Let me start by saying that the first week after a catastrophe is always a hotbed of rumours. When an aircraft is lost at sea, it usually takes a few days to a week to find the wreckage and recover any information; however ever since Malaysia Airlines flight 370, MISSING AIRCRAFT!! is headline news, with…
Read more… 20 May 16
Today’s article is written by Matthew Levenson, who is interested in aircraft from a passenger point of view rather than the pilot’s. But I think this is a subject close to most of our hearts: staying connected at 30,000 feet! Over the past decade, the rollout of free Wi-Fi services in our towns and cities…
Read more… 5 Apr 16
So, it’s been a long time coming because I wanted to make sure that the book print quality was good and that there was enough content to make it worth the print costs. I’ve finally got it all organised. Yes, that’s right. I can finally offer you a book that you can hold in your…
Read more… 2 Dec 15
A few months ago I saw some people talking about Fear of Landing on Reddit, which was pretty cool, except that one of them said “Yeah, but what’s up with the 1990s web design, wow.” I looked at my darling website, which actually was designed in 2006, thank-you-very-much, with a redesign in 2008, and I…
Read more… 30 Jul 15
Maybe not everyone should reach for the skies. The following animals may bring flightcrew to despair… Disqualified: Crocodiles The crocodile who caused a plane crash made headlines all over the world but there’s no real evidence that the croc was ever on the plane, let alone caused the passengers to stampede in fear. The idea…
Read more… 17 Apr 15
One of the odd and amusing things about running Fear of Landing is discovering how visitors found the website. My favourite report is the search engine terms. If someone searches on key words or a phrase and then my website comes up in the list of relevant sites, they can click straight through to Fear…
Read more… 23 Jan 15
On the 27th of July 2018, an experienced pilot departed with ten parachutists on board for a routine drop mission. It was the pilot’s fourth flight of the day in…
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…
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…