Share this story The sea off the Outer Hebrides in late September is the colour of wet slate, and roughly 150 nautical miles out into it sat a 43-year-old American frigate with nobody aboard. The former USS Klakring had been towed across the Atlantic from Philadelphia...
Share this story Volotea built its business on the routes nobody else wanted: Nantes to Palma, Bilbao to Athens, Verona to Catania. Small cities, medium-sized airports, very orange-and-white checkerboard tails. On 29 September 2026, the Spanish low-cost airline asked...
Share this story Toulouse has seen a great many first flights, but few in a paint scheme that looks like a cardboard box. On 29 September 2026, the first Airbus A350F, MSN700, registered F-WXLD, lifted off from Toulouse-Blagnac in its brown test livery with bright...
Share this story At 10:12 on the morning of 28 December 1944, a Japanese A6M Zero dived through anti-aircraft fire and crashed into the Liberty ship SS John Burke in the Mindanao Sea. For a few seconds there was only smoke. Then her cargo of ammunition went up, and...
Share this story At 15:45 on Tuesday, 2 October 2001, Swissair chairman and CEO Mario Corti stood in front of the cameras and announced that the airline would stop flying. By then, jets carrying the Swiss cross were already sitting on aprons from Zurich to New York,...
Share this story Most passengers get a window seat and a view of the wing. On Monday morning, 28 September, the passenger in the Air France A321 from Lourdes to Metz got the cockpit, a radio microphone, and two Rafales flying about 50 metres off the nose. Pope Leo XIV...
Share this story Turkey will not receive its first Eurofighter Typhoon until 2030. Its first Typhoon pilots, however, are already in Lincolnshire. On 27 September, the Royal Air Force announced that two Turkish Air Force pilots have started conversion training with 29...
Share this story Somewhere over the Libyan desert on the morning of 15 April 1986, the reconnaissance officer in the back seat of an SR-71 called out a warning to his pilot. Walter Watson was seeing missile launch signals on his defensive panel. Up front, Major Brian...
Share this story At 5:17 in the morning of 8 May 1927, a white biplane staggered off the grass at Le Bourget, so heavy with fuel that it barely cleared the trees at the end of the field. In the open cockpit sat two of France’s great airmen: Charles Nungesser,...
Share this story Nine red jets pull up in front of the crowd, and on a word from the leader, “Smoke on, go,” thick white trails pour from their tails. Seconds later, red and blue join the white, and the Union Flag is painted across the sky. Display smoke...
Share this story Manchester does not get many jumbo jets any more. On Saturday afternoon, 26 September, it got one it had not planned for, and by Sunday there were two of them parked side by side on the ramp. Lufthansa flight LH470 from Frankfurt to Toronto was...
Share this story Twice an hour, for three minutes, the North Atlantic fell silent. At a quarter past and a quarter to, every wireless operator on every ship within reach of 500 kilohertz stopped transmitting, pressed his headphones a little harder against his ears,...
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