10 Times Thunderbirds Was Way Too Dark For Kids TV

Fireflash might well be one of the worst planes ever built. If it’s not having to crash land on top of International Rescue’s oddly convenient “Elevator Cars” in the pilot episode then it’s randomly crash landing into the sea in Operation Crash-Dive.

To be fair to Fireflash, and its designers, it was just unlucky in that every single time they tried to launch a prototype (five in all) someone came along and either tried to blow it out of the sky or plant a bomb in it.

For a programme whose bread and butter was air travel, the writers of Thunderbirds seem to have taken a pretty dim view on commercial airliners, in much the same way the writers of Spinal Tap did with drummers. Fireflash is one of the only craft to need International Rescue's help on more than one occasion. 

At a time when air travel was becoming more prevalent and people were starting to think further-afield than Bognor Regis for their summer holidays, there must have been airports full of terrified children refusing to go up in case they came straight back down with a crash.