Plane accidentally flew around the world (2018) | Hacker News Reader

Plane accidentally flew around the world (2018)

medium.com

327 pointsomnibrain77 comments

I am kinda sad that the Brazillian part in that story is how they forced them to stay because of Yellow Fever, but then they stole stuff from inside the plane...

The saddest part of this, is that I am not even surprised :(

As Brazillian I deal all the time with online distrust with Brazillians, and often when people explain why they distrust us, I can't fault them, there are even online games where Brazillians have their own server separate from the rest of the planet just to "silo" Brazillians from other people, to prevent Brazillians from ruining their fun or causing damage.

Well, don’t read too much into that. There are rude people everywhere.

From what I know, Brazil produces high-quality software developers/computer scientists (elixir and Lua come from Brazil).

Of course there are big social issues in Brazil but… aren’t there in all western countries? Poverty, unemployment, violence (maybe Brazil is an outlier in this case), etc.

> for example the excellent popcorn time

Popcorntime is the smartest there is for media consumption, but not exactly an example you want to cite here. Its a software that operates in an illegal area.

Poporntime is not illegal strictly speaking, it's a software that allow to display movies as you download them via torrents. What is illegal is the source of the torrents not there mere interface provider (which also allow you to see legal)

Thats just silly, we all know what it is used for and why it is used for and why it was built. Popcorn time has an in built search by default that looks for pirated movies. I dont have to add any indexers. Popcorn time never had a any streaming deals, so all the movies in its screenshots from github are streamed via illegal torrents, which itself is illegal.

to be clear: Yes popcorntime is illegal because it includes by default links to illegal providers. however popcorntime could trivially become legal by removing those links and letting the user provide them instead.

So its not exactly legal in its current state right, that’s my point.

Brazil has smart people, but boy do they have a crime problem. Brazil is to the US as the US is to the UK when it comes to gun crime, for example.

From where I come from, ie russians have much worse reputation online in general than brazillians (this was pre-ukraine war). I wouldn't read too much into that

to be honest your post sounds a lot like some Egyptians I know who seem compelled to apologize for the endemic tourist scams, bribery/shakedowns/corruption, unethical taxi drivers, sexual harassment etc in Cairo.

If I were Egyptian I would apologize for those folks.

Is that bad?

Yes? You are not Egyptian. And one Egyptian should not be forced in any way to apologize for others Egyptians.

I am an American and I feel the urge at times to apologize for other Americans.

Especially when I am traveling abroad. We can be quite bad tourists.

> As Brazillian I deal all the time with online distrust with Brazillians, and often when people explain why they distrust us, I can't fault them, there are even online games where Brazillians have their own server separate from the rest of the planet just to "silo" Brazillians from other people, to prevent Brazillians from ruining their fun or causing damage.

Nem todos pensam assim. Sou gringo, moro no rio e acho que o brasileiro é gente boa! TMJ

Was that in the linked article? Or did you read that somewhere else?

As others said, the fact is that scumbags exist everywhere, and Brazil is certainly not exempted from this. Another fact is that Brazil is obscenely huge. The country is almost the size of Europe, and the number of online Brazilians nowadays is probably larger than some European countries' entire population. So, given that the ratio of scumbags is probably and roughly the same for every country in the world, the chance of anyone running into a scumbag Brazilian online is naturally larger than average, which tricks our biased brains into believing that "whoa, Brazil must be filled with scumbags".

And of course, the notoriously pervasive "stray dog syndrome", a sentiment that every Brazilian thing is inferior than its imported counterpart (including manufactured goods, culture and whatnot), and which is hammered into the unconscious mind of 11 out of 10 Brazilians from a very young age (myself included), only helps strength this confirmation bias.

A lot of people dismissing your concerns as "bad eggs everywhere". I appreciate you speaking out against this.

Apologizing on behalf of others is a valid signal towards properly judging individual motives vs cultural influence. I do not want to be too quick to blame someone for acting distrustful if they grew up in a very distrustful environment / culture.

