Thursday 14 August 2014

Story Time - My Worst Plane Experience

My Worst Plane Experience... I just spotted this from Rhett & Link...


So thought I'd share my story of the drugged, possibly drunk, comic pilot... 1999, Flying from Morocco to London with Royal Air Maroc, they didn't have a plane available, so they had to borrow a 737 from Air Egypt... This thing turned up and looked like it'd not had a wash or been serviced in years... The three business colleagues I'm travelling with sit with me, and the whole rest of the plane is empty bar one German chap sat at the very front of the cabin...

We're sat pulled back 8 feet from the gate for about 40 minute, when suddenly we pull forward again, and a chap is embarked via the rear exit... He comes up past us, he's air crew, he looks like he's slept in a hedge, he's got his crumpled RAF style blue uniform on, he's Moroccan... And smells very deeply like the spice markets in Marrakesh.

He disappears into the cockpit (remember this is pre 9/11, so you could go in and out of them at will) anyway, we now get under way, we pull from the gate, taxi, and after about 10 minutes are hurtling down the runway... This plane is banging and rustling like an old Ford Escort turning onto the motorway... it rotates and we lurch into the air with a stomach bouncing jump.

After about 30 minutes we're at altitude and the screens a head show we're out over the Atlantic... The air hostess comes past and offers us liquor as we're no longer over Morocco (a dry country) and we nip a few scotches....

When suddenly the cockpit door opens, and the dishevelled pilot lurches out, he's not in his jacket any more, but he still has a white neck scarf on, which comically makes him look like something out of Biggles... And he walks down the length of the plane, slaps the air hostess on the arse and salutes us few passengers and goes into the toilet.

After a while, with us all looking awkward... Like... is he the pilot or co-pilot... and asking.. "There is another pilot up there?"... The guy re-emerges from the toilet... and he takes a really long slow sniff of the cabin air... Know what I mean?!?!?... And he strolls now much more confidently back up the cabin and the cockpit door closes.

The air hostess has a smile fixed on her face like a Barbie, and he looks at the other hostess... Bing bong, an announcement, this sparkly voice, with a very strong Moroccan accent comes on the intercom... "We now flying, high, twenny Towsand Feet, fee free to muv arund cabin, dinner serve in fifteen minutes, becos I hungry, ahhaahah"...

I swear to god, that's how he sounded, if it were a film rather than me actually sitting there, this would have been hilarious,  as a character he was pitched far beyond any comic pilot of any film ever, but this guy was for real!

Anyway, we see the dinners taken into them and coffee, lots of coffee... and we fly into Gatwick without seeing him again, no problems... But to this day I wonder... Was he drugged and hungover whilst flying?

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