A helicopter’s crash landing in South Carolina this week may have been triggered by a civilian drone, which would make it the first drone-related crash of an aircraft in the US. The incident Wednesday involved a student pilot and an instructor, both of whom told investigators that a small drone appeared directly in front of them, according to a Charleston Police Department report. The instructor took over the controls and attempted to avoid a collision, and the tail of the helicopter hit a tree or brush, triggering a crash landing. The NTSB announced Friday it is opening an investigation into the crash, spokesman Chris O’Neil said. “The NTSB is aware of the pilot’s report that he was maneuvering to avoid a drone, but the NTSB has not yet been able to independently verify that information,” O’Neil said. Neither the pilot nor the student was injured, though the helicopter’s tail appeared to have significant damage, said a person familiar with the incident. The accident investigation is the second incident involving a drone in less than a week and comes as aviation groups are demanding tighter regulations on civilian drone use following reports of other possible near collisions involving the devices.<br/>
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Auckland Airport chief Adrian Littlewood says a second runway is critical to the future of the company and to the city. The airport yesterday announced a 17% increase in first profit to $165.9m and has just publicly notified revised plans for another runway to the north of the existing one. Littlewood said the new runway had long been part of plans for more aircraft and had just embarked on another step in the process that has been running for the last 20 years. "Fundamentally if Auckland wants to be an international grade city you've got to have that connectivity,'' he said. "It's really important that we as custodians of this asset for the future do the right thing for over 30 to 40 years." The number of passengers through the airport is forecast to grow from around 19m to 40m a year by 2044. Concerns have been raised about more noise but Littlewood said the modified plans had the same operating hours (7am to 10pm) that had been consented several years ago. New-generation aircraft were quieter than the ones they replaced, he said. Littlewood said the company had budgeted $200m for design, engineering and planning work for the runway that could be up to 2983m. The cost of building the new runway had not been released and is separate to the $1.8b spend on infrastructure in the five years to 2022 as part of its Airport of the Future project.<br/>
Boeing has received an amended type certificate from the US FAA for the 737 MAX 9, certifying the aircraft for commercial service. The FAA certificate comes after 11 months of flight testing and affirms that the aircraft’s handling, systems and overall performance comply with aviation regulations. The type approval clears the way for Boeing to deliver the first MAX 9 to launch customer Lion Air. The MAX 9 is 2.6 metres longer than its smaller sister the MAX 8, and has a design capacity of up to 220 passengers in a single class layout and 178 in a two class configuration. It has a maximum range of 3,550 nautical miles, the same as the MAX 8. Boeing has taken just over 4,300 orders for the 737 MAX series, with 80 delivered by the end of January.<br/>
For the first time in 48 years, you can't buy a ticket on a US airline to fly on a Boeing 747. On January 3, Delta Flight 9771 touched down in Marana, Arizona, an arid boneyard for stored and cannibalized jetliners. The last of the airline's 16 jumbo Boeing 747-400s flew to a desert retirement, ending travel operations by passenger airlines in the US. Both Delta and United have been saying goodbye to the jumbo for months. A final domestic revenue flight, a last international trip, a final charter. Those last trips became more of a farewell tour than a formal end. But this departure on ship 6314 was the true grand finale. Pan American Airways debuted the enormous two-deck airliner in January 1970, and flights by US passenger airlines have been flying uninterrupted ever since. The 747 was a marvel of engineering when it first flew months before the first moon landing in 1969. Earning the moniker "queen of the skies," the 747 was postage stamp famous, an icon of pop culture, and the backdrop of movies, television and a flying emblem of the US presidency as Air Force One. "Everybody stands up at the terminal and goes to the glass and they go 'that's a 747'," said Capt. Stephen Hanlon, 62, Delta's chief 747 pilot, who was in command of the final flight. While the sheer size of the 747 is its most famous attribute, that wasn't primarily why the 747 that attracted many of the world's airlines. Many bought jumbo 747s because of their incredible endurance. The iconic jumbo jet has been fading since the late 1990s. The global 747 fleet peaked at more than 1,000 in 1998. That's when smaller twin-engine jets like the Boeing 777 really began filling fleets. It could fly just as far, and airlines didn't have to worry about filling all the seats.<br/>