Open Air Education

09/04/2026

https://simpleflying.com/why-3-major-us-airline-pilot-pipelines-selecting-different-candidates-2026/?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=6a9770632928680001b5cb35&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwZnRzaAUHAUpwZG9mBWZkaWQWUNy9mq4RlDOIKyMX-PRKsyX7iw4SDWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7cjoq2uc0iHVzhvM4j846sy5Y9Z1QBwcxsU9Kj7VRs6Sc30hS-7ag8_cmJbw_aem_LYHDrAzEoIbjOD1Df3mjdQ

What the prospects are for aspiring aviators in America.

09/01/2026

08/29/2026

On August 25, 2019, United Captain Al Haynes died in a hospital near Seattle, six days short of his 88th birthday. Little League International put out a notice the next day. They were not mourning a pilot. They were mourning an umpire.

He had been one for more than 30 years. In 1978 he worked the Little League Baseball World Series in Williamsport, eleven years before anyone outside aviation knew his name.

He got into it by accident. He went to watch his son Dan play, the game had no umpire, and somebody handed him a rule book, a uniform and a set of safety gear. Two hours later he was calling balls and strikes. He never really stopped.

Alfred Clair Haynes was born in Paris, Texas, in 1931. He graduated from Texas A&M, entered Naval Aviation Cadet training in 1952, and served four years as a Marine aviator and flight instructor. Then he went to United Airlines and stayed 35 years.

On a Wednesday afternoon in July 1989, United 232 was a DC-10 running Denver to Chicago with 296 people aboard when the tail engine tore itself apart. The debris cut all three hydraulic systems. The flaps, the rudder, the ailerons, the brakes, all of it went. There was no procedure, because the failure was not supposed to be possible.

What Haynes had left was two throttles. He and First Officer Bill Records, Flight Engineer Dudley Dvorak, and off-duty check airman Denny Fitch, who came forward from the cabin and worked the levers by hand, flew that jet about 45 minutes to Sioux City on engine thrust alone.

They reached the runway. A wingtip caught it first, and the DC-10 cartwheeled and burned.

184 people lived. Everyone else on board did not, and Haynes carried that for the rest of his life. He said plainly that he felt guilty for surviving.

Afterwards, crews were put in simulators and given the same failure. None of them landed it.

He was called a hero for 30 years and deflected it every time. He named other people instead. His three crewmates. The flight attendants, including Rene LeBeau, who did not survive. The controllers. The first responders and the people of Sioux City, who he insisted were the reason the number was 184 and not lower.

He retired from United in 1991 and spent decades speaking to pilots about what the crew had done.

08/29/2026

On September 11, 2001, Hanna Born was a toddler in the Pentagon daycare with her baby sister when Flight 77 hit the building. Service members ran from the burning Pentagon to the daycare and carried the children out, infants still in their cribs. Every child survived.

Hanna grew up and joined the Air Force. Today she is a captain and an instructor pilot, teaching military aviators to fly the Huey.

And for the past year she has been running. On September 11, 2025, she set out to run 2,977 miles, one for every life lost that day, speaking the names of the people she is remembering as the miles add up. She finishes this September 11, on the 25th anniversary.

Her words: "My goal is to make sure that that second day doesn't come." She means the second death, the one that happens the last time somebody says your name.

08/29/2026

Lawrence Chambers took command of the USS Midway in March 1975. He was the first African American ever to command a US aircraft carrier, and he had held the job for 30 days when the moment that would define him flew up alongside.

It was April 29, 1975, the last full day of South Vietnam's existence, and a tiny 2-seat Cessna was circling his ship with its landing lights on. Inside it was a South Vietnamese major with his wife and 5 children, the youngest 14 months old. On a low pass, the pilot dropped a note to the deck: "Please rescue me! Major Buang, wife and 5 child."

An admiral on board told Chambers to order the plane to ditch in the sea. Chambers knew a ditching would likely kill the family.

So a captain 30 days into command disobeyed an admiral. He ordered the arresting wires stripped and called for volunteers to clear his crowded flight deck, and roughly 1,000 sailors, pilots and Marines came up and began pushing helicopters over the side. An estimated 10 million dollars of them.

Chambers assumed his career was finished. In his own words: "Eight more over the side isn't going to make any difference in my court martial. I mean, I'm guilty."

Then he deliberately turned his back while his crew pushed, so that when the investigators came for him, he could answer truthfully that he never knew how many went over.

The major, who had never landed on a carrier, put the little plane down perfectly. When he worried afterward that the Americans might take away his pilot's license, Chambers unpinned the aviator wings from his own uniform and pinned them on the man's chest.

Then Chambers waited for the court-martial. It never came. No inquiry. No reprimand. Three months later, the Navy promoted him to rear admiral, the first African American graduate of the Naval Academy ever to reach flag rank.

He is in his 90s now. He still keeps a copy of the note.

08/22/2026

October 16, 1956. Captain Richard N. Ogg was commanding Pan Am Flight 6, a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, en route from Honolulu to San Francisco. 31 people aboard. At 21,000 feet, two engines failed. No runway was available. Ogg ditched the aircraft on the Pacific Ocean at approximately 90 knots. All 31 evacuated safely. Zero fatalities.

January 15, 2009. Captain Chesley Sullenberger was commanding US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320, departing New York. 155 people aboard. At 3,060 feet, both engines failed after a bird strike. No runway available. Sully ditched on the Hudson River. All 155 evacuated safely. Zero fatalities.

What they have in common:

Both faced engine failure over water with no airport available. Both made split-second decisions to land on water instead of attempting impossible airports. Both executed perfect water landings. Both saved every person aboard. Both remained calm under pressure. Both made decisions that changed aviation forever.

Why Sully is remembered and Ogg is not:

Sully's landing happened in the media age. Cameras captured it. News spread instantly. A movie was made. The story became part of popular culture.

Ogg's landing happened in 1956. Before television news. Before internet. Before 24-hour media coverage. The heroism was real. The skill was identical. The outcome was perfect. But the world moved on.

Both deserve recognition.

Captain Ogg proved water landings were possible when aircraft systems failed. Captain Sully proved it 53 years later. Both showed that training, composure, and decisive action save lives when the impossible becomes necessary.

If you remember Sully, remember Ogg. They are equals in the sky. ✈️ 💙

Note: Captain Ogg Image used here is ehance and colour graded from old image exiting an aircraft.