'It would never happen today' moments
 

- Running across the apron at LIS with 90 kg of luggage being gestured at by the departing aircraft to hurry. 90 kg didn't go in the hold, it got stashed somewhere in the galley. In 40C heat. Closest I ever had to having a heatstoke/heart attack event.

- Being held up by my boss until 20 minutes before departure time in Hanover, getting to HAJ just as the plane was due to depart, only to find that he'd used his Lufthansa Black Card to hold the flight, just to point out to me that he had ultimate power. We missed our slot at LHR and landed 30 minutes late. I was not popular.

- Flying out of NSN, I was lecturing an audience which included ATC. There were a lot of questions, and the flight was due to leave. I asked nervously if we could wrap up as I had a plane to catch. Nah, said one, and left the room for an instant. 'I've switched off the VOR/ILS'. I answered questions. On boarding the flight, there was an apology from the captain because there had been a delay in departure due to ATC issues.

Any other stories from the era when rules were made to be bent?

Speeding up to LHR from Arundel to catch an early BA flight to Brussels for a meeting at the airport hotel, as I'd woken up late (long night in my brother's pub).
Secretary calls me in the car (before hand phones) to say that she has BA on the line saying that they're boarding my flight, how far am I from the airport, 'cos they need to release the flight.

Did you make the flight?:)

Another one was exiting Iran, during the Iran-Iraq war.

'We would like you to stay in Iran'.
'That's very kind of you, but I have to be in Frankfurt on Tuesday'
'You will be very welcome. As a special treat, we will take you to the front.'
No, I really have to be in Frankfurt...'
'... you do not understand, Mr Justapax. You will stay in Iran!'

This was while I was taking an-antimalarial drug, Lariam (now abandoned) that gives you the horrors. You don't have to be paranoid when you're taking a drug that makes you paranoid.

A hasty discussion between one branch of the Sepah Pasdaran (Irani Revolutionary Guards) and another, one sympathetic to relations with the West, one sympathetic to keeping me in Iran. Then I was hastened into an ambulance (the only vehicles that have priority in Tehrani traffic jams) and driven up to the airstairs of the next flight out of Iran. I didn't go through customs or immigration, so I don't have an exit visa from Iran (fortunately the passport has long expired). Then a stop at the edge of Iran, Bandar Abbas, where the plane went technical. Four hours on the ground in 50C temperatures, I couldn't disembark in case the Sepah Pasdaran caught up with me and arrested me. It was a 747, the ground services weren't running, the only source of coolant was the drinking water dispenser to replace the sweat which was pouring out of us (most passengers chose not to disembark).

Going back to Iran later on another (UN) passport, I was nervous all the time.

I lived in Bermuda for most of the 1980s and early 90s. All the flights were tourist timings except Panam who had 1900 dep from JFK which night stopped and was an 0730 back. Rumoured that this was because the then Pan Am CEO had a house in ..... guess where.and could catch the Friday flight down and the Monday one back.

Bermuda had the US preclearance arrangements so you in fact entered USA at Kindley Field Airport and just walked through JFK as though it was dometic.

I had to make a day trip one day and I turned up at the airport to find I have lift my passport at home . Panic but remember that the senior Bermuda police officer on duty is often someone I know. I tracked him down and explained the situation. He went to see his US Immigration service opposite number . This guy hand wrote a letter to the duty officer at JFK saying I was a solid citizen that he would vouch for and in fact had played Golf with . Get to Kennedy and show them the letter- lot of hmm hmm and one calls his supervisor. He comes down to 'the border' gives me a handshake and says Welcome to the United states. -writes something on the letter and puts his official stamp on it , thats for the trip home tonite.

Much as people in organisations do know each other I cant see that happening very often today

Not quite the same (or as good) but not completely dissimilar - mugged in Paris in the early '80s, losses included passports. Off to the UK Consulate, reported loss.
Filled in a very short form (half of A4) to report loss of passport. "OK, how do I get through control at the airport?". "Easy" says the Vice Consul, reaching for all the rubber stamps on his desk. "The French love rubber stamps!". He was right, sailed through both ends.
Also, Vice Consul phoned our UK bank & explained our predicament - no problem, some funds transferred immediately.

I don't know why he did that, a Consul has the authority to issue an Emergency Passport valid for one trip, which you can exchange for a full passport when you get home. He or she doesn't have the authority to disburse funds which leaves a mugged DBS (Distressed British Subject) able to travel but without the funds to take a tube fare out of the aeroport. In these days of credit cards it's less of a problem, but in the days of cash and traveller's cheques the Consul would have to issue a tenner out of his own money against an IOU, and these were often not honoured. (My father was a British Consul).

