As bird strikes go, this one had to be a doozy. Late Tuesday night, American Airlines flight 1855 from Chicago to Kansas City flew through birds on approach, about 7 and a half miles from the runway. The pilots declared an emergency and Kansas City airport fire and rescue trucks hurried into position. The pilots landed safely and there were no injuries to passengers or crew. Looking at the damage though, which extends across the front of the aircraft, it appears the engine cowling took the brunt of the impact on the right along with the radome while birds created craters on the leading edge… Read More…

“There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots,” or so the saying goes. Then again, there is Pete Goutiere who turns 106 today. From 1943 until 1947, Capt. Goutiere was one of the American pilots for China National Aviation Corporation (owned in part by Pan American World Airways) who was helping to bring into China, troops, food, fuel and other supplies after Japan severed China’s only land supply routes through Burma. Pilots of these flights were required to fly between India and China, over the Himalayans in heavily-loaded, unpressurized airplanes, at altitudes that barely skimmed the rugged… Read More…

The final report on the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 tells a lengthy but ultimately old story; many things combined to lead to the October 29, 2018 disaster that killed 189 people. The National Transportation Safety Committee details nine as it lists the shortcomings of Lion Air, Air Nav Indonesia and Boeing. Incorrect, flawed, erroneous, incomplete and ineffective are just some of the damning words that litter the list of contributing factors. But it is its recommendation to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration that goes to the heart of the global debate that heated up with the twin Max disasters. What is the… Read More…

Full disclosure, I own and have read nearly every book ever written by William Langewiesche. He is a gifted writer with a stunning intellect and this is just an aside, he’s quite the looker. I have interviewed him twice but with his latest article in The New York Times Magazine, I think my crush is over. In a lengthy piece just published, Langewiesche weaves the known facts of the two 737 Max disasters into a jumble of opinion, pilot-bashing and Western superiority. Ostensibly, he is informing Times readers that not all pilots are Chuck Yeager and to justify the headline of the article, when it… Read More…

There is a genre of aviation writing, typified by Antoine St. Exupery, Ernest K. Gann, Richard Bach and Rinker Buck that focuses on the link between the machine and the person flying it. These pilots write not just about the sky around them but the space within. Chesley Sullenberger’s fine memoir, Highest Duty, My Search for What Really Matters, joins this group. In the year months since he brought crippled US Airways Flight 1549 safely down in the Hudson River, Chesley Sullenberger has become the face of modern aviation. But it is doubtful he would ever have put pen to paper had fame not been… Read More…