After realising that I haven’t posted on this blog for sometime, I’ve decided to spice it up a bit. This post, unlike the others, will not just be full of acronyms that no-one but myself understands, I have instead dedicated it to some of the more amazing and amusing stories that aviation has offered over the years. If you like these stories, then make a comment about them and I can write more.
British Airways flight 5390: To this day, this flight remains to be one of the most amazing aviation incidents in history. On 10th June, 1990, this British Airways flight took of from Birmingham bound for Spain. The aircraft made a routine takeoff, and was climbing through 17,000 feet as the crew were preparing the meal service. Captain Tim Lancaster was in command, and both pilots had released their shoulder harnesses, and Tim had also loosened his lap belt as well. Unexpectedly, the captain’s cockpit window begun to shake, and after an exchange of brief puzzled looks between the flight crew, there was an enormous bang and the entire cabin filled with condensation.
The plane went into an immediate steep descent, and paper whirled around the cockpit. After a few chaotic seconds, the copilot, Alastair Atchison, grabbed the yoke and turned towards his captain. He found himself looking at an empty seat. Tim Lancaster was no longer inside the airplane. His window had catastrophically failed, and he had been pulled out of his window by the decompression. Luckily for him, his feet got caught on the yoke, so his legs were still in the cockpit, while his body was against the roof of the airplane. The side effect of his feet being on the yoke however, was the airplane was now in a steep dive, one that the copilot was trying to get out of.
The cabin crew, having no real idea of what was happening, were dealing with the passengers when one looked through the cockpit door, and saw the captains legs dangling through his window. She and another attendant rushed and grabbed hold of him, allowing the copilot to recover from the dive. Try as they did, they couldn’t pull Tim back into the cockpit, so just decided to hold onto him for the rest of the journey. After a stressful landing by the copilot at the nearest airport, ambulances arrived to aid the now presumed dead captain Tim Lancaster. However, even after being on the exterior of an airplane for nearly 20 minutes, Tim Lancaster survived, and there wasn’t a single fatality on flight 5390.
And now for a more amusing of the stories I’ve personally heard:
Some time ago, a Cessna 150 (same aircraft I fly ^_^) had an incident involving an overrun and was in need of serious repairs. So it was in the hanger, literally in two pieces getting its repairs done. The entire right-wing was removed, leaving an exposed cockpit and engine bay. After doing repairs on the engine, the maintenance engineer wanted to test the engine before putting the right-wing back on. So, where do you test the engine? In the run-up area, near the runway of course. So, one morning when the airport was quiet, a transmission was heard to ATC.
“Tower, 2131 Bravo, Parsons air, request taxi to the run up bay”
“2131 Bravo, cleared to taxi to run up bay”.
I ask you to try to imagine the sight picture of this. The controller looks out of the tower to see half a Cessna 150 (more commonly called a Cessna 75) taxi past the tower. His jaw hits the floor, and he urgently calls the other controllers over to his window. There must have been about 30 eyeballs pressed against the screen as the aircraft taxied past. The controller reaches for his mike, and somewhat uncertainly asks:
“Erm, 2131 Bravo, are you experiencing any difficulties?”
“Nope.”
“Well don’t worry, you will!”
The aircraft then reaches the run up bay, and pulls along side a student and instructor in another airplane, doing their pre-takeoff checks. The student looks beside him, and then loses all ability to speak. He frantically pulls on his instructors shoulder, saying “bad thing, bad thing!” The instructor then looks out the students window, and is stunned, after seeing half an airplane next to him, with the pilot acting normally, doing his usual engines checks. The student asks “wha…what is it?” to which the instructor replies “b..bad thing!” They then see the other pilot change radio frequencies, so they also change to the tower frequency. The pilot in the severed airplane then taxied to the runway, and says cooly over the radio:
“Tower, 2131 Bravo, done with the run-ups, ready for takeoff”.
To which the tower replies:
“Right.., and I suppose you want a left turn after departure too!”
