdsponsors@gmail.com.

Music: “Inspirational Sports” license ASLC-22B89B29-052322DDB8

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New York City eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft test flights and global commercialization efforts are making headlines. Special guest Mike Borfitz, CEO of Kilroy Aviation and a safety certification engineer with more than 40 years of experience, explores critical technical challenges including battery limitations and software integration. 

Mike, Todd Curtis, and John Goglia address regulatory hurdles, safety concerns, and urban integration challenges. They discuss the unrealistic market expectations being promoted by manufacturers. 

Mike predicts that accidents involving these aircraft are inevitable. Ground-based air traffic management will be essential for safe operations in crowded urban airspace. Emerging advanced air mobility (AAM) transportation revolution will likely succeed, but not in the way some companies in this sector are promising.

Don’t miss what’s to come from the Flight Safety Detectives - subscribe to the Flight Safety Detectives YouTube channel, listen at your favorite podcast service and visit the Flight Safety Detectives website.

Want to go deeper with the Flight Safety Detectives? Join our YouTube Membership program for exclusive perks like members-only live streams and Q&As and early access to episodes. Your membership support directly helps John, Greg and Todd to deliver expert insights into aviation safety.
Interested in partnering with us? Sponsorship opportunities are available—brand mentions, episode integrations, and dedicated segments are just a few of the options. Flight Safety Detectives offers a direct connection with an engaged audience passionate about aviation and safety. Reach out to fsdsponsors@gmail.com.

Music: “Inspirational Sports” license ASLC-22B89B29-052322DDB8

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Todd Curtis and John Goglia discuss the details in the NTSB preliminary accident report about the March 22, 2026 fatal collision between an Air Canada Jazz regional jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport. The preliminary report offers a detailed timeline of the key events in the minutes before the accident. 

The airliner struck a fire truck that was leading six other emergency vehicles across an active runway to deal with an emergency situation. The fire truck had been cleared to cross the runway. Shortly before the truck entered the runway, a controller ordered the fire truck to stop, but the truck entered the runway and collided with the airliner.

John has four key questions that he wants the NTSB to address in the final report:

1. Why didn’t airport authorities equip their emergency vehicles with transponders that would have given the controllers a more precise location of every vehicle?

2. Could the fire truck have stopped before reaching the runway?

3. Was the control tower communicating effectively?

4. Are the warning lights on the runway effective for separating aircraft from vehicles crossing the runway?

Don’t miss what’s to come from the Flight Safety Detectives - subscribe to the Flight Safety Detectives YouTube channel, listen at your favorite podcast service and visit the Flight Safety Detectives website.

Want to go deeper with the Flight Safety Detectives? Join our YouTube Membership program for exclusive perks like members-only live streams and Q&As and early access to episodes. Your membership support directly helps John, Greg and Todd to deliver expert insights into aviation safety.
Interested in partnering with us? Sponsorship opportunities are available—brand mentions, episode integrations, and dedicated segments are just a few of the options. Flight Safety Detectives offers a direct connection with an engaged audience passionate about aviation and safety. Reach out to fsdsponsors@gmail.com.

Music: “Inspirational Sports” license ASLC-22B89B29-052322DDB8

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.