{"id":8587,"date":"2025-11-03T08:12:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T08:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=8587"},"modified":"2025-11-03T08:12:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T08:12:56","slug":"he-has-been-a-skilled-pilot-for-50-years-calista-flockhart-defends-the-83-year-old-star-after-his-2020-runway-near-miss-slamming-reckless-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=8587","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe has been a skilled pilot for 50 years\u201d: Calista Flockhart defends the 83-year-old star after his 2020 runway near-miss, slamming “reckless” claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harrison Ford\u2019s films have made him one of the most recognisable adventure figures on screen \u2014 but off screen, flying is the passion he has chosen for himself.<\/span>
And that passion continues to draw commentary.<\/span><\/p>\n

After an April 2020 runway near-miss at Hawthorne Airport \u2014 and still-fresh memories of his March 2015 forced landing in a vintage PT-22 \u2014 online criticism resurfaced with a familiar tone: an 83-year-old star should not still be in the air.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some users framed the incidents as proof of indifference to risk.<\/span><\/p>\n

The criticism<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cReckless.\u201d<\/span>
\u201cToo old.\u201d<\/span>
\u201cStill flying because he cannot give it up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The accusation \u2014 repeated again and again online \u2014 was that Ford\u2019s continued flying is no longer a matter of skill, but stubbornness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rebuttal from someone who sees it up close<\/span><\/h3>\n

Calista Flockhart \u2014 Ford\u2019s wife since 2010 \u2014 rejects that narrative entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHe has been a skilled pilot for more than 50 years\u2026 he was more careful than anyone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She has said the 2020 incident is being framed as a story about age, when the relevant question should have been the same one aviation investigators always ask first:<\/span>
what actually caused the event that day?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The record, when checked, is more complex than one meme<\/span><\/h3>\n
    \n
  • \n

    Ford did not begin flying professionally late in life \u2014 he began training decades ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    He has logged thousands of hours.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    He has flown rescue missions in Wyoming \u2014 the opposite of the caricature of selfish thrill-seeking.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    And crucially \u2014 in the 2015 crash \u2014 the NTSB did not<\/strong> conclude he caused the engine failure.<\/span>
    They concluded a mechanical part failed.<\/span><\/p>\n

    They also noted that landing on a golf course rather than a street or densely populated area showed quick thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Why this debate keeps resurfacing<\/span><\/h3>\n

    Age is easy to frame as a headline.<\/span>
    Investigations, licence qualifications, meteorology reports and mechanical findings take longer to understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Aviation has always been a field where risk cannot be reduced to a single variable \u2014 not even age.<\/span><\/p>\n

    What the argument is really<\/em> about<\/span><\/h3>\n

    It is about whether a long r\u00e9sum\u00e9 \u2014 including rescue flights, Young Eagles ambassadorship, and decades of incident-free hours \u2014 should be erased or condensed into one label:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u201ctoo old.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Flockhart\u2019s point is that Ford is not clinging to a past identity \u2014 he is continuing a discipline he has maintained with seriousness for most of his adult life.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Her framing is simple:<\/span><\/p>\n

    the incidents were part of aviation reality \u2014<\/span>
    not a character trait.<\/span><\/p>\n

    And whether one agrees or not, her rebuttal shifts the conversation back toward evidence over assumption \u2014 and toward evaluating a pilot by skill, not by birth year.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Harrison Ford\u2019s films have made him one of the most recognisable adventure figures on screen \u2014 but off screen, flying is the passion he has chosen for himself.And that passion continues to draw commentary. After an April 2020 runway near-miss at Hawthorne Airport \u2014 and still-fresh memories of his March 2015 forced landing in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}