Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator
I was just the driver, honest guv'. The cargo was a couple of Jerry Johns of Cyprus best being delivered to a mate on the Canberra sqn. Duty scuffers arrived to clear the jet and were told there were a couple of JJs of wine for a mate whose sqn was having a Christmas party.
OK, come down to the office and we'll check it out.
Worried AEO followed scuffers in wagon down to the office and the luckless matey was called to collect same. Once in the office scuffers call Maltese customs. At this point matey turned TT and decided he did not want the 'wine' after all.
Customs arrived and by now AEO after several months of Cyprus sun was as pale as the moon. Customs officer pulled the bung and took a deep sniff. We wondered if we could do a 4 min scramble back to Aphrodite. "Lovely wine in Cyprus, wonderful aroma" he said as he recorked the brandy flasks.
Great Malt. Scuffers? Pillocks. If they wanted to play 'on side' they could have simply impounded the stuff and returned it when we left. They could even have just impounded it. But no, they tried to set up the AEO for an international incident.
Love 'em? And this the same organisation that used to get loads of praise for the blue light taxi service. The moral? Trust a scuffer .................
Well done, another war story.
There's many more stories out there that put us in a more positive light, but then they don't make such good copy do they? Understandable then, but still childish.
I could also roll out many stories of my own about aircrew getting up to all sorts of stupidity. But then that only brings this already very sad thread down to new levels of lowness.
As many have said before on this thread, there's good and bad in all. No trade is f*ckwittless, even the flying gods. The difference I suppose is that our own bad apples colour everybody's view of all of us.