Now that it’s winding down, we can say it definitively: 2019 had some blockbuster stories, the top ten of which we’ve recognized here. As is always the case in aviation, where nothing except the planes themselves go very fast, many of the stories are high, or low, points in long-running tales while others are encapsulations of movements that have been hinted at before and that arrived fully formed in the past year. All of them, it’s safe to say, have roots in the past along and will surely continue to affect GA, some of them for years or decades to come.
8. Crash of the 9-0-9s
The crash earlier this year of the Collings Foundationâs Boeing B-17 bomber in Hartford, Connecticut, claimed the lives of seven, including a pilot who was dear to many in the vintage warbird community. It also raised the hackles of a few politicians, who couldnât help but weigh in on a topic they knew almost nothing about.
Read more about the crash 9-0-9.
Read Isabel Goyer's Going Direct about how people talked about the crash.