Jumpseat Legends: An American Halloween In Europe

Happy Halloween.  Here's the final Jumpseat Legend as promised.  I hope you don't get too scared to get on a plane after reading.  It'll make your skin crawl... or your eyes roll.  I'm just trying to get some kind of reaction.

It was the middle of the long flight from Atlanta to Munich, Germany.  Most passengers were asleep but there’s no rest for the four tired flight attendants who were in the aft galley of the airplane, getting everything ready for the arrival service, which was still 3 hours away. 

“What are you guys doing when you get there?” Amy asked the rest of them.

“I’m going to sleep the whole layover,” Alan said.

“Come on, Al,” Deborah said. 

“It’s Alan.”

“Whatever, Alan.  It’s Munich.  You have to have a beer or two.”

“Yeah, don’t be a slam-clicker,” James added

“A what?”

“Slam-clicker.  You know, slam the door.  Click the lock.”

“I’ll be whatever I want to be.  Do you know how many times I’ve been to Munich?” Alan asked.

“Do you?” Amy asked.

“A lot.  It looses its charm after a while.  It just turns into another expensive European city.”

“But tonight is Halloween,” Amy pointed out.

“They don’t celebrate Halloween in Europe,” Alan said.  “I’d like to keep it that way.”

A call button rang on the right side of the airplane. 

“I’ll get it,” Alan said and walked into the dark cabin. 

The light was illuminated above an elderly couple in the 22^nd row of seats. 

“Can I help you,” he asked them, turning the light off. 

“Ja, unseren audio ist kaputt.”

“I guess you don’t speak any English,” Alan said frustrated.  It was just another reason he hated these international flights.

“You vould have guessed incorrectly,” the man said.  “But I vould guess zat you don’t speak any German.” 

“You’d be right,” he said.  “What can I do for you?”

“Our audio isn’t vorking properly.  Ve can’t hear anything.” 

“I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.  If you’d like we can offer you a coupon that you can redeem on a later flight,” he recited the company standard message from memory.

“Zat vill be fine,” the man said.  “But can ve have different seats for this flight?”

Alan looked around the completely full aircraft and wondered where the man thought he was going to move.  “I don’t think that’s possible.  We’re full today, as you can probably see.”

“Vell this is most inconvenient!”

“I’m sorry,” Alan said.  “I agree that it’s unfair.”

“Ve should be given free drinks as compensation!  On Lufthansa ve vould be given drinks!”

The company didn’t agree with them but then the company executives weren’t going to be stuck on board with them for the next few hours.

“Alright,” he said.  “What kind of drinks would you like?”

“Beers.”

And the Germans live up to their stereotype again, Alan thought. “I’ll be right back,” Alan said. 

Alan walked to the galley and started digging though the beverage carts for the couple's drinks.  He started to wonder if the audio was even broken at their seats or if they just wanted some free drinks. 

Another flight attendant call button rang in the cabin.  “I’m going back out anyway,” Alan said.  He looked up and realized that none of the other flight attendants had moved to answer it anyway.  Another call button rang.  Then another, and another, and another.

“What is going on out there?” Amy asked.

“I don’t know,” Alan said.  “I think the audio is going screwy.” 

“Well what do they want us to do about it?” James asked.

“Haven’t you heard?  We’re wearing miracle suits,” Alan said.  “We can fix anything.” 

“Lets go answer ‘em.”

The four flight attendants went out into the cabin and located the call lights. 

“Yes sir, we understand there’s a problem with the Audio.  We’re going to reset the system and see if that fixes it.”

One more call light went on in the middle of the cabin and Deborah walked to the back of the plane.  “I’m going to make an announcement,” she said.  She hadn’t quite reached the galley when the oxygen masks deployed.  Ignoring the bursts of screams from the passengers, the four flight attendants ran to their jumpseats and put on their masks.  Amy turned on the cabin lights to make sure that everyone woke up.

A few seconds later the captain spoke over the PA.  “Ladies and gentlemen, this we are not experiencing a decompression.  This is just a malfunction of the oxygen mask system.  There is no need to wear the masks.  We’re working to fix the problem.” 

The flight attendants took off their masks as the phone rang at each of their jumpseats.  The captain had made an all call. 

“Is everything alright in the cabin back there?” he asked.

“I think so,” Alan said.  “There were some problems with the audio system and then the masks dropped.  The customers are a little bit shaken up but they seem to be doing alright.”

