Researching Tom Costello

Costello joined NBC News in 2004 as a New York-based correspondent. In 2005, he moved to Washington, DC at the request of then-Bureau Chief Tim Russert. Before joining NBC News, Costello served as the senior correspondent at CNBC Business News in New York.

Since 2005, Costello has been NBC News' lead aviation correspondent. Among the major aviation stories he’s covered: two fatal crashes of the 737-MAX and the subsequent investigations; the shootdown of a Ukrainian jetliner over Tehran in 2020; the loss of Malaysian Airlines flight 370; the crash of Asiana flight 214 in San Francisco; Air France 447 over the Atlantic; Colgan Air flight 3407 in Buffalo; Comair 5191 in Lexington; and the Miracle on the Hudson landing in 2009 for which NBC News was honored with a prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award and a National Emmy Award for Breaking News Coverage.

In January, 2021 Costello covered the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the arrests that followed. He's also covered the Coronavirus outbreak and the search for a COVID vaccine; NASA's return to manned missions with SpaceX; the 2018/2019 government shutdown; the Philadelphia train derailment that killed 8; the 2017 Unite the Right rally that turned violent in Richmond, VA; and the deliberate crash of a GermanWings plane in France.

His birthplace is variously given as Birmingham or Ireland. He worked as an engraver before making his first stage appearance in Wolverhampton in 1883, and later the same year started performing in music halls in Bedford and south London. One of his earliest successes was in performing William J. Scanlan's song "My Nellie's Blue Eyes", which was soon parodied by Charles Coborn as "Two Lovely Black Eyes". Costello performed in pantomimes, but increasingly specialised in black humour, such as "At Trinity Church I Met My Doom" and "His Funeral's Tomorrow", and sentimental and patriotic ballads such as the stirring "Comrades", a story of friendship between two old soldiers written by Felix McGlennon, which became Costello's signature song.

He continued to have a lengthy career in pantomime, and in the 1920s toured with his own variety company. He recorded a medley of his most famous songs in 1933. He died, aged 80, in London in 1943 and was buried in Streatham Park Cemetery.