We had a thread on here about screw ups in the aviation industry (thanks Mondo). I figure it`s time to lighten the mood some. These aren`t necessarily screw up stories, as fun, funny, exciting events you`ve experienced through the years. I`ll start things off with the first one.

So there we were, sitting in the AMC terminal, having lunch with one of the Base Ops guys. He was telling us the story of a B-52 launch a couple days before. Whenever a B-52 launched, Base Ops had to follow in a van, talking to the pilots, so they don`t take out the taxi lights (if a BUFF goes down the centerline of the HNL taxiway, the wingtip wheels will take out the lights on either side).
He was listening in on HNL Clearance, so he`d have an idea when the BUFF would be ready to go, so he could head to their parking spot. While listening, he heard an exchange that went something like this.....
"JAL 32 (flight number changed due to not remembering) cleared direct Honolulu to Narita as filed (I`m paraphrasing so don`t jump all over this)."
"JAL32 roger, direct Hickam to Narita as filed."
"Negative 32, cleared Honolulu to Narita."
"Roger, Hickam to Narita."
At this point Clearance is getting a little frustrated.
"JAL32, why do you keep saying Hickam? You`re departing Honolulu not Hickam."
In his broken English the pilot replies....
"No can say Hornorur very good. Can say Hickam very good."
Without missing a beat, Clearance radios back....
"Roger, cleared Hickam to Narita."



[mod brainfart: replaced original post after having to retrain a mouse]



[edit on 14-12-2009 by 12m8keall2c]

LOL!


OK so from the front line of passenger airline industry.
A gal I worked with many moons ago had a repeat client that travelled with the WHO. He needed to get to Amsterdam (AMS) and she found him a ridiculously cheap flight.
I got a call as from him on a crackly line saying "Hello sweetheart, did you know I am in Adis Abbiba Ethiopia?" City code( ADS)
She had typed in the wrong code and this was the old days where we used westinghouse green screen computers to book and through check pax.

I fibbed, and told him that he was just on a transit ( im still guilty about that) and that she must have forgotten to give him the next ticket coupon to AMS from ADS. I booked and ticketed for him as we spoke a seat on the next flight to AMS (which was business class) so he wasnt to cranky, and he came back and still thanked us for getting such a cheap ticket that was half business class! LOL
Oh the stroies I could tell.

OK one more.

I got a complaint letter when I was in charge of a large airline department. Now usually most complaints went through chain of service staff and was only escalated to me if it was a loss of business or at risk. In this instance the staff member knocked on my door and said that her manager insisted I deal with this complaint letter.
On reading it I cried laughing, the female pax wanted compensation for suffering hummilation at security...why? because in the line at the xray machine she was asked to take out a personal female pleasure item (ok I'll say it, her vibrator) from her bag and then told she couldnt take it on board as hand luggage and would she like to have it mailed to her......

Pilot stories I have also. Hope its ok for listing frontline airline stories.


[edit on 15-12-2009 by zazzafrazz]

There I was. Thought I was going to die.

Flying from Van Nuys to "the airport in the sky" on Catalina. A short flight in a twin engined Beechcraft. I was sitting in the right seat, my wife behind me and a couple of other friends.

I've ridden in and "driven" quite a few small planes and am perfectly comfortable in them. The flight was uneventful. It was a straight in (west) approach. The wind was coming straight down the runway, right on our nose. The strip is perched like an aircraft carrier on top of the island. As we got closer I noticed that the east side of the island is a sheer cliff, a cliff over which we would be making our final, no big deal. Because the runway isn't real long, pilots try to "hit the numbers", landing as close to the apron as possible. This means a low approach is necessary. Again, no big deal because there's nothing to hit on the way in (because of the cliff).

