Category: History –  Page 7

The first supersonic jet bomber

This week, I am away camping in rainy North Wales. However, my friend Tatiana works for Picryl (https://picryl.com), a cross-platform application to find traces of history in photos, rare and ancient books, photos, posters and postcards in hundreds of sources like Library of Congress, the Internet Archive, and NASA. Tatiana is an aviation geek too…

Read more… 24 Jun 16

Another Unsolved Mystery: The Kinross Incident

The Kinross Incident is a famous aviation accident which many still believe shows proof of an extraterrestrial encounter. The story unfolds in late November in 1953 over the Great Lakes. The Air Defense Command was activated in 1946 to offer air warning and air defence for the continental United States. The plan was to extend…

Read more… 3 Jun 16

The Mysterious Disappearance of Foxtrot 94

This is one of my favourite aviation mysteries, in which a military pilot is reported as chasing after an unidentified object in the sky which he describes as glowing in a golden light before disappearing completely. His aircraft was found at the bottom of the lake, with the canopy shut and no trace of the…

Read more… 1 Apr 16

The Mystery of the Hawaii Clipper

Pan American Airways was founded in 1927 to offer air mail services as a response to German-owned Colombian carrier SCADTA who was moving north from Colombia and lobbying hard for landing rights in the Panama Canal Zone. The US government approved Pan Am’s mail delivery contract and protected it from US competitors, glad that SCADTA…

Read more… 26 Feb 16

Aircraft Lost to the Bermuda Triangle: Airborne Transport (1948)

As aviation and maritime safety has increased, one doesn’t hear so much about the Bermuda Triangle so much anymore. Known as the “Devil’s Triangle”, it wasn’t so long ago that it was considered the biggest mystery of the time. The first reference to this mysterious and dangerous area which appeared to be swallowing ships and…

Read more… 15 Jan 16

The Mystery of Northwest Orient Flight 2501

On the 23rd of June, 1950, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 was flying from New York’s La Guardia airport to Seattle Washington when it disappeared into the night. Northwest Airlines Corp was a US airline, which was founded in 1926 primarily to carry US mail. They began carrying passengers within the first year and began…

Read more… 4 Dec 15

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…