“We’re having some problems up here,” the captain said.  “Our circuit breakers are popping like crazy.  We’re going to divert to the closest station but we’re at least an hour from touch down.  Start prepping the plane for landing.”

He hung up the phone and the four flight attendants in the back of the plane stood up.  The emergency oxygen systems on the plane are chemically operated.  When the mask drops and the passenger puts it on a chemical process starts which pumps oxygen for about 20 minutes.  There are two side effects from the chemicals.  First, it smells horrible, something like the combination of burning plastic and bad breath.  The second byproduct of this process is heat.  When all 250 masks are pulled at the same time, each unit heats to about 130 degrees and the cabin below gets toasty.  It was 90 degrees and getting hotter.

A woman started screaming in the cabin.  Alan jerked his head instinctively towards her and saw something drop out of the oxygen mask compartment onto her lap, which made her scream even louder. 

“It’s a… It’s a…aaahhh,” she screamed again.

As he was running up the aisle towards her another dark object fell out of an oxygen compartment to his right.

“RAAAAT,” screamed the woman on whose lap the animal landed. 

The woman jumped up and started spinning in circles, trying to throw off the animal that had latched onto her blouse with its teeth.  Unfortunately, it had a good grip

 Rats started pouring out of the overhead compartments, literally being smoked out by the heat of the oxygen system.  Hundreds of rats. 

Passengers started screaming and stomping at rats that had nowhere to run without being stomped at by another passenger. 

“Stand on your seats,” Alan shouted.  “Stand on your seats.”
            To his amazement, the passengers listened and crawled up and stood, knelt, or squatted on their seats, still wary of getting too close to the open mask compartments above their heads.  Alan kicked a few rats out of his way as he made it to his jumpseat again and picked up the PA.  “Flight attendants, grab a fire extinguisher.” 

Alan felt a sharp pain in the back of his leg.  “Aahh! What the?”  There was a rat latched on to his Achilles tendon just above his shoe.  Instinctively he reached down and grabbed it, ripping it off with a chuck of skin still in its mouth.  It hissed and scratched but couldn’t get its teeth at him.  The rat was emaciated.  He couldn’t feel anything but fur covering bone. 

“Great,” he said as he threw the rat against the wall and watching it fall limp on the floor.  “Starving rats.”  He kicked a few more rats that were trying to sneak up on him and pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall.  “Well, it doesn’t get any worse than this.”

Then the lights went out.  The screams from the cabin grew even louder.  It’s exactly the kind of panic that you don’t want in a hollow metal tube flying 600 mph, 31,000 feet above the ground.  It was no longer just passengers screaming, Amy and Deborah were also hunched up on their jumpseats, screaming at the top of their lungs. 

Alan lit his flashlight and held it in the same hand as the fire extinguishers hose, spraying a rat whenever he could find one.  It was only a minute before the other flight attendants realized that they too were carrying flashlights and aimed them at the floor. 

The phone rang again.  Another all call from the captain.  "What is going on back there?"

"Rats," Alan said as calmly as possible.  

"Rats?  They must be chewing threw the power lines.  We're going to get this plane on the ground as fast as we can.  Try to keep everyone calm."

"I'm trying," Alan said, blasting another rat with the fire extinguisher.  "But they keep getting excited.  It has something to do with being bitten by rats."

The rats had stopped attacking Alan, except for one or two who would occasionally charge him, only to be met by a blast of halon from the hose.  Most of the animals were fighting for hiding spots under the few blankets that had been thrown on the floor.  In the dim beam of his flashlight, he saw four rats fighting for a place under one blanket. 

The emergency lights flickered and then came on.  However, this didn’t alleviate the panic in the cabin since the passengers could once again see what they were scared of. 

They want to hide, Alan realized.  “They want to hide,” he yelled over the noise. 

“So do I,” James said, spraying a rat under the jumpseat he was standing on. 

“Give them somewhere to hide,” Alan yelled back as he sprayed another rat.  “Throw your blankets on the floor.  Throw anything on the floor.  Give them somewhere to hide!”

The passengers started to empty everything they had onto the floor, blankets, coats, purses, one man even took off his shirt and threw it on the floor.  It wasn’t enough.  There were just too many rats fighting over too few hiding places.

Alan walked threw the cabin and opened overheads.  “Get off that jumpseat,” he yelled to the other flight attendants.  “Dump the luggage.  They need more places to hide.”  James didn’t move from his jumpseat but Amy came down, hesitantly and joined him in the aisle, opening bins, unzipping luggage and dumping it on the floor.  The rats took the hint and eventually settled into their temporary, travel-pro luggage homes.   

