Originally Posted by
Offchocks
Great to see those Mayflys. I operated as a FO on the 28thJuly down to Milan with John "Woodright", then the following day down to Alicante with John McLean-Hall, what a great Captain and wonderfully funny fellow John McLean-Hall was... RIP.
Both flights were operated by G-AWWZ which was the aircraft that had a baggage fire in Faro seven years later.
Photo here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F..._AN0368961.jpg
Yep, Norman and Sandy, on a line-check. It was Sandy who was shunted sideways at Luton by the dumper truck driver reversing furiously, blissfully unaware of the One-Eleven taxying past. He'd have been rendered blissfully unaware if Sandy had laid hands on him, but he wisely legged it.
John McLean-Hall, an absolute hooligan off duty - the stories are the stuff of legend. The only time I flew with John was jump-seating to Paphos, to rescue a crew who'd gone out of hours. I was expecting it to be a laugh a minute, and indeed the atmosphere was very relaxed, but impressively professional. Why on earth they never made John a trainer is a complete mystery.
What a shame he's no longer with us. Sadly, with the passage of time, we've said goodbye to a lot of nice people, Geoff 'Flooks' Foulkes being the latest.