Airline Laughs

[omarza]

Ok... year ago I heard this story... true story

It was a military flight with some people wearing uniform and some VIP's was wearing civilian clothes. It was a Merlin and the people onboard were
waiting for the pilot to arrive as he werent there yet. One person in civilian clothes started chatting to some other passengers about how the pilots
have the tendency to always being late. He started reading a magazine and every now and then looked impatiently at his watch. After a short while he
said loudly that if the pilot doesnt arrive there within the next 2 minutes hes going to fly yhe aircraft himself and returned to reading. After 2
minutes passed he threw the magazine down and said "Thats it"... stood up, closed the door and went to the front starting the engines. Apparently you
could hear a pin drop inside the cabin as nobody said a thing. That person was actually the pilot for the flight without them knowing it and he wore
civilian clothes to play a joke on the passengers. Apparently he came into some trouble as not everyone thought it was funny.

Another one.... Also true... maybe not so funny but I enjoyed it hearing it from what happened and then the same story from the flighmaster at the back ..

It was one of those old Vickers Viscount in this story and I'm first going to tell the story from the cockpit and then from the flightmaster who was
at the back with the passengers...

They took off and just after take-off the fire warning went off in the cabin. The crew (2pilots & flight engineer) then followed procedure and shut
the engine down as well as activated the fire extinguisher. They alerted tower of their problem and at this point entered the crosswind leg for
return to do an emergency landing. Dont know how many know the Viscount but apparently in that model the fire warning lights and fire extinguishers,
engine shutdown etc was removed from each other... ie not close to each other. When they were downwind the crew realized they performed the shutdown
and activated the extinguishers on the wrong engine. They at this point activated the extinguishers on the correct engine but the flames were burning
too strongly already and had to make use of the 2nd fire extinguisher bottle. By this time they started turning final and soon landed the aircraft
and the fire was extinguished. Investigators determined that if they were in air for another 2minutes they would never have landed as the fire nearly
reached the fuel tanks... firewall and all.

Now this is what happened at the back.... as the flightmaster told it afterward.

A gentleman sitting near the wing noticed the fire for the first time while they were flying the crosswind leg and said... "I think we are in trouble"
On the downwing leg the flames grew visually larger and the same person said a bit louder "We are in trouble"
On base the flames was standing out quite seriously.. the gentlman said loudly and panickly "We are in serious trouble!"
When they turned final the flames apparently stood out profusely and the same person said again.. this time with alot of panic... "We are in f***ing
serious trouble"