“Ladies and Gentleman, this is your captain.  We’re diverting to London Heathrow.  We’ll be on the ground in 20 minutes.  Flight attendants, prepare for landing.”

Those last five words had never been more welcome to Alan and the other flight attendants.  As he strapped into his Jumpseat, Alan looked over at James and said, “I think you’re right.  I will have a beer or two on layover.”

“A beer or two?” James said.  “I’m going to have a bottle of tequila or two.”

The rats stayed put on descent, finding plenty of good bedding in the open suitcases.  The passengers for the most part, calmed down but eyed the bags warily, making sure the stowaways didn’t come out. 

The plane touched down in Heathrow and as it began to brake, Alan realized that the luggage was not going to stay put.  It started sliding and rolling forward, and rats began to abandon their makeshift homes en mass.  They skidded and rolled towards the front of the plane and passengers screamed and lifted their feet to avoid them.  The doors weren’t pressurized anymore and sooner or later one of the passengers was going to jump up and open one.  Alan reached up and hit the evacuation switch above his seat and the flight attendants jumped into action.  The plane stopped suddenly as the captain put everything he had into the brakes, the rats and a few passengers who still hadn’t fastened their seatbelt went airborne, soaring a few rows forward or into the seat in front of them.  Flight attendants popped up. 

“Release your seatbelts and get out, leave everything.  Stand back,” the screamed as the pulled the door handles and evacuation slides inflated. 

“Come this way, come this way.  Jump, Jump.”

Rats and people both flooded out of the plane and into the damp London air.  After the plane was evacuated and the other flight attendants had abandoned ship, Alan walked through to make sure there were no injured passengers still on board being eaten by rats.  When he reached the front of the plane without finding anyone, he looked out at the group of people huddled in the grass, still watching their feet for starved rats. 

“I guess Halloween came to Europe after all,” he said as he jumped onto the slide. 

 

 For less fictional accounts of rats on a plane, check out these links.

http://gridskipper.com/56515/rats-on-snakes-on-a-plane

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/07/mice_on_a_plane.html 

Jumpseat Legends: The Burnt Out Flight Attendant

“This is a non-smoking airline.  Federal Law prohibits disabling or tampering with lavatory smoke detectors.  We now invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy your 5 hour and 20 minute flight to Los Angeles,” Jane said, finishing her preflight announcements and hanging the PA receiver back in its mount in her jumpseat. 

Sit back and relax.  Yeah right.  She was a smoker and it was more like 6 hours and 20 minutes of work during which she definitely wouldn’t have a smoke break.  She sighed.  She typically didn’t bid these cross-country lines.  It was too long between cigarettes and the customers who flew between New York City and L.A. were as high maintenance as they come.  There wasn’t enough liquor or coffee on the plane to keep them happy.  They were mostly B-list actors, directors, or New York hotshots who had enough money that laws didn’t apply to them on the ground. 

“Flight attendants, prepare for take off,” the captain said over the PA.  Jane reached for the buckles of her harness.  It was getting harder to reach around her growing hips with every trip.  These jumpseats were designed for the 120-pound flight attendants.  She had been one of those years ago.  Thank God the unions got those restrictions taken away, the 190-pound Jane thought. 

A call button rang in the 24 seat first class cabin of the 757.  There was still a minute or so before the plane was actually going to take off so Jane got up to answer it.  It may have been a nervous flyer.  In Jane’s 27 years of flying she had become very good at calming peoples nerves quickly. 

The call button was illuminated above the seats of a young, and irritatingly attractive couple.  “Is everything alright?” Jane asked them.  Without bothering to look up the young woman, a surgically enhanced blonde in a red shirt and black mini-skirt, handed Jane an empty plastic cup from her pre-departure drink and said, “I’ll have a Bacardi and Diet Coke.” 

Jane snatched the cup.  “I’m sure you will,” she said.  “I’m sure you’ll have a few of them.  You’ll just have to wait until we’re in the air.”  The young woman shot Jane a ‘how-rude’ look as she strutted away.  The words ‘young punks’ were echoing in her head as Jane strapped herself, with some difficulty, into her jumpseat. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen.  Double check your seat-belts,” The captain said as he turned onto the runway.  “These things go really, really, really fast.”

