Pilot 24

A windscreen bolt was the wrong size. The co-pilot was half-sucked out at 32,000 feet. He survived.

Sichuan Airlines Flight 8633 lost its right cockpit windscreen at 32,000 feet over China in 2018. Co-pilot Xu Ruichen was partially pulled through the opening and his torso was outside the aircraft at extreme altitude. Captain Liu Chuanjian held the controls with one hand and held his co-pilot with the other while the aircraft depressurised violently. They landed safely.

The windscreen had been installed 44 days earlier by maintenance using an incorrect bolt specification — the same failure mode as British Airways 5390 in 1990.

Does the near-identical cause to BA 5390 in 1990 suggest the aviation maintenance system failed to propagate the lesson of that accident globally?

An engine exploded on the world's biggest aircraft. The crew managed 148 system failures in 5 hours.

Qantas Flight 32 suffered an uncontained Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine failure at 7,000 feet over Singapore in 2010. Turbine disc fragments penetrated fuel tanks, hydraulic systems, and flight control wiring. The A380 had to be manually reconfigured to fly — 148 individual system warnings and failures. The crew of five spent 5 hours managing the aircraft before landing safely with 440 passengers.

The engine failure was caused by an oil pipe that was too thin — a manufacturing defect Rolls-Royce knew about.

Should engine manufacturers be required to publish all known manufacturing defects to airlines and regulators in real time — rather than managing the disclosure?

Both engines failed 3 minutes after takeoff. The captain landed in the Hudson River. Everyone lived.

US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese climbing out of LaGuardia on January 15, 2009. Both CFM56 engines ingested birds and flamed out simultaneously. Captain Chesley Sullenberger had 208 seconds to decide where to put the aircraft. He chose the Hudson River. Every one of 155 people on board survived — rescued by New York City ferries.

Captain Sullenberger later testified before Congress that decades of pilot pay cuts had depleted the experience available in the cockpit.

Is the Miracle on the Hudson the greatest single demonstration of airmanship in commercial aviation history — or just exceptional luck?

🚨 U.S. Apache Helicopter CRASH Near The Strait Of Hormuz

A mechanic used the wrong bolts to attach the cockpit window. The captain was sucked halfway out at 17,000 feet.

British Airways Flight 5390 lost its windshield at 17,300 feet over Oxfordshire in 1990. Captain Tim Lancaster was sucked halfway out of the aircraft. Flight Attendant Nigel Ogden grabbed his legs and held on for 20 minutes as the aircraft descended. The window had been replaced 27 hours earlier by a maintenance engineer who selected bolts by eye rather than measurement — 84 of the 90 bolts were the wrong size.

Captain Lancaster survived with frostbite and fractures. He returned to flying.

Should aircraft maintenance documentation require photographic verification for every component replacement — not just a signature?

Every decision Trump made about aviation — tariffs, DOGE, military procurement, Boeing, FAA — shaped the most complex industry in the world.

Aviation is not one industry. It is the infrastructure on which the global economy runs. When the FAA is understaffed, flights are delayed and safety margins erode. When Boeing loses export markets, 170,000 American jobs are at risk. When military aviation receives record investment, America's strategic position strengthens. When SAF subsidies are cancelled, the decarbonisation timeline extends by a decade. Every decision is connected to every other.

Trump did not always understand those connections. But he made the decisions that shaped them — for better and for worse — at scale.

What is Trump's most lasting impact on American aviation — positive or negative?