This is pure Aussie:

> The scene that greeted the four as they disembarked at the dock was one of pure chaos. Darwin was in the midst of an invasion scare. Worse, the arrival of the first freighter full of beer in months had resulted in a temporary breakdown of military order.

As I read this I thought it sounded familiar. The story is based largely on the book The Long Way Home:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00457XJ2K/

The author acknowledges this at the end of part three and recommends that you buy the book. I recommend it too.

If you are interested in the story of the China Clippers and other flying boats, I also recommend the mini docudrama series Across the Pacific:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0887SGVPX/

And the fun movie China Clipper:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FGI69ZG/

For the short, dry version, see Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Clipper

thanks, i really wanted to see a map of the trip!

Another map and some more references: http://www.gcmap.com/featured/20220106

Am I the only one wondering why this hasn't been made into a movie? Nostalgia for that time period and a compelling tale. Just needs a love interest plot line and I think it'd do pretty well.

The love angle can be satisfied by the radio man and his wife, similar to how Ron Howard handled Jim Lovell and his family in Apollo 13.

Why do historical movies always have to have a love story inserted into them? I don't get that.

I didn't say anything about a historical movie. Sure if a historical documentary is more your thing, perhaps wait for it on the History or Discovery channel. But I'm thinking more like an Indiana Jones/Pearl Harbor/Apollo 13 style movie.

I contacted the author of The Long Way Home a few years ago. He said the movie rights had been sold. The author’s email address no longer works.

I unexpectedly flew around the world once. Was supposed to do Canada-Germany-Dubai and then back again, but Lufthansa went on strike before my flight home so I ended up doing Canada-Germany-Dubai-China-Canada.

I've done San Francisco to Hong Kong to Bangalore, then back via Frankfurt to SFO, but that's not fully around the world, and neither was your route, because we didn't cross the equator or go 20,000 km (earth's circumference), just a Northern Hemisphere smaller circle. A route involving NYC and Aukland is the real thing, and considerably longer.

> 20,000 km (earth's circumference)

it's over 40,000 km

Yes, I knew that but my fingers didn't. Or rather my brain misfired converting 25k miles to 40k km. Thanks.

I'm shocked that this story hasn't had significant discussion on HN.

Several earlier submissions, but no uptake. It is worth the read.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17018851

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15537891

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10804868

Thanks!

The first of those has 51 comments, the 2nd, 27.

I'd actually tried a few variants of search, by URL, by the flight number (including in comments) which brings up a few interesting coincidental results, and various froms of "wrong way" without luck.

Cunningham's Law strikes again!

I'm sad the bottom two links are broken, its by far the best version. Here it is preserved https://web.archive.org/web/20170615134729/http://lapsedhist...

That seems like an older version of the present article to me.

This is a must-read that I go through start to finish every time I come across it.

> I'm shocked that this story hasn't had significant discussion on HN.

This "medium" site is unreadable to me. After waiting for the page elements slowly materialize, the only text that appears is just the first sentence of an article.

Maybe other HN users with heavily adblocked browsers are equally unable to read this site?

Try replacing `medium.com` with `scribe.rip`: https://scribe.rip/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that...

https://scribe.rip is an alternative frontend to Medium.

TIL, thanks!

I had no problems reading it. I too use an adblocker, and additionally block all third–party javascript.

> I'm shocked that this story hasn't had significant discussion on HN.

It got quite a few votes before.

It's a great story and I'm glad I caught it today, I upvoted it but ... I don't really have anything to comment. I have no informed opinions to offer, related anecdotes to share, or related stories I can think of right now. It's just a great story. Comments aren't everything.

From the Panam archives: https://www.panam.org/pan-am-inspirations/634-saga-of-the-pa...

My grandfather was recruited by Pan-Am for the Pan-America-Africa project. (Hey kid, wanna learn how to fly?) and spent the WW2 years flying into many of the places mentioned in this article. It's great to read about where he spent his time before settling down as a commercial pilot. Much later on he had to dodge an errant Agean rocket that was flying where it really shouldn't have been. I bet that was a hell of a debrief.