I don't know, can't remember, all the answers but he was extremely helpful, I think our bank wired funds to the Embassy, certainly I don't recall going to a bank. The biggest issue was persuading a police officer to complete a form with the box "vol" as opposed to "perdu", so that we could board our return flight.

Milan early 1980,s the flights to Rome had been cancelled , I was bound for London with BA. A riot erupts a lot of Italian men storm onto apron and squat around a DC9 which apparently they wanted to fly them to Rome. Much negotiation and arm waving but with no way forward . Eventually Airport Fire Dept roll up and literally hosed the passengers down and away from the A/C. There looked to be quite a lot of expensive suits and brief cases damaged and some dignity.

Walking out to a flight out of Tunis from temporary terminal in cargo area with Dan Air on a Comet in 1971 and LH 727 already closed up and taxing followed a follow me jeep and taxied through the line of passengers. Nobody hurt but wing was very close and felt jet blast as they made their turn of the apron and onto taxiway.

I have mentioned this before but passengers at Lagos being made to run around a 737 on an internal service as flight over booked in 1980,s, winners got a seat and to fly.

Being served Chivas Regal and Coke on BCAL by friendly CC when I was only 13 heading back to school as pre dinner drink ;)
There are more but will have to get back to you.
Cheers
Mr Mac

No I didn't, I was too far away. But they did put me on the following flight. Fortunately a colleague was also travelling to the meeting, who did make the flight in time and she was able to hold the fort until I got to Brussels.

Your Iran sojourn sounded quite nail biting. Even when I was there (pre-revolution), you needed an exit visa to exit the country. Having said that, if you knew the right people, especially any of the hezar familles (thousand families) many things were possible...

It didn't help that I'd flown in from Ben Gurion, via Istanbul. I'd taken all the necessary precautions, posting my passport (I had two) back to the UK from Istanbul because it had an Israeli stamp in it, and removing all documentation about Israel from my personal effects.

Then I got to the hotel in Tehran and realised my luggage still had Ben Gurion security stickers on it. If any one had noticed I'd still be in Iran now, and not in a hotel.:sad:.

Post revolution, it was who you knew in the Sepah Pasdaran than counted. My representative there was an alcoholic who lived mostly on 'rocket fuel' (arak distilled from plums) but was respected because he knew the Koran by heart, and could recite any part of it without prompting. He was an atheist, and drove like a fiend, even by the standards of Tehrani traffic - hand on horn, foot on accelerator, faith in Allah. The death rate was (and still is) appalling - probably the highest in the world - but if you're going to die, that's Allah's will, isn't it?

My father believed in introducing his kids to alcohol as part of family meal, but not much and with plenty of food. It should be family entertinment, not a forbidden drug.I have followed his example.

Whiskey and Coke I think at 13 would probably have made me either sleepy or disruptive.

Heathrow late 80's Nigeria Airways leased a Scandinavian (SAS) B747 for a few days. On a departing flight the aircraft captain requested baggage ID on the stand due not happy with the load sheet. Nigerian AW station manager refused and when asked for the reason said the bags loaded on the aircraft were from the previous day's flight.

I was aboard an Eastern Airlines 727-200 from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. to visit a friend. It was forty-eight years ago - 1977. (I was twenty-eight and had just earned my PPSEL.) I was seated next to a very attractive and vivacious thirty-something young lady. More on her later.

As we approached our destination, Washington's National Airport, I noted that as we should have turned right base to 19, we turned north instead, following the Potomac River. Several minutes later, the Flight Engineer appeared. He half-smiled as he walked through to mid-cabin, where I was seated, wielding a large brace wrench. He rolled back the carpet, opened an access hatch, and dropped into the small foxhole where he proceeded to crank down the main gear! He lost some weight and built some muscles that day; he must've given the task at hand over one hundred turns!

It was the first flight for the poor woman seated across the aisle from me. I had tried to reassure and comfort her, but to little effect. She stared straight ahead. She could only converse by issuing a series of grunts and growls.

The Pilot addressed the passengers in a less-than-cheery voice: "Uh, Ladies and Gentleman, we uh have had uh a little ah trouble with the landing gear. We're gonna fly this ah bird by the tower and uh get 'em to tell us if ah the gear is uh down!" Thus did we reverse course, and with flaps 30 flew down all 7,169 feet of runway 10/190. Slowly. As we approached the threshold, the Captain poured the coal to three JT8D-17's as he retracted flaps; we climbed to ~3,000 feet, once again turning to starboard and taking up a northerly course. Our brave Captain's calm voice once again filled the cabin: "Uh, the uh tower ah says that those wheels are down, but ah we don't have those little green uh lights that show us that the gear is ah locked in position so we are uh gonna divert to Baltimore Friendship where they have uh longer runways and better ah emergency equipment." Throughout the cabin Rosaries were deployed and fiddled with, alcohol was being chugged, and quiet prayers were being murmured. Deals with God abounded! Would He listen? The woman across the aisle presented with the only clinical case of catatonia I have ever witnessed. She was motionless, a drink halfway to her mouth. Completely paralyzed! I was able to extract the plastic cup from her vice-like grasp and bend her arm down to the armrest. She growled at me, but not too loudly.

