Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase: Hilarious Stories of Air Travel by the World's Favorite Flight Attendant (10 page)

Betty:

“Every year, all flight attendants have to complete training where we practice emergency procedures. We simulate evacuations and practice shouting commands. One of our commands in event of a crash is, ‘Grab ankles! Heads down! Stay low!” and we repeat this over and over as we practice our emergency. One day in Buffalo, New York, the whole crew was in a van on the way to the hotel. There was a really nasty winter storm and the highway was in terrible shape. All of a sudden, the van went into a skid, and we did a 360-degree turn, ending up in the median of the highway.

“And all during the entire crash, starting at the moment we began to skid, one of the flight attendants in the van just instinctively started shouting, ‘
Grab ankles! Heads down! Stay low!
’ Which just goes to show you that in any emergency, your training will come through.”

Fact

Fasten your seatbelt!

An average of 58 passengers are hurt each year while flying in the U.S. due to the fact they are not wearing their seat belts during turbulence. It’s the leading cause of injury for both passengers and crew.

A flight attendant:

“We were taking the medical portion of our training when the instructor turned to a new flight attendant and gave her a hypothetical medical emergency to deal with, saying, ‘You go to the back of the plane and discover a passenger lying on the floor of the plane, unconscious but breathing. What do you do?’ She stared at him with a confused expression on her face as if she didn’t understand English, so he repeated himself, ‘You go to the back of the plane and discover a passenger lying on the floor of the plane, unconscious but breathing. What do you do?’ She looked at him blankly and asked, ‘What’s
butt
breathing?’”

Fact

Duck! It’s a Chicken!

The National Research Council of Canada invented a cannon designed to fire dead chickens at speeds of up to 620 mph (998 km/hr). It's designed to test airplane parts that are likely to be struck by flying birds.

A co-pilot:

“We were flying from Atlanta to La Guardia, and La Guardia has a curfew, so if you don’t arrive by a certain time of the evening, you’re not allowed to land at all. We had weather issues which delayed our takeoff considerably, so when we finally got into the air, the plane was full of grumpy, irate passengers. No sooner had we taken off than flight control contacted us and said that because we’d been delayed, we were not going to make it to La Guardia on time, and because of their curfew, we’d have to land at JFK airport instead, and bus the passengers to the terminal at La Guardia at 2 A.M.

“Everyone in the cockpit groaned at this news, and nobody wanted to break the news to the angry passengers. The Captain turned to me and said, ‘You tell them!’ and I replied, ‘I’m not going to tell them; you tell them!’ so we were at a stalemate because we couldn’t face the wrath of a plane full of ticked-off New Yorkers. Just at that exact moment, one of our engines failed, and the Captain and I let out a whoop of relief and high-fived each other, saying ‘We’re not going to New York!’ because of course with an engine out, we had to immediately return to Atlanta to have it fixed.

“Instead of informing the passengers they’d be bussed to La Guardia, we made a very serious announcement that we’d lost an engine and were returning immediately to Atlanta. We got back into Atlanta just fine, and all the passengers as they disembarked were congratulating us and giving us their blessings instead of cursing and complaining, while the Captain and I were winking at each other and snickering to ourselves. It’s probably the only time in history when the people flying the plane were happy to lose an engine.”

A co-pilot:

“As soon as we took off from Nashville, a shaft in a fuel pump broke and one of the engines stopped instantly. We continued to climb so that we could circle around and come back to land at Nashville to get it fixed. Of course, the other engine was carrying the entire burden of the plane, so it was working extra hard to pull us up, which meant it was roaring particularly loudly. I got a call on the intercom from a flight attendant who said, ‘Some passengers are complaining that the engine back here is too loud,’ to which I responded, ‘That’s because it’s the only engine we have left!’ There was dead silence on the line. I guess that wasn’t the answer she was hoping for.”

Joke

Fifteen minutes into a flight from Los Angeles to Toronto, the captain announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, one of our engines has failed. There is nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, our flight will take an hour longer than scheduled, but we still have three engines left.” Thirty minutes later the captain announced, “One more engine has failed and the flight will take an additional two hours. No need to worry, though... we can fly just fine on two engines.” An hour later the captain announced, “One more engine has failed and our flight will be delayed yet another three hours. No need to worry, though... we still have one engine left.” At that point, a young woman turned to the passenger in the next seat and exclaimed, “Boy, if we lose one more engine we're going to be up here all day!”

Fact

Superman fastens his seatbelt

Muhammad Ali got on an airplane but refused to fasten his seat belt when asked by the flight attendant. “Superman don't need no seat belt!” he said. “Superman don't need no airplane, either,” replied the flight attendant. Ali fastened the belt.

Fact

The reason is…

The reason you have to return your tray table to its upright and locked position is so you won’t impale yourself on it if the plane crashes.

The reason you have to return your seat to its upright position is to make evacuation easier in event of a disaster, to minimize whiplash, and to prevent you from slipping under your seat belt in the event of a sudden stop.

The reason you have to turn off your Walkman is so you can hear emergency announcements and instructions.

 The reason you have to raise your window shade is so you’ll have a better feel for which way is up, which way is down and give you better orientation if there’s an accident, as well as making it easier for rescuers to see inside.

The reason you have to stow your carry-on items and put away your computers is to avoid the possibility of having them act like airborne missiles.

The reason lights are dimmed is so you’re not blinded by light while dashing through smoke, and to make emergency lights easier to see.

