Next time I'm preflighting my Boeing 777, I need to remember to check the gear wells for stray Palestinians.
Now, I don't want to cater to prejudices here, but raise your hand if the first thought that went through your head on reading that was "Wow, good thing Osama forgot to wear his Semtex Underoos that day." You can let dogs sniff every suitcase and give every boarding passenger a colonoscopy, but if your landing gear wells are full of Hadjis, well, you've got problems.
Oy! Thank Gu that I haven't and won't be flying into KL again anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteHaving learned everything I know from the movies, I'd start spraying the wheel-wells with a pesticide ala "The Fifth Element."
ReplyDelete(I'll probably get in trouble with the P.C. police for this one.)
raise your hand if the first thought that went through your head on reading that was "Wow, good thing Osama forgot to wear his Semtex Underoos that day."
ReplyDeleteHand raised. . .
That happens fairly frequently, but the stowaways are usually trying to make a transatlantic flight. For a flight of that length, hypoxia usually renders them unconscious before they freeze to death, as it is bloody cold at 37,000'.
ReplyDeleteThis clown was lucky that the flight was fairly short.
Way back in the day, at least one guy got himself out of Cuba that way.
ReplyDeleteTEBM: They're also often crushed to death when the landing gear retracts into the wells.
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered what that must be like. I picture them frantically trying to wriggle around dodging large implacable machinery while also holding on while watching the ground recede at a rate they never imagined.
It can't be pretty.
I would suggest the pilot do a barrel-roll before retracting the landing gear.
ReplyDeleteThe crew might want to hold off on rolling out the drink carts until afterwards.
Kristopher,
ReplyDeleteA properly executed barrel roll will not exert any negative Gs on the airplane.
You can go to YouTube and see a video of Bob Hoover with a glass of water resting on the glareshield of his Twin Commander while he does a barrel roll. I think he even pours water into the glass during the roll.
They find Chinese popsicle-guys like that at SFO fairly regularly. Two this year I think, it's cold as hell up at altitude and there's not much air.
ReplyDelete"There's another dead arab on the landing gear!"
ReplyDelete"That's the fourth one this week! The dustman won't touch 'em. What's his tribe?"
"How should I know?"
"It's tattooed on the back of his neck!"
TEBM -- No, no, the idea is to keep the roll positively g-loaded and toss 'em out of the wells.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the drinks, like Mr. Hoover showed us. So... everybody hoist one and enjoy the show.
I wonder how long he'll maintain that "otherwise unhurt" status after being turned over to the tender mercies of the Malaysian security forces, upon whom he has focussed the laughter of the world.
ReplyDelete"I am very unhappy.", Chan was quoted.......... isn't that a line from The Fifth Element, too.....?
ReplyDeleteWho said anything about properly executing it?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you can think of some other acrobatic maneuver for dislodging idiots ....
As long as it results in Gs pointing out the wheel-well, it should work. Boeings are all severely over engineered, so some light acrobatics should be OK.
IIRC, during Boeing's flight testing of their original passenger jet, the 707, they did some aerobatic maneuvers. Boeing builds them hell for stout.
ReplyDelete"IIRC, during Boeing's flight testing of their original passenger jet, the 707, they did some aerobatic maneuvers."
ReplyDeleteNot quite. Tex Johnson did a barrel roll during a demonstration flight. It was a "fly by" during a break in the race at the Seafair hydroplane races.
I really like the ad for "Cheap Flight Tickets" on the same page with the story.
ReplyDeleteNo movie or meal but it comes with a parka and an oxygen mask.
Tom, Immortal open-cockpit airmail pilot Wild Bill Hobson claimed he took off from St.Louis with a quart of whiskey, and landed sober at Chicago without the bottle.
ReplyDeleteParka? Two leather suits. Oxygen...they were working on it, but you know he worked for the Post Office. And nobody ever stowed away in his wheelwells. There weren't any.
When they put him on a T-shirt, they airbrushed out the cigarette.
Where's that ad again. That's the airline I want to fly on.
Comatus: That's better than flying with Wrong-Way Garrison's airline!
ReplyDeletemarkm
markm, you must mean Wrong Way Corrigan. Wiki his biography; you will not believe it.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't fly with him, though: he was a Prohibitionist.