Crazy Airplane Tales
Crazy Airplane Tales
Crazy Airplane Tales
There are numerous truly odd and humourous stories reported about small airlines.
The tiny 83 island tropical archipelago, Vanuatu, in the South Pacific was run by both French and British as a condominium for a period of 74 years. Some bright spark designed for a single plane airline called 'Condom Airlines' to operate in the area.
The tongue-in-cheek idea was an attempt by its promoters to drive the authorities to form an airline that would facilitate travel to and around the island nation and help start up a tourism industry.
Sadly, Condom Airlines never really got airborne.
Flying from Nausori near Suva, one of the northern Fijian islands, a passenger on a small Air Fiji plane, spent the whole trip seated next to a box that had the head of a loudly objecting live goat sticking out of the top of it.
The pilot had been going to place the goat in the hold, until the passenger objected, claiming the goat would not survive in the hold.
On takeoff the pilot welcomed the passengers "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen - and the goat!"
The departure was delayed for passengers travelling from Suva to Tuvalu, the world's fourth smallest country. The pilot informed the passengers that the plane's automatic navigation system was out of order.
"We can call off the flight until tomorrow, or go now by dead reckoning. What do you reckon?"
Faced with the option of not attending the Trust Fund signing ceremony and the ensuing huge Polynesian party, the passengers chose to let the pilot fly by dead reckoning.
"Now I want everyone to look out the windows after about three hours, and if you spot a group of nine little islands down below, that'll be them, so give us a yell," the pilot instructed the passengers.
The pilot's dead reckoning was dead right.
However, the wind-sheer was so bad the tiny aircraft was unable to touch down safely on Tuvalu's airstrip until the seventh attempt.
"Well, there's another one we walked away from," the pilot was heard to say as he emerged from the cockpit and crossed himself.
A number of passengers, including a sick patient on a drip, were booked to fly on the Solomon Airlines from Buala via Suavanau to Honiara.
When the flight reached Suavanau several of the passengers were asked to get off and stay behind until the next flight. A group carrying large surfboards had demanded that their boards be carried in the cabin, not in the hold.
The sick patient was moved to the back of the plane and the seats on the left of the plane were lowered to accommodate the six large surfboards. This closed off the emergency exit, as well as the central aisle.
The remaining passengers had to support the surfboards for the entire flight, in order to stop the boards moving or falling on them.
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