A passenger:

“Before a flight from Boston to Washington, D.C., one of the pilots warned us about turbulent air we could expect during our climb and encouraged us to keep our seat belts fastened snugly. The flight was indeed very turbulent, with the plane pitching up and down severely. After one particularly violent drop, and after the plane had stabilized, the pilot came back on, chuckling in his pilot drawl, ‘Well, folks, that was quite something. If you weren’t wearing your seat belts before
, I bet you are now
!’ The plane erupted in complete laughter, which totally diffused the tension we all felt.”

Fact

This might make you feel better

“When a large plane hits turbulence, the passengers don’t all feel the same sensations at the same moment. While the passengers in the front may be bumped upward, the passengers in the rear may be bumped downward. Seats in the middle of the plane near the wings, which might be considered to be the fulcrum of a seesaw, often get the smoothest ride. What pilots know but most passengers don’t is that airplanes fly just as capably in the midst of turbulence as in smooth, calm air. Turbulence doesn’t make the pilots panic or clutch the controls in a desperate effort to control the plane. Turbulence doesn’t tear wings off commercial airplanes or shake the fuselage apart. Flying through turbulent air is much the same as steering a powerboat across choppy water. In a boat, passengers expect the thud-thud-thud of the water hitting the bottom of the boat, the rising and falling seesaw of the boat’s hull, and the sometimes unexpected drops. Just as boats are strong enough to survive the impact of turbulent water, airplanes are built to withstand turbulent air.” –David Blatner in
The Flying Book: Everything You’ve Ever Wondered About Flying on Airplanes
www.TheFlyingBook.com

A passenger:

“On a flight from Boston to Florida, which goes over the Atlantic Ocean, I laughed when a flight attendant made this announcement during the safety demonstration: ‘In case of a water landing, your seat bottom cushion can be used as a flotation device. Grasp it at the back, lift it firmly, place your arms through the straps on the underside, and please, take it with you,
with our compliments
.’”

A passenger:

“Not long after 9/11, when all kinds of new security regulations were being tried out, I was booked on a tiny puddle-jumper to make a connecting flight. There were a grand total of nine passengers on that flight. We were all sitting in the boarding area when the crew made an announcement, saying, ‘Good afternoon. We’ll be boarding soon. But first, the Federal Government requires that we select two passengers for additional screening on this flight. Would anyone like to volunteer for additional screening?’ Two people did volunteer, and I thought it was funny to expect any terrorists who might be on board this teeny tiny flight to raise their hand and volunteer to be searched.”

Fact

Sorry, but you can’t take that brick with you

In 2006, some 13.7 million confiscated items were collected at U.S. airports. That included 11.6 million lighters. Lotions, gels, and other liquids are taken to the dump, but items such as scissors, knives, large flashlights, snow globes, handcuffs, toy guns, and pointy belt buckles are auctioned on eBay. Bricks, food processors, electric drills, baseball bats, golf clubs, horseshoes, and snow shovels are also among the banned booty. Other items confiscated include a bow and a quiver of arrows, a wooden saber, an old wooden pistol, a realistic-looking plastic grenade, a bottle of perfume shaped like a grenade, a 12-inch (30 cm) metal pipe wrench, a good sized machete, and even a catapult. The State Agency for Surplus Property in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sells about two tons of stuff per month, collected from various airports in the northeastern U.S. They’ve netted over $360,000, and the money is used to fund social programs in Pennsylvania.

Betty:

“I was flying on a red-eye flight late one night. It was a lightly booked flight so everyone had plenty of room. We dimmed the lights so people could get a little sleep. One man thought he figured out the best way to get a little shut-eye on the red-eye, and he stretched out on the floor by three vacant seats. He was positioned with his head lying in the aisle. As I was tending to my duties in the subdued light, I saw something lying in the aisle. I thought it was a piece of trash or a loose item of luggage, so I walked over to pick it up and clear the aisle, only to find it was a man’s head, which was attached to a sleeping man.

“I woke him up and explained, ‘Someone is going to step on your face! It’s kind of an important body part that you don’t want to leave in the aisle!’ I told him that if I had been pushing a heavy beverage cart, the cart would have blocked my view of him and I could have run right over his head, turning him into an airline version of road kill, which you might call ‘aisle kill’.”

A passenger:

“When I was about 15 years old, my entire class took a flight on a school trip. I was instantly smitten by the pretty girl sitting next to me. It was a rough flight through a huge thunderstorm, and I offered to hold her hand as we flew through the lightning bolts. “I regretted it instantly, because in her panic, she held my hand tight enough to cut off circulation, and she also dug her fingernails into my skin, nearly drawing blood. But I was in love, so I bore the pain silently, while each minute was sheer torture. Unfortunately, after that flight I never saw her again, and it took a while for my hand to return to normal.”

Fact

Really, really safe

As David Blatner points out in The Flying Book, if flying were merely 99.99 percent safe, it would result in three fatal air crashes every single day. Flying is actually 99.9999996 percent safe, because only .0000004 percent of planes crash. In fact, more people die in car crashes in the U.S. in six months than have died in all the airplane crashes worldwide over the past century. If flying were merely as safe as driving a car, a jetliner carrying 120 people would crash – with no survivors – every single day of the year. If you choose to drive the distance you’re flying rather than take a plane, one study showed that you would be 65 percent more likely to be killed.