Category: Crazy –  Page 5

Mystery Mali Boeing

On the 2nd of November in 2009, a burnt-out Boeing 727 was discovered abandoned in the Saharan desert of Mali in west Africa. The initial reaction was that the Boeing must have crash-landed on this spot but investigators soon discovered that it had landed safely on the make-shift desert airstrip — a dried out lake…

Read more… 18 Nov 16

Cow Takes Down Helicopter

Apologies to those who saw this on Fear of Landing’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, but I know many people only read the blog and I didn’t want anyone to miss it. This is a Robinson R22 Beta which was dragged out of the air by a cow. Well, no, it’s unfair to accuse the cow…

Read more… 23 Sep 16

The Man Who Ate a Cessna

It’s clear by now that I’m obsessively rather interested in planes but not in a weird way. I usually limit myself to considering how they fly, how they look while they are flying, and how they sound when they pass overhead. I’ve never actually considered how they taste. One man did, however. Michel Lotito, a…

Read more… 18 Sep 15

Outrageous Headline of the Day

Today, on Times Warner Cable News: Pilot Caught on Camera Texting During Takeoff Looks bad, right? Except…how the heck could a passenger even see the pilot, let alone get video of the cockpit showing the pilot texting and checking twitter? Well, let’s watch the video. The pilot was a passenger. He was apparently seated halfway…

Read more… 4 Sep 15

Homemade Gyro-Rocket-Copter Thing

When I first saw the reference to “Insane Homebrew Rocket” I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m still not sure what to think. I have to concede that it flies but I’m really not sure what to class the contraption as. A rocket-copter? One YouTube commenter calls it an orbital launch vehicle with an…

Read more… 13 Feb 15

I’m on Television on Monday!

Last autumn, I received an interesting email from a woman researching an aircraft accident. She’d read my post on Northwest Flight 188 (the pilots who flew straight past their destination) and wanted to ask my opinion about the incident and how it compared to the Air India Express last year. I started to mail back…

Read more… 24 Feb 12

Accident Reports

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…

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…

Demystifying

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…

Durga Puja Pandal Shows Air India Flight 171 Crash

The following video from a religious festival in West Bengal, India, has caught a lot of social media attention. It shows a detailed representation of an Air India Boeing Dreamliner…

History

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…

The Disappearance of the Hawaii Clipper May Not Be as Mysterious as Was Thought

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.…

Fun Stuff

The Mystery of the Caged Tyres and the Porcupine Who Flew Home

This photograph was posted to r/shittyaskflying, a subreddit dedicated to asking silly questions and giving silly answers. In this case, the photograph is enough to make one wonder what’s going…

Songs About Failed Spacecraft and Space Disasters

This week, I’m handing over Fear of Landing to my friend Jack Keller who promised me a playlist of music relating to my interests. All of the titles except one…