Category: Accidents and Incidents
TNflygirl and the Beech Debonair
On the 7th of December 2023, a Beech 35-C33 Debonair crashed into terrain. The private pilot and the passenger, the pilot’s father, were both killed on impact. The private flight departed Knoxville Downtown Island Airport for a 430-nautical-mile flight to Saline County Regional Airport in Arkansas to pick up some avionics equipment. It was a…
Read more… 20 Feb 26
At All Costs
On the 11th of December 2024, the passenger in the right seat of a 1973 Grumman AA-5 was recording a video as they approached Pearland Regional Airport in Texas. The passenger shared later how things started to go wrong. “First the headsets went out, then the radio, then the avionics,” they wrote. “We knew we…
Read more… 13 Feb 26
Air India flight 132 Fuel Switch Problem Doesn’t Solve the Mystery of Flight 171
On the 2nd of February 2026, Air India flight 132 departed London Heathrow for a scheduled passenger flight to Kempegowda International Airport. The 9 hour 45 minute flight in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was uneventful and landed safely at Bengaluru (Bangalore) at 11:54 local time the following day. The eventful part happened before the flight, documented…
Read more… 6 Feb 26
Any Landing You Can Float Away From: Successful Ditching in the Arctic
On the 29th of July 2024, a light aircraft encountered engine trouble off the coast of Greenland and was forced to ditch in the North Atlantic. The aircraft was a Piper Malibu (PA-46-310P), registered in Germany as D-EOSE, one of the earliest pressurised aircraft available to the general aviation market. Two pilots were on board,…
Read more… 17 Jan 26
LATAM 767 Hard Landing at Atlanta
On Tuesday evening, a routine commercial passenger flight touched down at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport. All eight main landing gear tyres exploded on impact. The aircraft, a Boeing 767-316ER, registered in Chile as CC-CXF, was operating as LATAM flight 2482, a commercial flight from Lima, Peru to Atlanta, Georgia US. They departed Lima at 12:14 local…
Read more… 10 Jan 26
Bomber 139’s Third Run: What the Investigation Found
In order to follow this analysis, you’ll need to have the details of the flight and the crash from last week’s article about the flight. When we last saw Bomber 139, they had just flown into a ridge and subsequently crashed on the high ground. Amazingly, the flight crew were able to walk out of…
Read more… 14 Nov 25
Accident Reports
Bomber 139's Third Run: Downhill to Disaster
On the 6th of February 2023, a Boeing 737-3H4 Large Air Tanker crashed into a ridge line of 222 feet elevation in Fitzgerald River National Park in Western Australia. There…
It's clear, but just barely: Ground collision at Seattle
There was light snow and congestion on the morning at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on the 5th of February 2025. Visibility was good but the temperatures hovered just above freezing and…
Demystifying
Trump Threatens to Ground Canadian Aircraft Over Gulfstream Certification
The US President, Donald Trump, posted the following to Truth Social last night. Based on the fact that Canada has wrongfully, illegally, and steadfastly refused to certify the Gulfstream 500,…
Another quick round of questions and answers
It’s time for another Questions and Answers session. I started this series a few years back, when a reader asked if there was a way to pose aviation questions outside…
History
Four Point Two Stars Where You Only Stop If You Have To
I always look up airports when I’m writing about them, partly out of habit and partly because I’m afraid I’ll miss an important detail. When I was writing Any Landing…
Gladys Ingle Inflight Wheel Change: Emergency Action or Stunt?
This video of a mid-air wheel exchange goes viral once a year or so, but I never get tired of watching it. Last week, it showed up on Reddit and…
Fun Stuff
Aviation Stories You Might Have Missed
I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season. This week, I’ve put together a compilation of interesting items in the press that you might have missed while enjoying…
Nathan Pyle Strange Worlds
Thank you so much for all the kind words. I don’t quite have the wherewithal to respond to each of you individually but I very much appreciate all of you…