As we started getting closer and lower, the runway naturally appeared to be rising. It rose to a comfortable angle below our nose. Then it rose some more. Then it rose some more. Wait a minute. We're looking up at the runway now! The wind, blowing across the island, is falling over the cliff on our side. The sinking air is pulling us down with it. I look to my right and it looks like we have a little bit of time left to make a hard turn away from the cliff if we have to but in a flash that chance fades away. I look forward at the face of the cliff (the runway is no longer visible). I know what I would do if I was sitting in the left seat, my hand is itching to hit the throttles for more power. I glance at the pilot just as he does exactly that. We climb up over the edge of the cliff and set down nicely on the runway (on the numbers).

I asked the pilot if that was a normal landing on Catalina and he smiled and said, "There's no such thing."

We took the ferry back to the mainland.

I was copilot on a very large four engine jet transport. We were landing in southern Japan. The winds aloft were 50 mph crosswind, but the tower assured us that the winds were 25 knots or less crosswind on the runway. The pilot was a Flight Examiner.

As we approached the runway from a mile or two on a long final, we were in an extreme crab to the left, and it felt like 45 degrees. As we began the descent, the pilot kept in his crab into the wind. Descending, descending, descending....damn wind wouldn't let up. He began to roll out and crank in a hard rudder with a low left wing to fly into the wind.

He was proceeding to land, but the crosswind was too extreme. I told him to go around, twice. He continued with the engines pulled back. Within a second or so he was drifting off the runway and over a large flock of sheep being used to keep down the grass around the runway (and hence the birds). He hesitated too long, so I pushed up the throttles and pulled back on the yoke to slow our descent. What seemed like forever, the gigantic engines spooled up to provide thrust.

Sheep were scattering everywhere as the huge aircraft swapped ends, lowering the tail and raising the nose. Swear, I think we burned some sheep wool...

We went to an alternate.

And I lived to tell the tale....

[edit on 12/14/2009 by Jim Scott]

Speaking of fun landings...
A friend of ours was a KC-135 pilot. He took us up on a local mission with him on one of his trips to Hickam. We were starting our descent, when the boom operator looks at me and said "Hey, you want to have some fun?" We went back into the boom pod and got comfortable (at least as comfortable as you can get laying on your stomach on a bench, looking backwards). We got lower and lower. We were on short final, and right about the time I was thinking "This is kinda cool" I notice the boomer looking at me and grinning. A few seconds later, comes the flare for landing. Remember we`re laying under the tail. The runway was RIGHT THERE. I swear it looked like I was going to peel my nose off it was so close. Coolest landing I ever made.

This one was fun. I think I was about 6 at the time.
My father called home, and told my mother to bring my brother and me down to his work, because he wanted to show us something. We went into the hangar with him, and there sat the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.
An SR-71 Blackbird returning from England had a problem with their nav system. A -135 from our base went up and found them, and led them to the base. Now they were waiting for a maintenance crew from Beale to fix it.
The brid was sitting in the hangar, ropes around it, guard at the nose and tail. My father talked to the guard at the nose, looked at us and said "Go for it" and motioned over the ropes. My brother hopped over the rope instantly. I stood there, took one look at that M-16, and said "Unh uh." The guard laughed and said "Don`t worry, I won`t shoot you." At that point, I was over that rope like a shot.

And that`s how I got a close up look at a Blackbird.

Insanity #1

We were coming back from Nykogomo Military Base near the Mozambique border and drove down to Komatipoort to fly out in a Piper Chieftan Twin Turbo. I worked with a mil contractor for Armscor and the SADF. We had the mil company's managing director, marketing director (also the pilot), myself (Chief R&D) and the balance of seats were my best field crew. We took off late, after sunset, apparently illegal from a dirt runway. The Managing director was the last in. At about 12,000 feet over Nelspruit, the MD said, "I think I hear wind, I don't think I closed the door properly." He proceeded to get up out of his seat and walk back to the door to "reaffix" the door properly. We had a headwind of about 60 knots. When he finally managed to open the door, while we were yelling at him to sit down and leave it alone, the door popped, but was restrained only by two chains and the two leather straps. After a few of us getting up and holding him in place with leather belts, so the little f**cking greek MD wasn't sucked out due to ventura effect, he/we/I managed to get the door partially closed. Enough that it sounded like a medium sized Tornado, rather than a full blown F5. The little scotty (from the assembly lab who was white as a ghost sitting in the back seat next to the door) puked. Our fearless MD, came back to his seat and we all sat back down while the pilot, still screaming, roared into new rants about the damage that must have been done to the plane, the door open light was still on and the perils of getting caught when we landed at Rand in Germiston (Johannesburg). Our MD, sitting, with me across from him, laughed and pulled out a case of beer from under his seat and offered us all one while saying, "Well we aren't dead!" Before I accepted the beer, I started pulling out my DE .44 and said, "Not yet," laughed a little and put in away.

I obviously didn't shoot him, a 44 would have torn through him and the plane, and the act would have been rather self defeating, airborne disintegration a little disquieting, plus there were to many other people on the plane.

We did finally land and the next day I went back to the airport to pick up equipment. Now, I actually saw the damage to the plane since it was dark when we landed around midnight, it was about $18,000us in 1987 dollars. The mechanic was there and told me that if the straps had of come off, the upper and lower parts of the door would have sheered away and taken out the port elevator and the rudder and the flight would have ended rather "unpleasantly" just west of Nelspruit. Yehaw!

Insanity #2

During my "escape" from South Africa in 1990, I had the pleasure in the first leg of the trip of landing in Kinchase in a 747. Unfortunately, they had no fuel for us, you'd think he would radio ahead, duh! The pilot announced our predicament and said, "Hang on people, I think we have enough to get to Brazzaville, it's only 6 minutes away and we won't be flying very high."

Insanity #3

During the second leg of my "escape," we were to board a Sabina Airlines 747 in Brussels, October 15, 1990 for the trip back to Toronto. We woke up late and arrived at the airport at 10:15am for a 10am flight. But it was delayed, lucky one might think initially. When we finally boarded around noon, I noticed something strange outside, guys in body armor. I asked the head stewardess what was going on, told her I was former SA military and she went to the captain. I was pretty adamant about knowing as I had my family with me. She came back and explained that two suitcases got onto the plane without their respective passengers. I asked then why were there guys from security in body armor outside the plane. She told me that she shouldn't really say, but when they offloaded the errant luggage they "sniffed" it and found nitrates were in both suitcases, so the bomb people were dealing with the problem. She also said they had to unload and reload all the luggage, hence the 2.5 hour delay. Because of the delay we were rerouted to Boston and then took a DC9 from Logan to Toronto.

Life can be strange ;-) I've only flown once since then and only when I had been G7'd by US mil contractors prior to the flight, so I at least had a reasonable idea that the flights were secure and it was unlikely there would be a problem.

Cheers - Dave

Zaphod,

Here's the link to the original post by the way

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread273989/pg1

It was originally entitled, "Searching for interesting Stories...Uh Oh's if you like" just in case my linky does not work and somebody wants to put it in here or reference our other stories!?

Hope this link works, I have to cruise to work but am excited to see this come up again!!!

Peace,
Mondo



[edit on 15-12-2009 by Mondogiwa]

Several years ago I worked at the Honolulu Airport servicing equipment for the FAA and later the TSA. One of the habits I had was to walk through the various terminals with a book reading as I was walking. People used to give me weird looks, because I never looked where I was going, but never walked into anything. One day I was walking along, reading, and was getting weirder looks than usual. I didn`t think anything of it, until I realized what I was reading....... Air Disasters Vol 1.

Two things that are the coolest things ever:

Coolest thing in aviation history:
Christmas party at my dad's squadron where my dad was an F-4 pilot (late 70's, Bitburg AB). I was probably 5 or 6. We were all ushered outside and told that one of their planes and pilots had flown up to the North Pole to get Santa. In a few minutes I heard the unmistakable whine of an F-4 at idle, and here comes my dad, taxiing up to the squadron building in his F-4, both canopies popped open, oxygen mask dangling like a true cowboy, and SANTA FREAKIN CLAUSE in the back seat! On that day, my dad was a GOD. It still blows my mind. It was the greatest moment of my childhood.

Second coolest thing:
There I was, no sh**, downwind for 26L @800ft over Long Beach, solo in my C152 with less than a half a tank of gas. The tower guys there are awesome, btw. Anyway, there was a very slow plane on final (maybe a Cub?) and he was still a ways out. I fully expected the tower to extend my downwind to, oh I don't know Phoenix or something . Tower asks, "68 uniform can you turn short base and final?" I was about 2/3 down the runway. I looked at the guy on final, at the runway (this pause was an eternity at LB - usually very busy). I knew I wasn't going to even come close to touching down, but said "Roger". So, I honked the nose up a little, rolled that sweet little bird at full deflection, went to idle, and dived toward the runway. Final was a 2G turn, during which I blurted "68uniformgoingaround".

"Roger".

I must have been close to VNE by the time I leveled out, and it was the closest thing to a low level, high speed pass that I've ever done. I zoomed back into the pattern like a banner tow pilot. Fun times.

Fantastic landings...

While I was living and working in Alaska flying into and out of certain areas could be problematic during certain times of the year...like wintertime.

I was on a RAA (reeves aleutian airways) flight into Sand Point, Alaska during the winter, and it was fogged in something fierce... We circled and circled waiting for an opening in the clouds, as it grew darker and darker (wintertime alaska)... Suddenly, the plane seems to fall out from under us as we dive seemingly straight down towards the ocean... We level out some terrifying seconds later and land just as gently as you please on the runway...

The pilot had spotted a break in the clouds and went for it. Only scared twenty years off my life...

Not to mention the various pieces of clothing that badly needed changing...phew. Not me, fortunately, but several other people. Funny in retrospect, not so much at that point.

Back in the early 1980s, before I got hired at a major airline, flew for a commuter out West. Probably no one remembers it by now, it was called "Golden Gate" airlines. Went belly up in summer of 1981, some routes were acquired by SkyWest...

Wasn't I who thought up this stunt, wish I had though.

We flew Swearingen Metroliners (SA-226) and if you're not familiar with them, they are a 19-passenger turboprop with a large cargo compartment aft. There is a lightweight bulkhead that separates the last row of seats from the cargo area...on on each side of the bulkhead are small hinged flaps.

We had an 'essential service' route, back in those days, from Elko to Reno Nevada...late at night. Around midnight arrival in Reno. Because of the hour, it was almost always empty, just a re-positioning flight for the airplane to be in Reno the following morning.

The guys, on their 'in range' call to the lone station agent were setting him up for about twenty minutes, talking about all of the strange lights they were seeing in the sky, lights that looked like UFOs. Playing it cool, really putting on the 'eerieness' though.

You can probably see where this is going...after landing, the First Officer ran to the back, and squeezed through the aft bulkhead into the cargo area. The Metroliner has the TPE Garrett engines, and the propellers have to be put on the 'locks' during shutdown, so they won't feather. SO, they take a fairly long time, almost a minute, to fully spool down.

Company policy was for the agent to open the cabin door from outside, after waiting for the props to stop spinning.

So, when he opened the door, and saw NOBODY inside? He just about panicked.

If only there had been ATS back then!

OK, that first one was more of an Oh #### that's funny, I have another that could have very well turned into an Oh #### I'm dead.

All a matter of timing.

After 'Golden Gate' went BK, I went to Palm Springs with 'SunAire' Lines...they've been gobbled up by now, I think it was SkyWest also....

Being new, I was back to starting out, again...and in the right seat.

It was just after Sundown, and were departing PSP for one last turn to LAX.

We wore headsets on the turboprops, for noise muffling, and also for the hot boom mics and the intercom, better communication between us.

We had just finished starting engines, I called Ground for taxi....and right about then adjusted an instrument lighting rheostat that was located in this case on the right-hand sidewall, forward of the armrest.

As I turned the knob I noticed two things: An electrical crackling noise in the earphones, and the lights didn't adjust normally, they went full bright, then out. Almost simultaneously was the distinct smell of burning wires...the plastic from the insulation.

