A mischievous airline pilot spelled out his tedium by skywriting “I’m bored” over an estuary on the border between England and Wales.
The message was captured on the airline tracking website Flightradar24.
Its data showed the Ravenair plane took off from Liverpool at 11.25am on Saturday. In a two-hour journey it flew over the Wirral, Cheshire, north Wales and Dee estuary, over which the bored message was clearly visible.
The pilot spent 20 minutes tracing out the seven-letter phrase in tight, angular loops over the water between Talacre and Greenfield. “I’ve never seen a pilot saying he’s bored by writing it in the sky,” said Aaron Rheins, a flight tracking blogger on TikTok.
The message in the sky was made at an altitude of about 335 metres (1,100ft) at speeds of just under 100 knots, according to Flightradar24.
The airline said the pilot was a flying instructor in his 20s who had taken up the Piper Tomahawk for a test flight after a part was replaced on the plane.
Its operation manager, Wayne Barrett, suggested the pilot would not face repercussions and paid tribute to his flying ability. Speaking to the BBC he said: “I think the pilot was literally a bit bored, as it was just a test flight. Mind you, it was pretty skilful flying.”
He added: “He’s not in trouble but we have had a lot of attention from it. The plane is now safely back in the hangar and the pilot is on his day off.”
Barrett confirmed the flight was necessary to test a replaced part, even if the route was unauthorised. “I think the part was a cylinder that needed replacing. So when this happens we take the plane up for a test run to make sure everything is OK, which it was,” he said.
Despite the message, Barrett said the pilot must have been highly focused at the time: “He was a bit bored but he probably had to concentrate a lot in the end to spell out the words so he was probably anything but.”
• This article was amended on 13 July 2026. An earlier version said the skywriting was over north-west England; it was over the Dee estuary on the border between England and Wales.
