Another ARMED INDIVIDUAL on our flight. John Kikbooty, U.S. Marshals Service, invites himself to the cockpit during passenger boarding to introduce himself. While I’m comforted to know that we have protection aboard, I wonder if they realize that they give away their identidy to anyone and everyone with all this flashing of badges and steping out of line. I say forgo the pomp and stay incognito. His yellow NTAIAPE form tells me all. He’s in 4B and he’s identified himself to the FA. Wouldn’t he be better off in the last row? That way he could see what the citizens are up to. Further more, there’d be no risk of stealth from behind. The objective is to not let the *perp* get control of your weapon. I see from the form that he’s not only riding our Florida flight to Chicago but connecting to LAX and and from there to Honolulu! Whew! How’s that for a days work. How in blazes will he stay alert and awake on such a journey. I’m sure that it’s in his manual somewhere: ‘Agents must not sleep on duty in public with a big pistol just inside your jacket.’
Category Archives: flying
the industry
The latest UAL CEO (after a 6 mo tenure) is going to ‘exit stage right’ because: A) thought it was supposed to be a fun job B) went wild with his expense account C) got talked into it D) didn’t know what he was in for. The answer is E) none of the above. His predecessor walked the plank, as you recall, because he issued the ‘or we will perish’ statement. This may have been a truthful statement but the error was in its bluntness. In steps interim replacement who necessarily calms by saying that ‘he has no intention of presiding over a UAL bankruptcy’. Well, now that he’s out that’s a very good option and a big stick to use to extract worker contract concessions. I guess that he didn’t want to be remembered as George ‘read my lips – no new taxes’ Bush as going against his word. Now US AIRways is talking the ‘B’ word but first they want the government loan money. Odd that a lender would consider an applicant making such hints.
bad boys
The passenger was handcuffed. Led by two armed escorts from the Fairfax County PD, I asked what he’d done. ‘Parole violation and he fled Virginia and we caught him in South Carolina… He’s non-violent added the officer.’ Uh huh. Isn’t this the line that the father of the Nebraska mailbox pipe bomber fed the media, today? ‘He’s not dangerous?’ The prisoner walked down the airstairs and glanced at me grinning. Still bound at the wrists he flashed a thumbs up. Looked harmless. Take him away!
guns ‘n ammo
cockpit protection… The last line of defense is an F16 fighter interceptor that will shoot you down. In light of this unpleasent concept, the pilots’ grassroots effort to arm the crew has gained momentum as of late. A year ago their leader said that ‘pilots can’t be both SKY KING and WYATT EARP all at the same time’, but now he is under pressure to change his mind.
No-way. I can’t think of a single scenario which will allow this to ever happen. There are two methods of implementation, neither of which are any good. The pilot could carry, but this makes him a target. If the bad guy knows he’s packing; they just lay for him in an empty restroom and get his weapon (and uniform and ID while they’re at it) Now you have a gun in the wrong hands INSIDE the supposedly secure terminal area. If a pilot is standing in line at the terminal Starbucks, he can’t / won’t be consistently checking his 6 o’clock for someone trying to jump him. The other option is to mount the pistol(s) on the flight bulkhead – ‘in case of trouble – break glass’ style. The problem with it is that it would be difficult to maintain a chain of custody. An aircraft parked RON is unattended. A gun will eventually go missing. When reported the outcome will mean that the terminal(s) will be evacuated and other aircraft departing or departed recalled or diverted.
There are too many unsolveable loose end concerns. The vision of a pilot settled in during enroute flight and whipping out a six shooter for show n’ tell with the pilot beside him conjures ‘wild wild west’ up front. The customers will NOT want to ride.
ow
Mainline maintenance tows the plane to the hangar and in the process manages to ‘snag’ the wing in the hangar door. Well, since most of the mechanics haven’t towed anything this light before, they don’t even notice anything unusual until the nose gear is ripped from the fuselage and everything comes crashing down.
Guest
The flight is only 40 minutes enroute time and the lazy-butt flight attendant isn’t budging from her jumpseat citing the short duration. Unfortunately, my hydration is riding with me in the cargohold. I can’t turn her in. She’d know. I’d be black balled.
