Today’s New Zealand Herald newspaper reports that the Lan Chile Airbus A340 flying from Santiago, Chile, to Auckland, New Zealand, on Tuesday night came close to being hit “by blazing pieces of a Russian satellite hurtling into New Zealand airspace. The disintegrating satellite was so close to the aircraft that the pilot could hear the roar it made as it broke the sound barrier.…At the aircraft’s cruising speed of 880km/h it was within about 40 seconds of a potential catastrophe.”
On board the plane, asleep and unaware of this drama, were Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe and the entire Pet Shop Boys touring party. Lan Chile flight 801 left Santiago late on Monday evening and, crossing the International Date Line, arrived safely at Auckland at 4 am on Wednesday morning.
Pet Shop Boys perform their debut New Zealand concert tonight at the St James Theatre, Auckland.
PSB plane “40 seconds from air disaster”
Pet Shop Boys enjoyed a beautiful start to their summer tour with festival shows in Seville, Lisbon and Madrid over the past week. After a short break, the “Dreamworld” tour is set to continue in Spain, Italy, Wales, Belgium and Sweden, before finishing in England at the end of August. All details at the link below. Photo: sirbermejo/Instagram
Recent News
Pet Shop Boys have arrived in Spain and are looking forward to their first summer show at Icónica Santalucía Festival in Seville today!
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the memorial event “This Is Navalny”, along with Pet Shop Boys’ headline performance, has been cancelled.
We regret to announce that, due to an ongoing publishing dispute over one of the songs in the film, the “Dreamworld” Blu-ray release has to be further delayed until early 2026 and will now be taken off sale.
A new visualiser video for the Pet Shop Boys remix of Tina Turner’s “Hot For You Baby” is now available to watch on YouTube.
Pet Shop Boys today release a new dance mix of “Hymn (In memoriam Alexei Navalny)”, a song dedicated to his memory and cause, which was originally released in February 2025.
Pet Shop Boys’ “Discography” is reissued on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 1991.
Produced by Pet Shop Boys in 2008, the Gui Boratto mix of Sam Taylor-Wood’s “I’m In Love With A German Film Star” is part of the new “Kompakt 500” compilation, which is released today.
Pet Shop Boys will be headlining one of the stages at the Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, with a “Dreamworld” show on Saturday, August 9th 2025.