Pilots

The remains of a Navy pilot shot down at the onset of the Persian Gulf War -- the first U.S. combat casualty of the 1991 conflict -- have been recovered by Marines in western Iraq and identified by military specialists. The findings, based on dental records, appear to finally bring to an end the mystery of just what happened to Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher. Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had announced that Speicher was the first U.S.

NASA on Monday released partial results of a massive air safety survey of airline pilots who repeatedly complained about fatigue, problems with air traffic controllers, airport security and the layouts of runways and taxiways. Reacting to criticism about its initial decision to withhold the database for fear of harming the airlines' bottom lines, NASA released a heavily redacted version of the survey on its website Monday afternoon.

He's walked away from a midair collision and survived more than a few attempts to shoot him out of the sky. He's plucked lost hikers out of narrow mountain canyons and threaded his way through tangles of power lines to pull schoolboys from flooded storm channels. But today, helicopter pilot Tony Pachot just wants to pull off one final soft landing.

The pilot of the cargo ship that sideswiped the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in November and spilled 58,000 gallons of fuel oil was charged Monday with criminal negligence and violating two federal environmental laws. Capt. John J. Cota, 60, was charged in federal court in San Francisco with one count each of violating the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, both misdemeanors. Cota was at the helm Nov.

The attorney for the pilot of the freighter that spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay is blaming the Coast Guard and others for the mishap and said Friday that his client will refuse to testify next week at a government hearing investigating the crash. Federal prosecutors charged Capt. John Cota last month with environmental crimes stemming from the Nov. 7 incident, when the Cosco Busan sideswiped a support tower of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog.

The pilots union for US Airways said Wednesday that the airline was pressuring pilots to carry less fuel than they believed was safe in order to save money. US Airways Capt. James Ray, a spokesman for the US Airline Pilots Assn., which represents the airline's 5,200 pilots, said eight senior pilots and the union had filed complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration.

They arrived for the memorial on a recent afternoon, filing in quietly under the steel trusses of a hangar, a motley crowd in suits, in flip-flops, in evening gowns, in pith helmets. Many were strangers to one another, their common thread a man named Griffith Lisle Hoerner. It felt, one said, like there was a hole in the sky.

Ared flag alert was on, making it a perfect time for one final water drop for the Super Scooper pilot who for 13 years has led Canadian firefighters' assault on Los Angeles-area brush fires. Chief water bomber pilot Jean-Pierre Guay is retiring from a 32-year career flying the unique plane that skims over lakes and the ocean to load water and then sprays it over flaming hillsides. He returns to snowy Quebec on Wednesday after a ceremony at which county supervisors will thank him for his service.

Just before the August crash of a commuter plane that took off on the wrong runway there was some laughing, yawning and general ease in the cockpit. Comair Capt. Jeffrey Clay and First Officer James Polehinke gossiped about kids, dogs and fellow pilots while running through checklists. But they didn't discuss any problems they might encounter during the short taxi to their assigned runway at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky.

The pilot of a Continental Airlines flight became ill after takeoff and was pronounced dead after the plane made an emergency landing Saturday, a company spokeswoman said. The 210 passengers on the flight, which departed from Houston, were never in danger and the co-pilot landed the plane safely, Continental spokeswoman Macky Osorio said. The airline said only that the pilot suffered a "serious medical problem." Continental believes the pilot died of natural causes, Osorio said.