Good Parenting 1A
They usually get air-sick in the air. We hadn’t even closed the cabin door yet! Kid’s Mom and Dad were arming themselves with sicksacks and the flight attendant reported that the poor guy was dry heaving (as he’d been sick since yesterday and that this was somehow okay he must be getting better). I re-called the gate agent to the cockpit for consultation and with a glance back to the main cabin I could see the Father in 1st row, half submerged in the inflight mag pretending to read. Like he didn’t know what the bru haw haw and commotion was about. tisk,tisk,tisk.
Customer service queried for action advice: Do we boot this family off or trust the judgment of the parents. Not that I trusted the parents. I mean what Mom and Dad would send their child on a journey if he wasn’t well? No regard for passengers and contagions or worry for our squeamish FA, who said that she could handle blood or guts no prob, but PLEASE not okay with vomit. The consensus was: The parents ‘know what’s best’ and have rights as guardians. They ride. Once safely enroute, I learned from the FA that they were connection bound for Orlando, FL — ‘Tell me that they ARE taking him home to his bed— and NOT to Disney World ?!’, I pleaded. Oh-my-gawd! They wouldn’t… You don’t think they… Surely not!
SWA
All airlines get nicknames. Southwest Airlines, exemplary business/role model is not exempt. Southwest now has two notorious paint schemes. Both of them, uh well, different from the conservative.
CORNDOG 
‘n 
BARNEY
the show
The guy ahead of me in the security line had just placed all of his gear on the conveor belt but wanted to hand carry his Dunkin donut bag thru the metal detector. The TSA agent balked at this and ordered him to place it on the belt. He was loath to do this claiming that he’d never had to do this before ?! Further, he doesn’t microwave or x-ray his food (yeah like, dunkin d is healthful cooking) The security guys claim that they can’t see through the plastic bag and therefore must inspect the item and they begin to squint into the sack, finger the inner wrap and poke and prod. And this really caused the pax to squirm, to see his food being handled. I don’t begrudge security from wanting to make sure about carry on items but all of this ‘show’ had become a test of wills and rights and who’d have the last word and who’d could piss off who the worst. The government says that I can’t talk about this thing. To point out flaws and shortcomings undermines our excellent security and only helps the bad guys and is therefore un-amerikun but the story outcome was that the donuts were okay. I suggested that he bring some for everyone next time.
One Summer Day Challenge
It was a typical hot San Joaquin Valley early afternoon. My airline flew a number of routes which crisscrossed that dry flat plain which was supposed to be dryed grass and sage and treeless. It was mostly without trees but, due to ground water pumping, artificial irrigation allowed a covering patch work of rich cotton, vineyards, and alfalfa. It was late summer and the vineyards had by now produced their crop. Many of these grapes found their way onto trays layered into rows to bake in the dry hot climate. This is kind of how I felt as I climbed into the cockpit of the machine I was assigned to fly to Los Angeles on this day.
The Embraer EMB 110 Bandirante was without ground cooling of any sort. Those in the cockpit suffered heavily from the greenhouse effect. The weak cabin recirculation fan spit hot air through tiny portals called gasper vents. (The English aircraft manufactures call them Punka Louvers; named for the palm fond or strip of cloth hung from the ceiling and moved by the East Indian servants charged with fanning .) There was no relief until the aircraft climbed into the higher and much cooler atmospherics at which time the Brazilian designed air-conditioning became adequate.
Having been born and raised in this environment I was prepared to face the day. After 4 months with the company, I was a relatively seasoned First Officer. My current task, preparatory to departure, was to copy the clearance and the official weather from the aircraft radio. This was all quite routine. I calculated the aircraft performance data and made the initial remarks on the Weight & Balance form. The 100+ degree air wafting in through my open 3 X 4 inch storm window actually felt cool.
The passengers were marshaled from the climate controlled terminal across the baked black top ramp to our hot box airplane. There were 12 of them, mostly businessmen, some leisure travelers, and a woman with an infant.
A big fat yellow hose conduit with an evaporative swamp cooler on the outside end snaked in through the aft cargo hold and blew moist air forward. This was removed all to soon as the final loading process was completed. Sportcoats and other articles of clothing would begin to peel off at this point and pained expressions would begin to appear. Normally our customers would endure 5 minutes of this mistreatment before we made our timely take off. (Sometimes, if we suffered an ATC ground delay this could extend to 15 or even 20 minutes. We pilots would position the aircraft for maximum crosswind through our still open storm windows while we waited. I would sneak a look aft at our nearly wilted business men and remember thinking: “They will have to change clothes before they can go to their appointments and meetings! Our competitors may have more new business, the next time.”)
