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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Tales of the alt-'80s-rock commuter circuit. Do weary businessmen really want to listen to the Jesus and Mary Chain while landing in the rain?
Apr 30, 2004 | Thanks to everybody who voted in the airline survey. The polls close tonight (Friday, April 30) at 23:59:59 UTC. That's pilot talk for midnight. I've been getting a lot of votes from overseas, see, and it makes me feel important to talk in Greenwich time. Your choices for favorite airlines will be unveiled next week; least favorites, the following week.
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"All art attempts to rid life of banality." -- V. Vale
The story, if you weren't tuned in last time, goes like this: Upon touchdown in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a British Airways steward announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Riyadh. For the correct local time, please set your watch back 300 years."
As these things go, I knew there was a high probability of the tale being apocryphal, but a reader informs us that a version of the event indeed took place, and did involve a B.A. aircraft arriving from London. The setting was not Saudi Arabia, however, but Johannesburg, South Africa, during the height of apartheid, and the correct number was 100 years, not 300. Supposedly the story got some coverage in the British press.
You're often better than I am when it comes to debunking or clarifying urban myths, so perhaps you can help with this one too: Another British Airways flight, this time in Lagos, Nigeria, roughly 10 years ago. The 747, as I remember it, is taxiing for takeoff one evening when a cockpit warning light flashes on, indicating that a lower deck cargo door has become unlatched. That's because a gang of daredevil thieves, riding on the roof of a stolen truck, have pulled alongside, opened the door, and are hauling out luggage and cargo. This, mind, you, while the plane is trundling down the tarmac toward the runway. Through the windows, aghast passengers can see the whole thing unfolding, their own suitcases being foisted away into the night.
Accounts of lawlessness at the Lagos airport (Murtala Mohammed International, if you need to know) are legendary, but this one, if it's true, wins the prize for sheer audacity. Before its final grounding in 2003, that nation's flag carrier, Nigeria Airways, had itself been notorious for crime and corruption. The airline had appointed 12 chief executives in its last years, a few of whom spent time in Nigerian courtrooms.
While you're Googling up West Africa for me, let me apologize for the PG-13 nature of last week's list of public address bloopers. I wish I had some spicier examples, but truly those were the best of them. I've been accused of holding back, and some of you seem to think I'm concealing a long list of my own personally concocted pranks, cranks and anecdotes of infamy.
Not really. Granted, I'm prone to some smart-ass tendencies, but there's something about a cockpit, maybe, that just doesn't encourage rampant pranksterism. The implications of screwing up, which need no elaboration, tend to keep even the most eccentric airman safely grounded, so to speak, in his rules and procedures.
If you haven't noticed, a certain unexpected temperance has always been part of Ask the Pilot's shtick (I was going to type "success," but that's probably your call, not the author's). Perhaps you believe it's incumbent upon me, as an insider, to kick up as much dirt as possible. Yet that's never been my style or intent. Unlike others, I'm not here to expose lurking dangers, blow whistles, or sensationalize. To the contrary, this column was born out of frustration over such things, which seemed the staple of mainstream aviation reportage. I'm out to demonstrate two things: First, that air travel, despite the obvious discomforts, remains compelling and fascinating, usually in the ways you're least expecting. Second, that what goes on behind the scenes is a lot less shady, conniving and dangerous than you're normally led to think.
That sounds really boring, doesn't it?
