Sean Broderick covers aviation safety, MRO, and the hardware side of the airline business from Aviation Week Network's Washington, D.C. office.
Broderick's aviation career started in 1991, working for Airbus in Toulouse. His industry experience includes four years with an aviation consultancy, where he helped launch a U.S. Part 121 carrier; 12 years with the American Association of Airport Executives, where he served as editor of Airport Magazine; and 20 years in full- and part-time roles with Aviation Week writing primarily about safety and the aftermarket.
Broderick was named the 2020 Aerospace Journalist of the Year by the Aerospace Media Awards. He also shared in a 2020 Neal Award for Best News Coverage with Aviation Week Network colleagues. Broderick and Aviation Week colleague John Croft shared the 2015 Flight Safety International Cecil A. Brownlow Publication Award recognizing "significant contributions by journalists to aviation safety awareness."
He graduated from James Madison University with a B.S. in Communications ('91) and earned an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications ('13) from West Virginia University.
The FAA says conclusions reached in a years-in-the-making industry-government report on how flight deck automation is affecting flight path management both validates many existing agency initiatives and provides specific direction for additional areas of focus.
New information from Airbus has prompted the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to drastically reduce a proposed compliance window for replacing a faulty Airbus A320-family landing gear door component tied to at least one gear-up landing. The revised proposed airworthiness directive (PAD) would give A320-family operators as little as one year to swap certain main landing gear (MLG) door actuators. An original draft, issued in August, proposed a five-year window. In September, EASA issued a second version, cutting the interval to three years.
An unexplained mix-up at a repair station caused a Canadian British Aerospace Jetstream 31 operator to return an aircraft to service with expired landing gear components, prompting Transport Canada (TC) to warn other operators to double-check their records. The issue, outlined in a TC safety alert, focuses on a 2006 airworthiness directive (AD) issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency and adopted by TC that established life limits for certain main and nose landing gear components.
