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One Typo, Wrong Continent

CGP Grey · 11.6M views · 2022-12-02 · 16:04

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Overview

CGP Grey explains why airport codes are inconsistent and sometimes confusing, from their origins in old weather station codes to the quirks that cause mistakes. He builds the story around a single typo that sent a flight to the wrong continent.

On Hacker News

HN people point to it as a fun summary of how messy airport codes are, especially in threads on aviation falsehoods and code collisions.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2022–2025

Topics

Aviation & aerospace engineeringLanguage & linguistics
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airport codesaviationiatanamingcgp grey

What people said

Titan2189 · 2025-06 · Recommendation

Great Summary of how messed up Airport Codes are by CGP Grey [VIDEO] including (attempts at) a few in-depth reasons for why these quirks exists

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simplyinfinity · 2022-12 · Recommendation

CGP Grey did a couple of episodes on runways[0] and airport codes[1] that are just fascinating and worth the watch [0] [LINK] [1] [VIDEO]

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shagie · 2024-11 · Reference

CGP Grey The Maddening Mess of Airport Codes! [VIDEO] I'd rather deal with designing tables to properly represent names.

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by CGP Grey, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources