Sunday, May 17, 2015

How do you know?

My friend Curt Dale, himself a Viet Nam era pilot, sent this to me:
An air traffic control tower suddenly lost
communication with a small twin engine aircraft.
A moment later the tower land line rang and
was answered by one of the employees.

The passenger riding with the pilot who
lost communications was on a cellular
phone and yelled, "MAYDAY, MAYDAY !!!
The pilot had an instant and fatal heart attack.
I grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket
and he had told me before we took off, that
he had the tower on his speed dial memory.

I am flying upside down at 18,000 feet
and traveling at 180 mph. MAYDAY, MAYDAY !!!"


The employee in the tower had put him
on speaker phone immediately.
"Calm down, we acknowledge you, and
we’ll guide you down after a few questions.
The first thing is not to panic, remain calm!!".

He began his series of questions:

Tower:
"How do you know you are traveling at 18,000 feet??"

Aircraft:
"I can see that it reads 18,000 feet
on the altimeter dial in front of me."


Tower:
"Okay, that’s good, remain calm. How do you
know you’re traveling at 180 mph?"

Aircraft:
"I can see that it reads 180 mph on
the airspeed dial in front of me."

Tower:
"Okay, this is great so far, but
it’s heavily overcast, so how do you
know you're flying upside down?"

Aircraft:
“The shit in my pants is running out of my shirt collar !!!”

No comments: