Aviation
Five real newspaper headlines about aviation, printed between 1903 and 2010, with their dates removed. Read each one and guess the year it was published. No multiple choice and no trivia questions, just the headline as it was printed.
There are 3 rounds of five in this topic, and a new one appears whenever the archive has enough for it.
Headline one
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
1903
On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made four successful powered flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with the longest lasting 59 seconds and covering 852 feet. It was the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight in history. The Virginian-Pilot was the only newspaper to report the story the following day, though its account contained several inaccuracies; the full significance of the achievement was not widely appreciated until years later.
Headline two
The Times
1952
British Overseas Airways Corporation inaugurated the world's first scheduled commercial jet passenger service on 2 May 1952, flying a de Havilland Comet from London Heathrow to Johannesburg with stops en route. The Comet carried 36 passengers at speeds up to 500 mph, cutting flight times dramatically compared to propeller aircraft. The service transformed international air travel despite the Comet's later crashes due to metal fatigue.
Headline three
The New Zealand Herald
1979
On 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901, a sightseeing DC-10, flew into the slopes of Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica, killing all 257 people on board. Investigators found the crash was caused by a navigational computer error that had unknowingly altered the flight path directly toward the mountain. The disaster remains New Zealand's deadliest peacetime accident.
Headline four
The Daily Telegraph
1989
On 8 January 1989, British Midland Flight 92 crashed onto the M1 motorway embankment near Kegworth, Leicestershire, killing 47 of the 126 people on board. The pilots had shut down the wrong engine after a fan blade failure. The disaster led to significant changes in aircraft crew training and cockpit procedures across the aviation industry.
Headline five
The Guardian
2010
The eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in April 2010 sent a massive ash cloud over Europe, forcing the closure of airspace across the continent for six days. An estimated 10 million passengers were stranded and more than 100,000 flights were cancelled. It was the largest disruption to European air travel since World War Two.
Answer the five above to see your score.
Scoring works as it does in the daily game. Each headline is worth up to 100 points, and you lose two points for every year you are out. Being a decade wrong still earns you 80. A perfect round is 500.
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