Sometimes the best stories are the ones that aren’t so famous, where the race was not won and the record was not broken. This is such a story. It’s the story of a cat, who was neither the first cat to fly nor the first cat to cross the Atlantic. But the cat rubbed shoulders…
Read more… 15 Dec 17
I became interested in this story last year, when a reader named Niall left a comment about this rather odd item for sale on Ebay: What was the story of this piece of an aircraft, suddenly available for sale for a mere £26, seventy years after the crash? The answer took me down a rabbit…
Read more… 29 Sep 17
On Wednesday, the news hit the headlines that a newly discovered photograph could show Amelia Earhart in Japanese custody. The photograph, apparently taken by a US spy in the 1930s, shows what appears to be a seated woman with rough curly hair. The location of the photograph is given as Jaluit Atoll on the Marshall…
Read more… 7 Jul 17
On 25 March 1986, three Antonov An-32 transport planes departed Muscat, the capital of Oman, in a staggered formation for the Indian Air Force base at Jagmagar. Initially, the Indian Air Force were using Douglas DC-3 Dakotas and Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars for their transport. In the 1980s, spurred by the developing relationship between Leonid…
Read more… 9 Jun 17
The true story of Earnest Pletch is hard to believe, even almost a hundred years later. Commonly referred to as America’s first hijack, I’m not sure where else there might have been an earlier one. Also, I think it should technically be referred to as in-flight theft of an aircraft, I guess, not to mention…
Read more… 14 Apr 17
Today is the 99th anniversary of Estonian independence. Sadly, that doesn’t mean 99 years of independence. The auspicious date seems like a good opportunity for a historical post covering the most famous aviation incident in Estonian territory: when the Finnish passenger plane Kaleva was shot down by Soviet bombers as it was departing Tallinn. Kaleva…
Read more… 24 Feb 17
You may remember this 2010 incident from Aviation Herald’s great reporting which led to international attention to the case. I wrote about Aviation Herald’s work on this in: 83ft above…
On the 6th of February 2010, at about half past four in the afternoon, an SAS flight took off from Copenhagen Airport for a short flight to France. Amazingly, everyone…
With no moon or city lights to guide you, the runway lights up ahead should be a beacon of safety. However, it might be a trap known as the black…
On Monday, two commercial aircraft had a near-miss on the runway at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. The airport at Austin has two parallel concrete runways which run north-to-south: 18L/36R…
I’ve lost most of the day to unexpected research and one of the fascinating items that I discovered was the Air Force Historical Research Agency and their amazing photo collection.…
On the 21st of November 1956, the M-200 Myest (Месть, meaning vengeance or revenge) collided with a Russian destroyer and sunk to the bottom of the Baltic. The M-200 Myest…
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…
Long-term readings of Fear of Landing know that my favourite aerobatics show of all time is Kyle Franklin’s Ben Whabnoski Comedy act. Just in case some of you haven’t seen…