Earlier this month, as a result of personal circumstances and bad timing, I ended up needing to fly in five different aircraft over the course of a few days, trying to get from Buenos Aires to Tallinn to El Paso (not to mention three buses, two trains and a taxi). “It’s a good thing you like…
Read more… 19 Dec 25
Thank you so much for all the kind words. I don’t quite have the wherewithal to respond to each of you individually but I very much appreciate all of you who offered condolences and thoughtful comments. One person sent me this comic which actually made me laugh out loud. Nathan Pyle is an American cartoonist…
Read more… 12 Dec 25
My mother has died after a terrible stroke. I’m in New Mexico now, dealing with everything that follows, and I’m struggling with it all. There won’t be a post this week. I’ll be back next Friday.
Read more… 5 Dec 25
I am going to have to take a week or two off. I was already overloaded, and now there has been a family emergency that requires my full and immediate attention. Unfortunately I don’t have anything already lined up, so I’m afraid you may need to get by without me for a bit. I’m in…
Read more… 28 Nov 25
On the 6th November 2025, the residents of a small Indigenous community in Guyana’s South Rupununi looked up from their errands to see a Cessna Grand Caravan landing on the road bside their brand-new secondary school. The Caravan, registered in Guyana as 8R-THR and operated by Air Services Limited, had departed normally from Eugene F.…
Read more… 21 Nov 25
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 139, they had just flown into a ridge and subsequently crashed on the high ground. Amazingly, the flight crew were able to walk out of…
Read more… 14 Nov 25
Any Landing You Can Float Away From: Successful Ditching in the Arctic
On the 29th of July 2024, a light aircraft encountered engine trouble off the coast of Greenland and was forced to ditch in the North Atlantic. The aircraft was a…
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…
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…
Four Point Two Stars Where You Only Stop If You Have To
I always look up airports when I’m writing about them, partly out of habit and partly because I’m afraid I’ll miss an important detail. When I was writing Any Landing…
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…
Aviation Stories You Might Have Missed
I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season. This week, I’ve put together a compilation of interesting items in the press that you might have missed while enjoying…
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…