Airplane News: FAA Reauthorization Act, Crash Landing on Freeway, and Joby Part 145 Maint. Cert.

Welcome to your weekly General Aviation news update, and this week we have 3 stories for you; FAA Reauthorization Act progresses, Challenger crash landing on FL Freeway, and Joby gets a Part 145 Maintenance Cert.

First up this week is the FAA reauthorization act, which has progressed through the Senate committee. The committee voted against raising the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 67, with at 14-13 vote. Other changes included increasing CVR recording times to 25 hours, increasing the number of people in certification/enforcement, increasing air traffic controllers, adding additional runway surveillance at airports, and boosting civil penalties for airline violations from $25,000 to $75,000. We’ll keep you updated when we see more about the FAA Reauthorization. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/senate-committee-rejects-pilot-retirement-age-boost/ Next up this week is a sad one, a Challenger 604 owned by Hop-A-Jet made a crash landing on highway I75 in Naples, FL. The crash was recorded by a number of cellphones and dash-cams and video has been posted all over social media. The jet was in the final phases of flight having flown from Columbus, OH with an intended destination in Naples. Unfortunately, both pilots were killed in the accident. The flight attendant and two passengers were able to escape the jet before a fire consumed the aircraft. We’ll keep you updated when we see more about this accident. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/at-least-two-dead-in-challenger-freeway-crash/ Last up this week is Joby, who has received its Part 145 Repair Station Certificate from the FAA. The Part 145 certificate allows Joby to perform maintenance and repairs on its aircraft. With the new maintenance certificate, Joby will also be offering paid on-the-job training for those interested in working as eVTOL technicians. If you haven’t heard of Joby, the company is an air taxi manufacturer who received an FAA Part 135 in 2022, began production in 2023, and has already delivered aircraft to the Air Force. Joby will also be operating their air taxis in the UAE starting in 2026. Lots of innovation happening in the realm of eVTOLs! https://aviationsourcenews.com/general-aviation/joby-aviation-gains-faa-part-145-maintenance-certification/ https://airwaysmag.com/joby-evtol-air-taxi-services-uae/ Alright, that’s it! Have a great week and we’ll see you next week.