Stupid Pilot Tricks

While the self-righteous denigrate those who mess up, we shout our barbaric yawp in praise of folly.

pberge

Friday, January 10, 2025 at 10:12 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The article humorously reviews a selection of 2021 aviation accidents, primarily focusing on pilot errors and poor judgment as documented by NTSB reports.
Incidents ranged from helicopter mishaps (e.g., collisions, striking wires, flying without proper endorsements) to fixed-wing blunders (e.g., attempting stunts, landing on wrong surfaces, gear retraction errors).
A consistent theme is pilots exhibiting a severe lack of situational awareness, disregarding operational regulations, and sometimes intentionally non-compliant behavior.
The most egregious accident involved a large business jet attempting takeoff with multiple critical errors, including being significantly overweight, incorrect trim, insufficient runway length, and piloted by an uncertified captain whose licenses were revoked.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Once again it’s time to review 365 days and sleepless nights of merriment and angst afforded the flying community by those who think “safety first” is the initial rehab step after crashing.

Rules: Any documented goof is fair game, but we don’t shade the dead; might come back to haunt us. We lampoon 2021, the most recent year that NTSB (National Transportation Something Board) provides “completed” analysis of accidents from the year that brought us COVID, Prince Harry, and Megyn.