AvTalk Episode 370: The man collecting Spirit’s pieces
AvTalk - Aviation Podcast
Flightradar24
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Also on this week’s episode, a tragedy in Denver as a man intentionally entered the runway and was struck by a departing Frontier flight. FedEx returns the MD-11 to service, Lufthansa Group ups its stake in ITA Airways and orders new aircraft, while Air India formalizes its summer schedule reductions in the face of geopolitical and economic headwinds. The FAA says it will now add transponders to all of its airport ground vehicles, but the agency has been reminding airports that money is available to equip vehicles for the last 3 years. And to everyone’s dismay, MHIRJ’s chief says the CRJ-200 could fly for another 20 years.
Helpful links for this week’s episode
* An early look at the latest episode of Cockpit Casual featuring Steve and his team’s efforts moving former Spirit Aircraft, as well as a heartfelt goodbye from Spirit staff
* Where former Spirit Airlines aircraft are located now
* Frontier A321neo strikes person in Denver
* NTSB two-day investigative hearing on UPS crash
* New Zealand Q300 final report
Click here for a transcript of this week’s episode.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 370 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchnik here as always with |
| 0:15.8 | Jason Rubinowitz. How are you, Ian? I'm doing well, Jason. How are you, sir? I'm good. Too bad we're |
| 0:22.4 | 10 episodes too far into the series because at the end, it would have been good to tie this in as episode |
| 0:28.4 | 360, but we got away all the way to the end of the podcast to get to that one. |
| 0:34.1 | We'll get there. We'll get there eventually. We have a very good show this week as longtime |
| 0:41.4 | friend of the show, Steve Giordano, is joining us from Nomadic Aviation Group. He'll be here. |
| 0:46.9 | How did we get a hold of him? Very, very carefully. He's going to join us to talk about what |
| 0:54.0 | happens when an airline goes out of |
| 0:55.7 | business and you need to move all of their aircraft into storage. And it's in your own backyard. |
| 1:01.5 | Yeah, at least one of them. Steve and his crew at Nomadic have moved nearly two dozen aircraft |
| 1:08.0 | over the past week and a half, and there are more to come. |
| 1:13.1 | So he's going to explain how that all works and some of the work that they've had to do, |
| 1:18.0 | and some of the challenges that they've had to deal with as they do that work a little later |
| 1:23.3 | in the show. |
| 1:24.5 | But first, we turn our attention to Denver, where over the weekend, |
| 1:30.2 | a Frontier Airlines, 831, Neo, struck a person on the runway. We've since learned |
| 1:38.2 | that that person scaled a perimeter fence at the airport and intentionally walked onto the runway. |
| 1:45.3 | The Denver medical examiner has ruled that person's death a suicide. Thankfully, no one on the aircraft was |
| 1:51.8 | seriously injured. Though it did cause an engine fire, the pilots rejected the takeoff, |
| 1:59.3 | were able to stop the aircraft on the runway. Because of |
| 2:02.7 | that engine, fire and damage to the aircraft, smoke-filled the cabin, so they elected to evacuate |
| 2:07.8 | the aircraft on the runway. During the evacuation, 12 people were injured, five were sent to the hospital. |
... |
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