At last the control tower cleared us for take off. It was the captain’s leg. I was the PNF (pilot not flying) so it was my job to run checklists, the radios, and to navigate. I acknowledged the clearance and completed the lengthy pretakeoff check. As we rolled down the runway gaining momentum, I made final tweaks to the power levers achieving the desired torque target and called out the relevant airspeeds. “V1…Rotate,” was my last call as we broke ground and flew into the wind.
There was an additional flurry of challenge and response as we completed the after takeoff checklist and then mostly just the hot silence as we relaxed a little and put our feet up to settle in. Fairly soon we would be at our final cruising altitude where it would be cooler and we would do other pilot stuff like talk about cars, boats, planes, and girls (not necessarily in that order). For now it was still sterile cockpit (non essential conversation forbidden) so we scanned the sky for conflicting traffic and I handled the more mundane chores of company required paperwork and communication.
At 4,200 feet and climbing: BAAM!!…?? What the hell was that? The aircraft yawed violently left and then again but more gently to the right as we both scrambled to get our feet back onto the rudder pedals to cancel the oscillation. It must have been only an instant, but seemed longer, that we sat there stunned in disbelief that this was happening to us. A quick look at torque and Turbine interstage temps confirmed that #1 engine was dead. In fact, it had failed violently with sudden stoppage. I suggested that the captain look out his side window and verify that the offending powerplant and wing were in one piece (or even still there for that matter!) Back to important matters at hand. The airspeed was naturally beginning to deteriorate and the PF (pilot flying) relaxed the aircraft climb slightly as we began the emergency drill that we had practiced so many times in training but only simulated. It was first necessary to secure the free wheeling propeller which was acting as a massive aerodynamic speed brake. Without such response we would surely plummet. Quickly now, from memory and without a dangerous mistake or omission, we ran the drill:
- PF-confirm left engine fail PNF-yes fail
- PF-left power lever PNF-confirm
- PF-flight idle PNF-performs
- PF-left propeller lever PNF-confirm
- PF-feather PNF-performs
- PF-left condition lever PNF-confirm
- PF-fuel cutoff PNF-performs
- PF-left firewall shutoff PNF-confirm etc..etc…
The propeller obligingly feathered and the immediate danger was passed. A slew of duties remained, however, which would keep us at 100% until we had safely diverted to our original departure point. Apart from the written emergency, descent, approach and landing checklists that were still to be run, there was a great deal of communicating to be done. ATC had to be notified. The company had to be informed and not least the passengers had to be briefed.
Ah…the poor passengers. By now they were probably ready to come out of their skins, and it was my job to calm and reassure them over the cabin P.A. So, in my steadiest, most comforting voice possible I said: “Ladies and gentlemen as you are probably aware, we are experiencing some difficulties with our aircraft…there is little cause for concern …we will be returning to the airport shortly…”
The PF was in a big hurry to get back. I only had just enough time to get everything done. The crash and rescue trucks were ready for us but the landing was without further incident. We limped back to the gate with our one remaining engine.
The passengers were deplaned and ushered inside while we did a post flight walk around. There was no evidence of external damage, fortunately, because turbine blades (at 40,000 rpm) have been known to exit protective casings during catastrophic failure and pierce aircraft cabins and fuel tanks like shrapnel. In our situation, the explosion was fully contained. When you turned the propeller by hand, though, you could hear the metallic garbage inside like some giant coffee grinder.
The adrenaline was beginning to subside and we were able to laugh a little and tell our wide eyed story to the ground crew and mechanics who had assembled there. Privately, I had begun thinking that we would probably get debriefed and released to go home soon. Right? We were heroes weren’t we?
That’s when the message from operations arrived. “Walk over to GA and preflight the spare Bandit that’s over there and taxi it over. Finish your trip.” I was astonished! Back to reality. I was so pleased with the successful outcome of the last attempt that I hadn’t concerned myself with the matter of the unfinished LAX flight. Or, with how hot it still was. Our spare airplane had been parked in the blazing sun all day with all openings sealed. It was the definition of heat soaked. Euphoria was soon replaced with more sweat.
More astonishing, when we reboarded our flight, all the passengers (save for the mother and baby) had returned! I guess people can put up with a lot! But it’s a dry heat…Maybe it’s the frequent flyer miles…I just don’t know…
1988