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.
FAA's six-year time frame for getting Boeing 737 rudder system upgrades done on 2,000-odd U.S.-registered 737s offers little wiggle room to accommodate certification slippages or equipment supply hiccups, several industry organizations said.
FAA in early October published a draft rule that, once finalized, would mandate corrosion prevention and control programs (CPCPs) for all airliners within two years. The requirement sounds more burdensome than it is, however, as many older-model planes are under CPCPs mandated by individual airworthiness directives (ADS) that, in FAA's words, ``parallel'' the new proposal.
NTSB wants FAA to weed out aircraft cabin pressure altimeters that, under extreme circumstances, can display inaccurate information. The board, probing several incidents, found that certain dial-type altimeters can, as pressure drops, inaccurately show a high pressure as the gauge falls below the lowest value, comes around the bottom of the gauge, and goes back into the high-value zone. Installing a hard stop for the pointer or upgrading the dials to digital displays are two ways to fix the problem, NTSB said in a letter to FAA.
