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rideemwet -> RE: Things you don't want to hear over the plane's pa (8/25/2009 11:21:07 AM)
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Some fun but true stories, I collected quite a few as a flight instructor ...
Atlanta approach controller talking to a small plane starting in the usual monotone:
"Skyhawk 3-2-papa, traffic is a Delta 757 at 3 o'clock and LOOK OUT!" (His relief controller knocked over his coffee with the coil of wire to the headset).
What I don't want to hear the captian say ... "Emergency power". To explain, full power on a jet engine is normally based on several gauges and the throttle is advanced until one of them reaches 100%. Emergency power means firewall the throttles and rebuild the engines when the plane gets on the ground. At least one airline the procedure is that if the flying pilot calls for emergency power the other pilot shoves the throttles full foward without hesitation even if the flying pilot has already done so. Think about what situation would call for that.
Walking on to a Delta flight in Texas, carry on baggage in hand with SO. Plane suddenly drops 2-3 inches. Turbulance while at the gate? WTF? P.A. System "We need everyone to get off the plane, someone left a ladder under it and we need everyone off the plane to get the ladder out". I tell my SO take your bags. As I suspected the ladder had punched a hole through the bottom of the plane ... we got re-ticketed while everyone was getting back one the plane to reclaim their carry-on.
Best humor under stress ...
Tower - "United Airlines Flight 232 clear to land any runway"
Capt Haynes - "So you want it on a runway, ha?"
(his ONLY flight controls were the throttles on 2 out of three engines, the third engine self-destructed and destroyed ALL flight controls. While it killed many people, very few people can replicate that landing in a simulator even with multiple tries)
Flight into small town Georgia, arriving late, pull up to the gate, everything shuts down. And we wait. and wait. and wait. Finally, captain on PA "Folks, it appears that the good people that run the terminal can't find a key to operate the jetway, please get comfortable while they see what they can find".
Former student/good friend is captain for a commuter airline, dresses goth in off hours. He's in some small town in the northeast on an overnight when the weather goes really bad and closes things down. He's one of the earliest to get back to NYC on a non-revenue flight (i.e., no passenger, so he's not in uniform, his personal bags got lost in the shuffle). In the air the airline asks him to take a schedule flight out as soon as he's on the ground. The passengers in the outbound flight had been sitting in the plane with no captain for 2 hours. He walked onto the plane in full goth dress, got on the PA and said "Passengers, yes, I'm your captain. I just got in and can go home and change into uniform while you wait another 2 hours or we can leave now with me dressed in black" They cheered.
I've declared an in-flight emergency myself three or four times in several thousand hours of flying. One nice little rule is that any plane in an emergency takes precedent over all other aircraft, and that pilot can violate any FAA regulation necessary for the completion of the flight. Don't abuse it, but when you need priority *for whatever reason*, I teach people to use it. After all, ATC has a bunch of procedures they have to follow, but if you say the E-word, they do whatever you want and the procedure is to accomodate you, so they'd prefer you declare an emergency because otherwise they have to treat everyone according to complex guidelines. I've NEVER been asked to fill out one word of paperwork as a result of declaring an emergency. While its certainly disconcerting, most declared emergencies are non-events.
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