Reminds me of Wrong Way Corrigan who "accidentally" crossed the Atlantic solo claiming his compass malfunctioned.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wrong-way-corrig...

Every time I see this posted I read it all over again. Such a great story. It would make a terrific movie.

Indeed, in this story are adventure and true grit in the most pure form. Been a while since I read it, but that's definitely not clickbait.

This is a splendid read. Flying 300 meters off the deck, without radio contact, detailed charts, or friends on the ground, reminds me very much of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's writing in _Wind, Sand, and Stars_.

It's a tragedy that none of the 314s survive to this day. What an amazing period in aviation history.

I thought this was fiction until I read HN comments. Not sure I like this style for this sort of story.

welcome to medium

Welcome to story-telling. I’m enjoying it!

Medium isn’t at fault here, it’s just the platform. Which, I’ll also say, in this case is just fine.

I love this style. Just compare it to the Wikipedia article. So dry and boring with no sense of how amazing this accomplishment was.

All the dialogue feels like fiction, and probably is, but the underlying story is mostly accurate from what I've read in other sources.

I have read this story quite a few times but I still wonder what happened to the aircraft. I hope it's in a museum or still being flown.

"After the war it was sold to Universal Airlines but was damaged in a storm and ultimately salvaged for parts."

- "December 7, 1941 and the First Around-the-World Commercial Flight". Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. December 8, 2011.

A sad end for what could have been preserved for history. It's a crying shame isn't it?

Is the history in the artefact or the story?

For an early history of Pan Am and the Pacific along with this story check "China Clipper: The Age of the Great Flying Boats" by Robert Gandt. The audiobook is ok but you need to download the supplemental pdf.

I gotta admit the plane-tower conversation would make a great end to a movie.

Would someone kindly explain why this is considered round the world? I see a gap between NYC and SF…

They went the "long way around". As a flying boat their operations are centered on the oceans, not land. This route operated over the Pacific Ocean. So going through Africa to reach NYC is "around the world". In fact the crossing of Africa was itself harrowing because they had limited places to "land".

Plus I'm guessing the plane eventually made its way back to the west coast.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. At one point I caught myself holding my breath. Thanks for sharing.

Kind of an irrelevant question I suppose - but did they have to pay for the fuel at each stop? The way it's written the various bases gave them fuel and other things out of kindness.

Good question. I don't know how international commerce worked in the days before credit cards.

Someone else linked another version of the story in another comment, which answers it: https://www.panam.org/pan-am-inspirations/634-saga-of-the-pa...

A banker in Australia advanced them $500 USD, which was enough to finance the rest of the journey.

I believe that would be about $9k USD adjusting for inflation, which feels oddly low given the length of the flight, but I suppose they wouldn't have needed to pay for fuel or supplies at PanAm stations.

Would be better to look at the rate of 100LL fuel now compared to 100 octane at the time instead of general inflation.

The amazing part to me is that Pan Am didn't just have them land in Miami and relieve them with a fresh crew. Story is way better the way it's told, though.

I just loved this story. Was just commenting to a friend my love of fictionalized low-key WW2 stories based on real events, like Sloan Wilson's "Ice Brothers" (loosely based on his experience with the Greenland Patrol during WW2).

This article is well written, enthralling and based on real events. I would definitely watch a movie about this.

With no love interests added in, please!

There's also The Double Sunrise[0] flight, which was a regular scheduled long-range flight between Australia and Sri Lanka

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Double_Sunrise

This is an incredible story. It's crazy how they aren't better known for this feat.

This is such a great story all-around. I've long been fascinated by the Clippers, and find this true story far, far better than fiction like Ken Follett's Night Over Water. It would make a great movie!

This is an unbelievable story and I really enjoyed the read. Thanks for posting it.

This is an epic. I can't believe I've never even heard of it before.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't an accident

WING ATTACK, PLAN R

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