It was a quiet Saturday in Tampa on the 5th of January in 2002. A 15-year-old high-school student arrived at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International (KPIE). He started learning to fly May the previous year and had been taking lessons at the airport once or twice a month. He had a flying lesson scheduled for 17:00.…
Read more… 24 Jan 14
Today, I have a chilling ATC transcript for you from Plane Crash Info.com. Plane Crash Info, run by Richard Kebabjian, is an excellent database of aviation incidents, including photographs, statistics and articles on unusual accidents. Last words is a heart-breaking series of cockpit voice recordings and transcripts from fatal crashes, forcing us to remember that…
Read more… 17 Jan 14
There’s this viral set of photographs going around of the UTA Flight memorial. It’s a fascinating story and I think it is the most amazing modern memorial. It was originally featured in Google Sightseeing in 2009. Even by Saharan standards, the Ténéré region of northern Niger is pretty desolate: a vast sea of sand, broken…
Read more… 10 Jan 14
I’m travelling so just a quicky today. This silent film, 1910 Aeroplane Flight and Wreck shows M. Cody piloting an aeroplane that almost certainly shouldn’t be able to fly. It was filmed on 23 June of 1910, although it’s not known who by. The clip is particularly interesting because the camera follows the plane, which…
Read more… 3 Jan 14
Last week, the NTSB held the Asiana Flight 214 Investigative Hearing. On the 6th of July 2013, Asiana Flight 214, a scheduled passenger flight from Incheon, South Korea to San Francisco, CA, crashed on final approach after striking the seawall a few hundred feet short of the runway. The investigation is continuing but a key…
Read more… 13 Dec 13
Last week, international news headlines were filled with the headlines of a Boeing 747 that landed at the wrong airport. Meanwhile, pilots all over the world cringed at the thought of making that kind of mistake and ending up in the media spotlight. But of course the question on most people’s lips has been, how…
Read more… 22 Nov 13
On the 19th of February 2023, a private pilot arranged to meet with a flight instructor at Birr Airfield to fly a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. That morning, the flight instructor…
On the 9th of August 2024 at 16:22, Voepass flight 2283, a scheduled flight from Cascavel, Paraná, to Guarulhos, São Paulo entered a flat spin and crashed into a residential…
There are a number of reasons why you might need to quickly point out the differences between a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and a Eurofighter EF2000 Typhoon. You might…
A few days ago (21st of May 2024), Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 encountered heavy turbulence on a passenger flight from London-Heathrow to Singapore. There were 229 on board, including eighteen…
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…
This week, we have a guest post by J.B. Rivard who wrote an article for the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) and used one of my articles as a reference.…
Mistakes were made. All of them were mine. Before I left for Dresden, I planned out my full itinerary. Berlin is a much busier airport than Tallinn, so I needed…
I’m in Dresden at the moment and I’m afraid I haven’t had a free moment to write you a new article. Luckily, lots of other people are on the internet…