Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about the airline industry and aviation safety. Dec 28, 2014, 08:26am EST Dec 28, 2014, 08:26am EST This article is more ...

When we hear the words “pitot tube,” we tend to think more of airplanes than of air ducts, but [Franci Kopač]’s guide to pitot tubes for makers shows that they can be a remarkably versatile tool for ...

It's frightening if not ironic to think an invention from the early 1700s could have triggered a chain of events that brought down Air France Flight 447. Pitot tubes that today measure airspeed were ...

The Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea off Indonesia earlier this week had experienced problems with the sensors used to calculate altitude and speed on its previous flight, an issue that ...

Faults similar to those on an Air France Airbus that crashed into the sea on 1 June were major factors in two little-noticed fatal losses of passenger jets more than a decade ago. Blocked sensors, ...