Just as I was going to ask the Captain, Keith, if he smelled it he spoke first. "Do you smell something?" I started to say, "Yeah, smells like..." and just that fast, as I was saying it, flames started to lick up from around the panel where the rheostat was mounted.

They spread very fast. Keith began to shut down the engines, using the 'normal' procedure out of habit...two 'STOP' buttons that close the fuel valves electrically, then pulling the thrust levers into Beta (aft thrust) to put the props on the locks. This meant that it would take time for the props to spin down, as I mentioned in above post.

(Talking about it later, he regretted acting from habit, wished he'd let the props feather. But, it didn't matter, after all...he was just hard on himself).

Anyway, he shouted "Get out!" just as my butt was already wiggling up and towards the door.

I cracked the airstair door, saw the prop spinning madly...saw the fire behind me RAGE because of the oxygen line, plastic of course, that had just been breached, and the entire tank of O2 engulfed like a blowtorch....

...dropped the door open...
______________________________________________________________

(sorry, didn't intend it to be a cliffhanger...computer hiccup)

...the airstair door is just forward, about one foot or so, in front of the left engine. I jumped down, and at the foot of the door, aft, so that I could push people forward and away from the prop, which was my primary concern for the evac. Keith was out very shortly, the smoke was intense...as I said, he hung in there from habit, because of the prop locks.

Funny thing, we were full (19) and only about a handful came out the airstair door...it was then we realized everyone else had popped the window exits!!! No one told them to...except maybe when Keith yelled "Get out!" and they saw the smoke, they figured it out.

We shuddered to wonder about IF that had happened in flight. The rapidity of the inferno, from the causal initiation, was humbling. Fires onboard airplanes are no joke!

Aftermath found a few things: There was a minor electrical short in the rheostat, that sparked the fire. But, why did it burn so easily?? There was a hydraulic system pressure gauge located in the same area, near the side wall, on the instrument panel. It was a direct-reading gauge, meaning it was tapped off of the system, not an electronic repeater. A very fine, pinhole leak of fluid had been going on, for some time. All of the batting and insulation in the wall was soaked with hydraulic fluid. THAT is what made the fire so aggressive, and THEN it hit the O2 line.

SunAire had the habit of naming its airplanes after cities in the route structure...so, you guessed it. N63SA, after being repaired (airport Fire and Rescue were there very quickly to put out the fire) it was named the 'City of Phoenix".

Fitting. More clever than I thought management would be.









[edit on 16 December 2009 by weedwhacker]

I was up in a sailplane one day, me in the front seat, an Air Force Academy cadet pilot in back (that should have been my first clue it was going to be a wild day). We were at 2,000 over the approach end of the runway, when it started raining. He says from the back, "We need to get down." So I start aiming for the pattern entry point. He says, "We don`t have time. I`ve got the aircraft." I replied, "Your aircraft." and let go of the stick. He stood us up on a wingtip, and cranked us into the tightest spiral I`ve ever been in. We levelled off at 100 feet, aimed at the runway. He says, "Your aircraft." I squeaked, "I`ve got it." got us on the runway, and went to change my shorts.

Another year, same airfield, different instructor. Instructor says, "Hey, you want to try something awesome?" First BIG clue this was going to be insane. "Sure." He pulls back so steep we had to look UP to see the ridge. "This is nothing." Aircraft stops in midair, hangs there for a second, and suddenly (in like a tenth of a second) is going straight down nose first, we`re hanging in our straps.

Ahh nice to see this type of thread make a welcome return.

Ok the following story didn't happen to me but a colleague who left the company for some years and did contracting all around the world before rejoining us. Oh man some of the stories he has told me makes me realize I am lucky to be working in this industry in the part of the world I am.

Anyway my colleague did a fair amount of long term contracting in the Middle East particularly in Jeddah. One day they were going out to arrive an aircraft that was on another part of the airfield and driving down an airside road. An aircraft tug was coming towards them but they didn't really pay much attention, same old thing you see at any airport in the world. But as it passed they all dropped there jaws and looked at each other saying, "did we just see that?" lying on top of the tug which was itself somewhat damaged, was the entire wing gear assembly of a 747 all smashed up and bent, with the tug driver seemingly nonchalant to the whole thing. Later after finishing their arrival they headed back to their ops building and on the way they saw the damaged wing gear unceremoniously dumped in an equipment holding area sans tug, and down the apron pushed off to one side was an Iranian 747 that was decidedly lop sided.

