Putting my neck into the noose…My information in those days was from company and Air Force horror comics and flight magazine read in WH Smiths as I couldn’t afford to subscribe.
Could have been a 727 or a turbo prop.
‘To recount the unbelievable to some;
as I second officer I decided to take control from an extremely intelligent captain but poor pilot after he told Sofia radar that he would fly through a large Cu Nim that was having rockets launched into it.
‘Steve would know the next three;
captain locks himself in the loo when Rome closes and comes out during approach into diversion when gear comes down.
Aircraft lands having burnt all the legal fuel. Captain never flies again because of action of a group of copilots according to a senior trainer on the fleet.
One of the moderators here with legal connections stated in a private chat there were moves to prosecute him.
707 has flameout taxiing in, big chief, never published.
From my own experience;
Captain briefing..we make all the standard calls but we do not go around regardless. (Low fuel).
Watched a proper monitored approach, hand flown manual throttle, on a cat 1 ils which wasn’t approved for coupled, decision height 200ft with continue phase and lights seen below 100ft from jump seat.
Scariest was in crew bunk having done at least 8 hours duty into Rio after we had decided to continue when we hit the South American coast; minimum diversion fuel to São Paulo. Forecast wrong and there had been two CFT due to poor radar control. Rough as old boots and on short finals a partial go around was executed with the crew forgetting the gear for several minutes. Committed to land in a thunderstorm as alternate fuel burnt.
Another time looked at the tanks getting onboard..less than final reserve at Homebase.
I won’t bore you with other “impossible cause I didn’t read about it” but it has happened and I’ve had a fair number of sweaty palms, taken control, foolishly not taken control and captain sacked; all on the QT.
For those of you who never operated second generation, low bypass, analogue instrumented and limited fuel capacity aircraft at a time when there wasn’t a large number of well equipped civil airfields you don’t know what you’ve missed or what fun we had especially with débutants.