Share this story Thunderstorms had kept the Hindenburg circling for hours. When the giant airship finally turned in towards the mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the evening of 6 May 1937, reporters, photographers and newsreel crews were...
Share this story For decades pilots have passed a quiet piece of advice down the line: if you are struggling, do not tell the doctor. Admitting depression or anxiety could mean months on the ground, a special-issuance process that can drag past a year, and for some,...
Share this story Boston Logan does not usually lose hundreds of flights to a September weekend. This one it did. A powerful nor'easter parked off the New England coast from Friday 25 September, bringing heavy rain, coastal flooding and, crucially for aviation,...
Share this story A go-around is the one manoeuvre every airline pilot rehearses until it is boring, because when it happens for real it is anything but. Full thrust, nose up, gear and flaps coming in, a new clearance on the radio. It is precisely the moment Boeing has...
Share this story Watch a B-52 land in a strong crosswind and it looks like something has gone badly wrong. The bomber comes down the approach pointing well off to one side of the runway, touches down still pointing that way, and rolls out with its nose aimed at the...
Share this story A reel doing the rounds on Instagram poses a question that comes up in every aviation comment section sooner or later: why do Russian jets burn blue, not orange like American ones? The claim we are checking. An American jet burning blue: an F/A-18F...
Share this story On 15 December 1989, a brand-new KLM Boeing 747-400 was descending towards Anchorage, Alaska, on its way from Amsterdam to Tokyo. The day before, Mount Redoubt, about 150 miles away, had erupted. Somewhere in the grey winter sky over the Alaskan...
Share this story Fifty-two minutes after leaving New York, the pilots of Swissair Flight 111 noticed an unusual smell in the cockpit. It was the evening of 2 September 1998, the MD-11 was cruising at 33,000 feet over the Atlantic south of Nova Scotia, and nothing else...
Share this story “Flying under the radar” is one of the few pieces of aviation slang that means exactly what it says. It is not a metaphor about avoiding attention. It is a statement about geometry, and the geometry is unforgiving in both directions. Ask...
Share this story On 30 October 1963 the crew of USS Forrestal watched a four-engined transport with a 132-foot wingspan come down their deck. It had no tailhook. It had no catapult attachment. The ship’s island cleared its wingtip by about fifteen feet. It...
Share this story Milan’s Malpensa Airport now officially carries the name of Silvio Berlusconi. At a ceremony in the arrivals area of Terminal 1 on Friday 25 September, the former prime minister’s family and senior government figures unveiled the new name,...
Share this story Nobody likes reaching for it, but everyone expects it to be there. From 1 October, airBaltic passengers will no longer find a sick bag in the seat pocket in front of them. The Latvian airline, now restructuring under US Chapter 11 bankruptcy...
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