Gordomac
‘Indeed, only one one employer, at the height of the UK/Irish troubles was so concerned by the Belfast Crew Cafe bombing that they told us to avoid leaving the aircraft during extended turn-rounds and then, followed by asking for Volunteers for the turn-round sked.’
You obviously weren’t working for BEA at the time where we were all “volunteered” for Belfast with the threat of you won’t get a command if you do not go. Had BALPA force the company to validate our life insurance as we were flying into a War zone and to top it all hid and lied about the bombs found on the Trident or the genuine threats. With the odd case of bully cabin crew to accept wrong bars which had not passed the mandatory security checks.
Back on the subject we had a captain arrested in Anchorage who was dead heading on Alaskan Airlines after the airport was closed to us because of a volcanic eruption. AA hadn’t de iced and the wings were covered with a significant deposit of snow. He pointed this out twice to CC and basically told to shut up..long story short he opened the overwing exit saying he wasn’t staying onboard forcing the aircraft to return to the gate and was arrested and imprisoned.
The Swiss used diplomatic channels to get him released and he was banned from flying stateside.
My next trip I watched one of their aircraft take off and at rotation a cloud of snow blew off the wings.
They seemed to ignore conventional regulations wrt to de icing if it was dry snow on a cold wing!