 

The flight had gone as Jane expected it to so far.  “More coffee, more coffee, more coffee, my reading light doesn’t work- it just dings, That’s the call light, the reading light is the other one, Oh, thanks, more coffee with Baileys.”

Jane answered three more call lights after the dinner service was over and then plopped into her jumpseat just as the seat belt sign came on.  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” the captain said.  “We’re expecting a little bit of turbulence up ahead.  Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”   Jane smiled.  She had a few minutes with an excuse to lounge out in her jumpseat. 

The half plastic blonde, however, thought that this would be a good time to visit the bathroom.  Jane didn’t really care that the woman was up but company policy dictated that she had to remind the woman that the seat belt sign was on. 

“Ma’am, the seat-belt sign is on,” Jane said. 

“So?” the woman asked. 

“So?” Jane repeated.  “If you remember the announcements that I made earlier, you’d know that you should return to your seat and fasten your seatbelt.  I said it.  The captain said it.  The little picture of a seatbelt being fastened says it.”

“Oh,” the blonde said as she slid her purse the rest of the way up her arm and opened the bathroom door.  “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

Jane sighed.  She wanted to grab the woman by the ear and march her back to her seat but she wasn’t a police officer.  She could only tell people what they had to do, not make them do it.  It wasn’t often that Jane wished there was an FAA officer on board but she would have enjoyed seeing this woman get the $1000 ticket for ignoring crew instructions.

But nothing happened.  No one stood up to writer her a ticket and Jane just slouched back into her seat.  A few minutes passed and the woman still hadn’t emerged from the bathroom.  No one else had gotten up which was a relief but Jane started to wonder about the woman in the bathroom.  After all, 10 minutes is a long time to be in an airplane bathroom. 

Then she smelled it.  Nicotine.  She recognized it before she comprehended it.  She stood up and checked the ovens.  They were both off.  Then she looked at the bathroom door.  Aha!  The blonde was smoking in the bathroom. 

Jane was both jealous and angry.  The woman was as rude as it gets and then wanted to rub it in her face. Under normal circumstances Jane would have knocked on the door and politely asked the woman to extinguish the cigarette.  But not this time.

There are two kinds of fire extinguishers on the airplane.  There’s the Halon extinguisher for electrical and chemical fires and the water extinguisher for material fires.  The Halon sprays a wide burst of foam and gas to smother fires while the water extinguisher shoots a concentrated, high power beam of water and antifreeze. 

Jane picked up the Water extinguisher and knocked on the door.  “Are you alright ma’am?” she asked. 

“Go away,” the woman said, irritated. 

Not that easy, Jane thought.  She lifted the metal flap covering the locking mechanism and slid it to unlock as she jerked the door open.  The woman was leaning against the sink with a lit cigarette in hand.  She cocked her head, took another puff and blew the smoke at Jane.  “What?” she said. 

Jane smiled at her.  The woman didn’t see the fire extinguisher until it was too late.  Jane twisted the knob and pulled the trigger aiming the beam of water at the woman’s hand.  The blonde screamed as the beam of water hit her knuckles and the cigarette went flying, landing in a puddle of water in the corner. 

“You,” the woman said wiping the splashed water out of her face, “are going to pay for this you fat…”

“Oh no,” Jane said cutting her off with a big, calm smile.  “Your shirt is on fire, too.”

“What? No it’s… aahhhh.” 

Flying: Where Have I Been?

It’s a fair question since it’s been over two weeks since my last post.  I’ve been wandering purposefully around the U.S.  It’s not my fault, my employer seems to think that they shouldn’t have to pay me if I don’t fly wherever they tell me to.  But since you asked, or since I asked for you, here’s the answer. 

 

Portland, Oregon

 

I was excited to go to Portland because I’ve enjoyed every other trip to the Northwest corner of the country.  However, Portland was not what I expected it to be.  I walked from the Hotel to Downtown Portland, which took me through Chinatown.  First Impression: it seems Portland residents prefer their bars to have ...ehem… adult themes.  Live nudes signs flashed at me from every other corner.  I thought it was just the wrong section of town until I actually reached down town and the Coffee Bars were almost as bad as the alcoholic bars.  Bikini Coffee Co. Stores outnumbered Starbucks.  The Baristas in Bikini Coffee Co. dress in white bikinis and dance behind the counter as they pour cups of coffee for business men.  Why white bikinis, I wondered, wouldn’t coffee stains show easily on them.  It’s an indication of the culture of Portland that I was intrigued by the color not the fact that the coffee girls were half naked.

