Late edit:
If you scroll down aways you can find pix of the lever and it in the upward/forward safe or in the downward/aft live condition.
Notice the checkerboard danger markings indicate seat safe mode. Because it’s fucking dangerous to fly around that way. A potential source of confusion on the ground among folks not real familiar.
Premature ejectulation
Which would be doubly funny if the front seater turns out to be a woman.
If so, good bet there’ll be some internet haters somehow trying to blame her, and her femaleness, for the passenger’s screwup. Idjits gonna idgit.
Finality on the white 747 in Honolulu. From an eagle-eyed reader on another forum where i got the photos to post: "If you zoom in on the photo you can see the 431 on the nosewheel doors and operated by Atlas Air above it.They only took delivery of it in May 25 ex SilkWay West Airlines ex 4X-BCV. Now Atlas Air N431GT, Boeing 747-400.
Good it wasn’t something evil.
We see all-white freighters all the time in Miami. Nothing sinister about those. A military base always raises my concern level.
Three-ish weeks ago I was down there riding to & fro for vacation. Saw an all white stretch DC-8 with CFM-56s. Rare but not that rare. Lotta white 767s & occasional A330s.
WTH, I thought you were on permanent vacation???
I am on permanent vacation. The venue changes periodically; the reality does not.
Well said sir!
T
Eh, it’s all just a bunch of hot air anyway.
There are only 3 left flying. 2 Trans Air Cargo and 1 Samaritan’s Purse.
If it had a stylized “T” on the tail it’s a TAC
Those were beasts in their day. They could lift more weight off the ground than a 767.
Security video od the recent F-15 ejection incident.
United and Delta are being sued for charging extra for “window seats” that don’t actually have windows.
I generally pick aisle seats, but if I paid for a window seat and didn’t actually get a window I would be pretty annoyed.
In the running for worst, most exagerating headline, I’m nominating this one.
Seems a compressor stall (stalls). While a code brown for many of the passengers if not alleviated by a cockpit announcement after they get the situation under control; not the "explody, die in a metal tube description breathlessly put forward. Crappy day for the pilots but not something they haven’t trained for. An uneventful landing in Brendisi and taxi to the gate.
Gasp, not enough hotel rooms. It’s August, Europe is on vacation, of course the hotels are full.
Still, the pilots get some practical experience other than a simulator (true, would you as a pilot just as soon skip the real world excitement??).
And the wild statement for the airline spokesman. I chortled.
I once saw a video on YouTube with the clickbait headline “Jet Engine EXPLODES on Takeoff” or something to that effect (Yes, with the all caps). As you may have already guessed, it was a compilation of planes experiencing compressor stalls.
My non-expert understanding is that a compressor stall is kinda sorta analogous to a car backfiring, in that it can cause unburned fuel to get blown out the exhaust and cause a very brief fireball. That’s obviously not good and means you’re not going to your destination, and I’m sure it’s alarming to the passengers, but it’s not that bad. It does not mean the engine is “on fire”.
Condor Airlines spokesperson told the Post the engine fire was caused by “a chemical reaction that happened inside the combustion chamber.”
I laughed at that line. That’s, like, the literal definition of combustion.
John Cruickshank, Last World War II Victoria Cross Winner, Dies at 105.
The New York Times Aug. 20, 2025
This is an interesting read. The definition of British stiff upper lip.
Plane gets shot up while attacking U-Boat. Captain is seriously injured but refuses pain killer so he can eventually land the plane.
Like my Dad used to say: “Engines; they’re supposed to be on fire. On the inside.”
Not sure if this is really worth posting here, but it’s certainly unusual. I’ve seen a lot of police bodycam videos of drunk drivers being arrested, but it’s rare to have an airline pilot pulled off the plane for being drunk. In this case, it’s actually the captain of a Southwest Airlines flight. He’s arrested and the FO is informed that he needs to get in touch with HQ because someone else is going to have to come in to fill the left seat.
To be fair, the SWA pilot was true to his training and calm throughout the process, and also to be fair, he wasn’t extremely drunk, but definitely impaired. The video doesn’t reach any definitive conclusion as to his ultimate fate, but the airline said it was running its own investigation in parallel with the one being run by police.
Is there a well-understood way in which an airline pilot, under the influence but acting responsibly, can call in unable to fly without ending their career? Do pilot have to disclose the exact reason for not able to fly to their employer? Does this prompt a mandatory medical exam?
Sure, you call in sick or fatigued. At any decent company it’s no questions asked. If you say you’re not fit to fly, you’re not fit to fly. Could be because you just didn’t get a good night’s sleep. It’s even incentivized. When I was at a regional airline my flying partner didn’t sleep well one night and called in fatigued and the company made a small fuss by making a good example of him. It fouled up our schedule, but was the right thing to do and he was praised for it. As it should be.
This is a fairly standard interview question too: You’re a first officer and you notice the captain having a drink and there isn’t enough time to be legal before the flight next morning. What do you do? Do you rat the guy out and end his career? First you might ask innocently, “Oh, has the schedule changed, sir?” Next, assuming it’s not a pattern, you might call in sick yourself to cancel the flight (this assumes it occurred at an outstation without another pilot easily at hand).
An inebriated pilot happens once or twice a year, it seems. Meaning, they get caught. A shame they throw away their careers in an instant like that.
Likewise, decent companies have a well established addiction treatment program. If you realize you have a problem, raise your hand and go get treated and (assuming success) continue your career unscathed.
Sometimes when laymen hear of such programs they’re outraged.
But the programs exist because the alternative is what we see here. Pilots with problems who have nowhere to go will hide it until / unless caught. Because darn near nobody is going to give up their career, regardless of what it is, voluntarily. If seeking treatment means instant firing for the crimes you committed unnoticed last month, then nobody seeks treatment. Nobody.
This awareness about alcohol addiction and the statistically safer (and far more humane) way to handle it came to the industry only in the 1980s. And was still pretty spotty up into the 2000s. I daresay very few corporate pilot jobs have it today.
There has been some expansion of these programs to deal with drugs other than alcohol. And the industry & government(s) are now starting to grapple with the more treatable, externally-driven forms of depression. As I was retiring our company was in a full court press to persuade the crew force that both the company and the FAA were on board with depressed pilots seeking treatment. And had been doing so for a few years, so from the late 2010s.
The hard part is the border between responsively treatable psychological problems, refractory psychological problems, and psychological problems about which we have no idea what to even try as a treatment are all fuzzy. Addictions and mild situational depression are at the easy end of that spectrum.
