Air Europe weather radar/axe legend?

[unwiseowl]

I heard this story, years ago. Would anyone who was there, or who knew the crew, care to re-tell it?

[Old King Coal]

I don't think it was Air Europe - but wherein I seem to recall it might have been a BAC1-11 or B737-200 operator.... (DanAir maybe?) but it's so long ago I can't honestly remember. It's a great yarn though ! :p

[BOAC]

Yes, much as I disliked HG I could not pin that one on them:D

[Yarpy]

Are we talking about the Air Europe F100 which landed in Copenhagen with smoke in the cockpit?

As I recall it, the airport fire services boarded the aircraft and smashed the CRT displays with axes.

Long time ago - circa 1990 I think.

Air Europe - it was nice to fly with friends.

[TRISTAR1]

It began in the mid 80's.

Apparently it was a B737 and the crew pulled out the Radar to recover a chart that had slipped down by the radar.

It jammed (the Radar) in the rack and the crew took the fire axe to it as it was impeding the throttles.

On landing the entry in the tech log was 'Radar U/S'.

It was supposed to be Air Europe, maybe there are some ex Air Europe guys around that can confirm or deny?

Great story anyway.

It definately was not Dan Air

[Max Angle]

The version I heard was Lingus, also heard one about a 767 crew who pulled the FO's FMC, got it stuck and then couldn't lower the gear.

[brakedwell]

Was with AE for the whole of it's existence - never heard a peep about the forementioned incident.

[Dani]

Phanstastic - there seems to be a deep ressource of "Urban Legends" for pilots! They found on the same feature as the other ones: impossible situation out of every day situation, extreme outcome and lots of schadenfreude! And it always happens to someone else, if you ask them, they know the same story from the other guys, who told him that the other told him...

Dani

[lurkio]

The way I heard it it was a Dan Air 727.

[brakedwell]

Did the Danair 727's have radar?

[WHBM]

Another Dan-Air urban legend I heard was when they were doing kids' visits to the flightdeck in the cruise (remember those ?) when the small boy exclaimed the inevitable "Wow ! And do you have machine guns ?". The skipper would say "sure", and get the kid to touch the control column and press the mike switch, whereupon on cue the flight engineer watching from behind would operate the stick shaker test switch which gave a nice realistic noise and feel. Small boy returns to seat and tells all they let him fire the guns.

Plausible ? Sure hope the FO was guarding the column as well !

[Nopax,thanx]

OK, allow me to add my two pence worth - back in 1991 I was working at FLS Aerospace, at the same time as Dan-Air was going to the wall.

We had a radar scope in the rotable exchange pool, which went out on loan to Dan's because (allegedly) a disgruntled linie at LGW on hearing that he was about to lose his job, went on board a DA 737 and booted the display.

Whether it's true or not I have no idea, but the rumour was certainly doing the rounds at STN and LGW for a while.

[TRISTAR1]

WHBM

Yes that is a true story, did it myself on quite a few occasions.

The fun police would stop you now, even if you could allow someone into the cockpit. The kids used to love it.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Slightly off topic, I remember jumpseating an Aer Lingus 737 some time in the early 80s. On the back of the flight deck door was a sticker: "Fly this aeroplane green side up".

SSD

[Lon More]

SSD They were all named after Saints, even the simulator, St. Thetic.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

:O :O :O

SSD

[Max Angle]

Another "kid in flightdeck" story from Midland which did happen on one of our 737s. Both pilots in conversation with boys father when orange lights start coming on all over the overhead panel, they look round to see the kid happily pulling CBs on the rear panel. Flightdeck visit terminated rapidly.