GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
BOEING

One of the things that we do, in the basic design, is the pilot always has the ultimate authority of control. There’s no computer on the airplane that he can not override. Or turn off if the ultimate comes … If something in the box should inappropriately think it’s stalling when it isn’t the pilot can say this is wrong, and he can override it. That’s a fundamental difference in philosophy that we have verses some of the competition.

John Cashman

Chief Test Pilot Boeing 777. Interview in 1996 PBS TV show 21st Century Jet: Building the Boeing 777, Episode 1.

With about three thousand square feet of floor space, 15 lavatories, three kitchens and an occupancy of up to 376 guests, this is surely a true building. I suppose it’s the grandeur, the scale. It’s heroic. It’s also pure sculpture. I mean, it doesn’t really need to fly: it could sit on the ground – it could be in a museum. I suspect it’s one of those icons of the late 20th century that in generations hence will still be looked at in wonder.

Sir Norman Foster

in the 1991 BBC TV show Building Sights (S03E01, first aired 15 January) the architect picked the Boeing 747 for best 20th Century building. Line spoken as he walked around a Qantas 747 on the parking apron at Heathrow. He designed, among many other buildings, the Gherkin in London, the Great Court of the British Museum, and the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.

I’ve tried to make the men around me feel, as I do, that we embarked as pioneers upon a new science and industry in which our problems are so new and unusual that it behooves no one to dismiss any novel idea with the statement that “it can't be done!". Our job is to keep everlasting at research and experimentation, to adapt our laboratories to production as soon as possible, and to let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment pass us by.

William E. Boeing

Founder The Boeing Company, 1929. Inscribed on his memorial at the Boeing Developmental Center, Tukwila, WA.

Pilot Jack Waddell eased throttles forward; Co-Pilot Brian Wygle called out speeds as a gentle giant of the air began to move; Flight Engineer Jess Wallick kept eyes glues to the gauges. The Boeing Model 747 Superjet gathered speed. The nose lifted. After 4,300 feet—less than half the 9,000 foot runway—main gear of the plane left the concrete. At 11:34 a.m., with a speed of 164 miles an hour, quietly and almost serenely, the age of spacious jets began.

Boeing Magazine

First Flight, March 1969.

Some newspapers have an adversarial approach to the Boeing Company that actually nauseates me and I’ve stopped reading them. I spent fifteen years on the Boeing crash investigation committee, and I learned first hand the difference between what gets reported in the paper and what the facts are. I concluded that there was almost no relationship between what was written there and the facts, and it kind of made me nervous about reading anything else. I just quit taking the papers.

Granville 'Granny' Frazier

Director of engine programs, Boeing commercial division. Quoted in the 1996 book Twenty-First-Century Jet: The Making and Marketing of the Boeing 777.

First among these is our finding that there exists a “disconnect” between the words that are being said by Boeing management, and what is being seen and experienced by the technicians and engineers.

They hear “safety is our number one priority”, but they see that that is only true as long as you meet your production milestones. They hear “speak up if you see anything unsafe”, but they see that when they do, there’s little feedback, and if they insist, they may find themselves on the short end of the stick next time raises are distributed, or worse.

Javier de Luis

Aerospace systems engineering lecturer at MIT and member of the FAA Expert Review Panel on Boeing, report to the U.S. Senate, 17 April 2024.

Tawakalt ala Allah.

Gamil El-Batouti

EgyptAir Flight 990 co-pilot, he repeated the phrase — English translation is I rely on God — eleven times while shutting off the Boeing 767’s engines and pushing the jet into a fatal dive over the Atlantic Ocean, source NTSB, 31 October 1999.

Nobody is going to drown. The plane is pressurized.

Capt Don Gallagher

Pilot of Stevens Flight 23, a Boeing 747 that crashed and sunk under the Atlantic Ocean, 1977.

To be clear, this is all in the movie Airport '77. Captain Don was played by Jack Lemmon, screenplay by Michael Scheff and David Spector, based on the 1970 movie Airport, itself based on the novel by Arthur Hailey. It was the third movie in the Airport franchise, and actually received two Acadamy Award nominations. The premise is of course Bravo Sierra, but the plane used in filming was real, an ex American Airlines B747-123, N9667.

Thrust not achieved … falling … Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

Air India Flight 171

Last transmission from Boeing 787 before crashing after takeoff, Ahmedabad, India. 12 June 2025.

Will someone please explain to me the logic that says we can trust someone with a Boeing 747 in bad weather but not with a Glock 9 millimeter?

U.S. Senator Zell Miller

During debate in the U.S. Senate regards approving guns in cockpits. 20 September 2002.

What’s happening, Gamil? What’s happening?

What is this? What is this? Did you shut the engines?

Pull. Pull with me. Pull with me. Pull with me.

Captain Ahmed Mahmoud El Habashy

EgyptAir flight 990, last words, on returning to the cockpit, source NTSB, 13:50 EST 31 October 1999. The Boeing 767 was pushed into the Atlantic Ocean by the First Officer.

I would like to fly in a professional like manners one of the big airliners. I have to made my mind which of the followwing: Boeing 747, 757, 767, 777 and or Airbus A300 (it will depend on the cost and which one is easiest to learn).

The level I would like to achieve is to be able to takeoff and land, to handle communication with ATC, to be able to successfully navigate from A to B (JFK to Heathrow for example).

In a sense to be able to pilot one of these Big Bird, even if I am not a real professional pilot.

Zacarias Moussaoui

The alleged 20th hijacker, in a 2001 letter written to the Pan Am International flight academy. They guessed him to be a rich playboy, but when they started training him they called the FBI. Reported (with his exact misspellings) by The New York Times, 8 February 2002.

The Boeing 747 is so big that it has been said that it does not fly; the earth merely drops out from under it.

Attributed to Ned Wilson

Captain, Pan American World Airways. Quoted in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum exhibition America by Air, 2007.

In airplanes you have a choice between chocolate and vanilla. One year could be vanilla or it could be chocolate. I don’t attach any relevance to which one.

Gordon Bethune

Chairman and CEO Continental Airlines, regards buying Boeing or Airbus products, 2000. Can’t find the original source.

See nine other Gordon Bethune great aviation quotes.

When you have two engines, you have two engines that can fall to bits. When you have four, you have four that can fall to bits. The less engines you have, the safer you are.

Attributed to Frank Fickeisen

Chief engineer for Boeing, replying (with tongue in cheek) to a complaint made by the American Airlines Allied Pilots' Association about the dangers of flying two-engine airplanes like the B-777 across the Pacific.

If it ain’t Boeing — I ain’t going.

Cliché

Every year, more people are killed by injuries caused by donkeys than those caused by aircraft.

Anon

Often repeated as a comic aviation-safety 'fact', but apparently unsupported. Snopes classifies the broader donkey-vs-airplane claim as a legend. First seen in the London Times newspaper in 1987:

“The statistics on the safety of flying are immensely comforting, despite recent reports of a near-miss between a 747 and an RAF Hercules over Carlisle, and the Boeing 747 captain who apparently had to be reminded to lower his craft's undercarriage before landing at Heathrow. One expert has estimated that more people in the world are kicked to death by donkeys than die in plane crashes.”