Mystery of EgyptAir Crash Solved, FAA on Red Bull Fiasco, and 172 Takes Small Arms Fire

Europe's biggest general aviation show, Aero Friedrichshafen, gets underway this week. The event, traditionally held in the spring, has had its usual place on the calendar moved hither and yon for reasons related to the pandemic. This year's show runs from April 27-30, in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

The FAA reports an unprecedented number of incidents of unruly passengers in 2022. The agency said that it was aware of reports of more than 1,200 jerk passengers, with 807 of those reports related to the wearing of face masks. The FAA added that it had initiated 386 investigations and had already issued penalties in 206 others.

The FAA is investigating the Red Bull Plane Swap stunt that went wrong, this after the agency said that it had denied permission for the stunt to take place. No one was injured when one of the two identical Cessna Skylanes went out of control after the pilots had both bailed out. One pilot, Luke Aikins, was able to successfully freefall to his counterpart's 182, but that skydiver, Aikins' cousin Andy Farrington, had to abort his attempt to fly aboard the other 182 after it began to spin. The plane was destroyed, but no one was injured, after Farrington parachuted safely.

At this year's Oshkosh AirVenture, the EAA will be celebrating 30 years of its hugely successful Young Eagles program. Since the program's debut, volunteer pilots have taken nearly two and a half million young people on flights in small aircraft.

The FAA revoked the pilot certificate of YouTube celebrity Trevor Jacob, saying that he intentionally cut power to the Taylorcraft he was flying before bailing out and parachuting to safety. Jacob, who videoed the entire sequence of events, had insisted the bail out was an actual emergency, but fellow aviators weren't buying it. Neither, it turns out, was the FAA.

Daher delivered its first TBM 960 to a private businessman in Germany. The new model features a FADEC Pratt & Whitney PT-6 turboprop engine.

 A Cessna 172 on a training flight was hit by a bullet while approaching to land at a small airport in Massachusetts. The student pilot reported that the plane began to leak gas, so he and his instructor landed, only to find later that the cause of the leak was a bullet hole. The authorities are investigating.

The NTSB says that a handful of crashes of turbocharged Cirrus SR22Ts were caused by improper management of the plane's high-boost fuel pump system. The inadvertent activation of the high-boost feature can increase the fuel flow greatly and cause the engine to lose power.

Sonex Aircraft has unveiled an unpiloted version of its SubSonex jet for potential use as a remotely piloted drone. The new model, called the TRACER, features more powerful engines and airspeeds of close to 300 knots.

The partial fuselage of a Boeing 747 that was on display at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert has a new home. The former jumbo jet, which served as an art installation/nightclub at the counterculture gathering, will now go on display in Las Vegas as part of art installation Area 15.