Clear evidence that news was more entertaining in the 80s:

    In the merry month of May
    Just before the dawn of day
    A plane flew in for Shannon to refuel.
    Because Shannon is fogged out,
    Their are the rite of ought
    To touch down in Cork Airport as a rule.
    
    As he flew towards Mallow town 
    His supply of fuel was down
    But the pilot was as cool as cool could be.
    In a racetrack west of town
    He made a safe touch down
    Just beside the Mallow sugar factory.

It appears the town is still celebrating the event: https://www.independent.ie/regionals/cork/news/family-of-mex... Publication date is 2023-03-22, so 40th anniversary.

And in the meantime they had the pilot judge a beauty contest. What a story!

There's the story of TACA 110, a Boeing 737-300 which landed on a grass levee, and took off from an auto-traffic boulevard (albeit one built on a prior NASA airfield runway).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACA_Flight_110>

I've long had a fascination with aviation incidents (the Gimli Glider happened on my birthday), but I hadn't heard of this one before!

What a great story. Thank you for posting it.

this is truly one of the takeoffs of all time