Air Safety Week's David Evans Wins International Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award

(POTOMAC, MD, July 22, 2004) "” David Evans, editor of Air Safety Week, this week won the Royal Aeronautical Society's (RAeS) prestigious 2004 Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award in the maintenance category. He accepted the award at a gala dinner in London on July 19.

Evans' May 26, 2003, Air Safety Week article, "Air Midwest Crash Exposes Systemic Shortcomings," garnered top honors this year in the Maintenance Category -- one of 15 categories in the Awards program. This is Evans' fourth RAeS award.

The story focused on the Jan. 8, 2003, crash of an Air Midwest twin-turboprop at Charlotte, N.C. All 19 passengers and the two pilots were killed as the airplane crashed shortly after lifting off. David devoted the issue to this crash and its subsequent investigation, and included historical references for context, numerous charts and graphics to illustrate the story, and extracts from the cockpit voice recording. Evans' story covered the crash from two angles: how the aircraft was incorrectly loaded and how improper maintenance contributed to the crash.

Evans said of his winning entry: "The Air Safety Week case study covered not only the FAA's obsolete program for assessing passenger and baggage weights, it addressed maintenance flaws running from inadequate manuals, ill-trained technicians, unauthorized maintenance procedures, the lack of adequate airline oversight to the lack of FAA oversight of flight-critical maintenance activity."

First presented in London in 1996, the RAeS awards were created to raise the profile of aerospace journalism globally. The competition is intense, as the awards are open to every significant aerospace and defense publication in the world, as well as many of the world's most important newspaper, television and radio companies. Typically, about 700 entries are submitted. More information is available at http://www.ajoya.com.

David Evans, who serves as the editor of Air Safety Week, has won two RAeS awards in the "safety" category, in 1999 and 2000, and one in the "avionics" category, in 2002. Air Safety Week is the only award-winning newsletter devoted exclusively to news and analysis of aviation safety.

*Many of David Evan's articles appear on this site as he has written extensively about the crash of sr111.