Michel Gordillo

Miguel Ángel Gordillo, better known as Michel Gordillo (Douala, Cameroon, 1955), is a former Iberia commander flying Airbus A319, A320 and A321. In total he has more than 15,000 flight hours. He is also a glider pilot and has the silver C title for this modality.

Biography

Training and early years

He trained in the Air Force as a member of the XXXII Promotion of the General Air Force Academy of San Javier. He flew P-3 Orion aircraft for 7 years in the maritime patrol and later Falcon 20 in the King's Squadron transporting important Spanish authorities -the royal family, ministers, etc. In 1982 he graduated from the Advanced Navigator Course at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, California.

In 1987 he was going to be promoted to commander, which in practice meant that he would stop flying and carry out dispatch tasks. For this reason, he left the army and began working for Iberia as a co-pilot of DC-9 and later of MD-87 and A340. In 1998 he was promoted to commander and began flying Airbus A319, A320 and A321.

In 1998 he was the first pilot to fly in an ultralight —a Kitfox IV— from Madrid to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, United States. This trip made history because he traveled the long route, through the East, through Europe, Asia, Russia and Canada.

Around the world

In the summer of 2001, he went around the world in an experimental MCR01 single-seater plane built by himself in his home garage. The flight lasted 44 days and he was the first Spaniard to accomplish such a feat. The trip began on June 19, ended on August 1 and consisted of the following stops: Salamanca, Cuatro Vientos and San Javier (Spain), Tunisia, Sicily (Italy), Corfu (Greece), Alexandria (Egypt), Dhahran (Saudi Arabia), United Arab Emirates, Oman, Karachi (Pakistan), Nagpur and Bangladesh (India), Mandalay (Burma), Udon Thani (Thailand), Cambodia, Vietnam, Manila (Philippines), Japan, Shemya Island (Aleutians), Cold Bay (United United States), Anchorage (Alaska), Seattle (United States), Canada, Oshkosh (United States), Greenland, Iceland, England, France and finally Salamanca.

Incident with Iberia

On January 5, 2006, acting as commander of Iberia Flight 161, he refused to take off for security reasons because a fire detector on the plane had not been repaired. As a consequence of this he was dismissed.In the subsequent judicial proceeding, whose hearing was held on June 22 —after an initial postponement— the dismissal was declared unfair. Despite this, as of November 15, 2006, Michel Gordillo was still not readmitted to Iberia.^[update]

He retired at age 58.

Sky Polaris Project

In early 2014, Michel Gordillo created the Sky Polaris project with the support of the Air Force, as well as other foreign air forces, the Spanish Polar Committee and the Andalusian Center for the Environment. The objective of this was to carry out a flight in a "Van´s Aircraft" RV-8 around the world passing through the North and South Poles, while studying the effects of black carbon particles (soot) in the atmosphere. It was the first time that an aircraft weighing less than 1,500 kg had flown over the poles. The departure date was scheduled for November 15, 2015, but had to be delayed due to legal problems with obtaining permits to fly over Antarctica.

The trip began in Madrid and made stops in Jerez (Spain), Dakar (Senegal), Natal (Brazil), Manaus (Brazil), Medellín (Colombia), Mexico, D. F. (Mexico), Bahamas, Winsor (Canada) and Resolute (Canada), Longyearbyen and Ålesund (Norway), Wurzburg (Germany) and again arriving in Madrid- Cuatro Vientos. Malta, Egypt, Khartoum (Sudan), Kenya, Gan Maldives, Cocos Island, Learmonth, Perth, Ayers Rock and Hobart (Australia), Mario Zucchelli and Marambio (Antarctica), Ushuaia (Argentina), and Iguazú (Argentina), São Paulo, Brasilia, Natal and Praia (Cape Verde) and via Lanzarote to Madrid Cuatro Vientos

Offspring

Michel had 5 children