Captain Trevor Thom (13 September 1941 to 4 December 2025) has been remembered as a highly respected airline captain, aviation educator and mentor whose influence reached well beyond the flight deck.
Thom learned to fly at the Royal Victorian Aero Club in the early 1960s before travelling overseas. On his return to Australia, he began his professional flying career at Tyabb Airport with Peninsula Aero Club and Vowell Air Services, working as both a flying instructor and charter pilot.
In 1970, Thom joined Ansett Airlines, later moving to Lufthansa/Condor following the airline dispute of 1989. Across his airline career, he served as captain on a wide range of aircraft types including the Boeing 727, 757 and 767, Airbus A320, and Douglas DC-9.
Thom was also a long-time representative and advocate for pilots, serving on numerous international technical committees. These included roles with the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA), the Aircraft Design and Operations Group in London, and the SAE S7 Flightdeck Design Committee in the United States. He also worked closely with the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) throughout his career.
He was widely known for his aviation training manuals, which achieved broad recognition and were published in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In 1988, he received the inaugural Australian Bicentennial Award from the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators (London), recognising outstanding and meritorious individual contributions to Australian aviation.
Before aviation became his full-time profession, Thom taught mathematics and physics at Footscray Technical College, now Victoria University. After retiring from airline operations, he continued to contribute to aviation through writing, ground instruction for organisations and universities, and mentoring aspiring pilots.
His son, Daniel, said Thom lived an extraordinary life shaped by optimism, curiosity and deep devotion to family.
“He was like Forest Gump, always at the right place at the right time,” Daniel said. “Open to all opportunities, genuinely interested and intrigued by other people and the most optimistic person I know. I don’t know how he accomplished so much whilst still being a fantastic father and husband. A real family man, he was very involved with his five grandchildren.
“He said he was born lucky and said the best luck he ever had was meeting my mother Elke at the train station in Hamburg, Germany, in the mid 60s. Without her, he couldn’t have done half as much as he did.”
A memorial site for Captain Trevor Thom is available here:
https://sites.google.com/view/trevorthom/home