The flight to "Balmer" was less than ten minutes. During that time, the head flight attendant (they were still called stewardesses back then; she was absolutely gorgeous) came down the aisle, instructing passengers to tighten their seat belts, showing us how to assume the brace position and asking for volunteers to man the emergency exits. Being the kind, courageous, altruist that I was - and am - I gladly offered my services. It didn't hurt that I wanted to impress that proud beauty and that if I opened the emergency exit I could be first out of the horrid crash/conflagration!

We set up for a long final into Friendship. Full flap and slats, spoilers, bleeding altitude, on glideslope, then, suddenly, the runway! The Captain must have been a Navy F-4 pilot - he put us down on the first set of piano keys. Firmly. (He was trying to lock the mains.) We went airborne again for perhaps two-hundred feet, then he put her down like a feather landing on whipped cream. More than one-hundred-fifty souls exhaled an immense collective sigh of relief. The gear had held! God had been listening! We passed emergency apparati arrayed on the runway's side, and rolled to a stop in the middle of the runway, several thousand feet down. Captain Amazing's voice permeated the cabin once again: "We uh are gonna sit here ah for a few uh minutes while the uh ground crew come out to uh pin that gear. We are sure sorry that you ah had to go through that and we are uh sorry for any ah delay and inconvenience! Thank you for flying with Eastern!"

I was unbuckling my seat belt when the previously- mentioned goddess, er stewardess, stopped by my seat. "May I speak to you in the galley, please Sir?", she said in her sultry contralto voice. How could I say no? I followed her rear to the rear of the aircraft; we stepped into the galley. She pulled the divider curtain closed. We were alone! Was she going to stab me or give me a very happy ending to a very stressful day? She opened a drawer. It was full of pony bottles of every whiskey known to modern man. "Name your poison!", the lovely lady said, wrapping her velvet voice around my surrendering eardrums. "Bourbon, please!", I croaked, doing my best Humphrey Bogart impression. She poured me a double Jack Black and intoned: "This is on Frank Borman!" (The Mercury/Gemini/Apollo veteran astronaut who was President of Eastern Airlines at the time.) I killed that elixir in two gulps. She poured me another. Just when I was going to ask for name, number, and marital status, she was paged to come forward to the cockpit. Another dream consigned to the ever-burgeoning smouldering ash heap of what might have been but was not to be.

As we deplaned, I was able to thank the flight crew for their expertise and to give them compliments on the pulchritude and kolpygyny of the cabin crew. I stepped onto the air stairs and my newest best friend appeared with an Eastern Airlines flight bag. "You forgot this, Sir!", she said with a wink. We gathered in the terminal. I checked the flight bag. It was full of whiskey pony bottles. A hundred or more. We awaited the bus which would take us back to National. A black limousine pulled up in front of me and glided to a stop. A back window rolled down. It was my very attractive seatmate. She offered me a ride to D.C. I accepted without hesitation. It turned out that she was Henry Kissinger's lady friend du jour! A day to remember. All's well that ends well.

- Ed

You definitely have to join us on Zoom for the London Bash.

cavuman1 You have set a very high bar for the stories. The 'bar' of course being amply filled with alcohol. :cool:

Talking of 'bars', will we be seeing our mod at the Bash? You give your location as 'London' and the Bash is in London. Will we be seeing you there?

I am really looking forward to meeting all of you. God willing, the creek don't rise, and the gear is down and locked, I shall be there with you on Zoom!

- Ed

I only have a free Zoom account, but I have booked a 40 minute meeting on 21 June at 1500 go to
Invite Link https://us04web.zoom.us/j/7523888074...Ma5h1JOq5LZM.1

If you or anyone has a more capable Zoom account, let's use that one.

Justapax1
I can not stand the taste of Whisky so the Coke took the edge off and I did not want to turn her kind offer down 🙂 On the flight to Chile back then sleep was always the best option as it stopped around 5 times and took forever !! That was the first trip I did the journey on my own as BCAL Auntie were in short supply, and they powers that be, vouched that at 13 I was old enough to travel by myself though I am sure CC were told to keep a watching brief. I also agree with you re alcohol and children by the way.

Cheers
Mr Mac

Cauvnan 1
A great tale thanks for sharing.
Cheers
Mr Mac