They eventually got the story from the engineer who had been on the push back when it all happened. He said, "all I remember was disconnecting the towbar after calling for brakes and I heard the engines start to spool up but thought not much of it. I heard the tug start to floor it and thought it odd and turned to see the aircraft start launching forward with the steering bypass pin still in. I managed to snatch the pin just in time and ran for my life off to the side but because we were on a narrow taxiway and tugs dont accelerate to well this idiot in the cockpit went to takeoff power and caught up to and collected the tug removing the wing gear in the process. He didn't seem to notice at first and actually tried continuing until the tower quickly informed him what had just happened".

Apparently the engineer needed a few covert drinks that afternoon after realizing just how close he had come to being either run over or ingested. The aircraft was on the ground for many weeks but was eventually repaired and put back in the air. I have seen the photos of the destroyed landing gear my colleague took myself so I know it actually happened.


Oh here's one that happened to me a few weeks back.
I was departing a cargo 747 one morning for a freight operator we have a contract with. My leading hand was taking care of the paperwork in the hut as he had the only type license for it, and I headed up to the cockpit after refueling with the fuel chit and tank figures scribbled down. Whilst up there the captain who had a distinctive Southern US drawl asked if I could take a look at the APU as they wanted to get it started and it wasn't cooperating, no problem I said I'll just grab a scissor lift and take a look. A scissor lift was found and I raised the platform, opened the doors and starred up to see... Oh ####, a rather large block of concrete ballast where the APU should be! I decided oops cant fix this problem, closed the doors and returned to the cockpit with my newly discovered trouble shoot analysis. When I told the captain he simply and slowly said "Oh yeah! I heard one of these birds didn't have one(APU), guess this must be it?" Guess your right I thought.


Ok lastly this is not really an Oh ####, but Im sure most of us have seen these lists emailed around about supposedly witty remarks made in tech logs by engineers when presented with say a silly statement made by air or cabin crew and variously attributed to airlines around the world, and often the same list. I found this last night at work stuck to a window in our ops room along with all the other funnies. It was a screen print of an online tech log entry for one of our 767-300's that was done in Tullamarine Melbourne Aus a couple of days ago. This is verbatim to what it said:

REPORT: Prior to departure ,bird found in cockpit.Unable to locate,suspect be-hind P61 panel.

ACTION: Access to be-hind P61 panel gained and finally located in ceiling above o/head c/breaker panel. sparrow confirmed flew out of cockpit after severe counseling and promising never to do it again. access panels re-fitted after confirming nil damage caused.
.... I love this industry.

LEE.

Back in 2003/2004 I was going through crew chief training for the CH46e helo in the Marine Corps. We were doing a flight there at MCAS Pendelton, on Camp Pendelton. Sqdn. was HMM(T)264. Anyways so there I was in the back of a phrog, one of my first flights. 264 is also a FRS, so the pilots today were a boot Lt. and a Major that was the instructor. We were hovering about, oh 60-80 feet(not to sure how high we were now) when the floor seemed to drop out from under me and my stomach crawled up into my throat. As I wasn't expecting this, it was quite a surprise. The SSgt that was my instructor just had a s***eating grin on his face as he watched me. Then HIS expression became quite agitated, as the Major up front started saying "pull up, pull up, PULL THE F*** UP!" Apparently, the butter bar up front didn't pull up when he was supposed to and the Major had to do it for him. I think he did maybe 10 or 15 feet AGL.
And that was my first autorotation.

BTW, my frist couple flights I got airsickness(lol), and I sure was glad I brought a water bottle with me that flight, as I needed it. Have you ever tried to puke into a gatorade bottle? While in flight? While falling??? It isn't easy I'll tell ya!!