In addition to the adult theme of the town, the population of Portland seem to be split between houses and street corners.  There were more homeless leaning against lamp posts (albeit very ornately decorated lamp posts) and fire hydrants than I’ve seen even in San Diego or New York.  Unlike San Diego Homeless, these street residents seemed to be close to my age, not many were older than 30, and have to deal with a lot more rain and cold than their Southwester counterparts. 

To top it off and send me back to my hotel, I was approached by a man outside of the Nordstroms whom I would have thought was homeless if he didn’t have a clipboard (it’s an unusual accessory for a homeless person to have).  He identified himself as a member of Green Peace.  He told me all about how the company who owned Kleenex was destroying the world by promoting Global Warming.  He also told me that I could help by giving Money to Green Peace and not using Kleenex. 

I didn’t give him any money but I did tell him that I thought Global Warming was a conservative conspiracy to flood Hollywood, thus drowning all the liberals and saving the country.  While he was still deciding if I was serious or not I gave him my best republican handshake and walked away.  What a town.

 

Las Vegas, Nevada

 

            I have an appreciation for Las Vegas.  Sure it’s loud everywhere you go and leaves Portland in the dust as far as Adult themes go, but it’s also a town where people go to throw away their money and call it fun.  I had about 16 hours to kill in Vegas.  I don’t mean to brag (yes I do) but I’m a pretty decent poker player. 

            I walked into the Poker Room of the Venetian Casino at about 4 o’clock that afternoon and sat down at a $1/$2 table just as five of the other players were getting what I would find out was their 4^th round of Patron shots.  There it was, I had five targets already and I had only been there for 10 seconds.  The minimum buy in for that table is $100 and the max is $300.  I don’t know what these guys did for a living but they didn’t come with empty wallets.  I did my best to make sure they left that way.  They’d lose their $300 and put down $300 more.  When that was gone they’d put down $300 more.  “It’s Saturday Night in Vegas, Baby,” one of them said every time he bought back in.  Indeed it was.  I left Las Vegas with February’s Rent money in hand. 

 

Huston, Texas

 

Everything is bigger in Texas and that includes the passengers.  We had a dozen passengers who were on the verge of needing seat belt extensions and the Airbus seatbelt extends to fit at least a 46-inch waist.  There are only three seatbelt extensions on that plane which means we were almost in a situation where we had to off load passengers because they were too big to buckle their seat belts. 

I found myself in a rather embarrassing situation on this flight.  A man came on the plane and asked me for a seatbelt extension.  I said I’d bring him one and went to get it as he found his seat.  After I had gotten it and found where the gentleman was seated I tried to hand it too him.  Usually I do this as discretely as possible because it can be a sensitive issue for some people when they don’t fit in their seats.  “Sir, your belt,” I said as I handed it to him below the seat line.  There was one of the odd moments where everyone is suddenly silence just as I said it and at least three or four people looked, including one lady who turned around to see who I was handing a seat belt too.  The man, who apparently did fit in his seat belt gave me a look that most people reserved for murderers and rapists.  “I Don’t Need It, Thank You Very Much,” he said as I quickly retreated to the back galley. 

We had a 19 hour layover in the Huston Airport Marriot which is a nice hotel but not exactly the ideal location.  I watched some Monday Night Football and got two workouts in.  Not my idea of an exciting layover.  

 

Vancouver, B.C.

 

            I’ve been in 17 different countries but until Tuesday I had never been in the closest country to home.  Our friendly neighbor to the North had never merited a visit.  It’s strange too, that my favorite professional sport is Ice Hockey and I still hadn’t gotten to Canada where they live and breathe Hockey.  Luckily, that’s been remedied. 

            It was another layover in the airport but Vancouver Airport is definitely a few steps above Huston.  They have rivers and waterfalls running through the terminals.  There were two aspects of the layover that made it better than Huston.  First was the Hotel.  It was, without any competition, the nicest Hotel I’ve ever set foot in.  The Fairmont has all of the amenities that make a hotel comfortable and added all of those that make it feel more like home than home.  There is mood lighting in Bathroom which is good because sometimes when you’re on the hopper it’s easier to go with dim lights.  It had a separate shower and bathtub.  I’m six feet tall and I could lounge out in the bathtub, which I found out by doing so still in my flight uniform (obviously without the water).  The bed was one of the most comfortable around.  It felt more like floating than lying down.

            The other part of the trip that made it fun was the birthday party we through for one of our flying partners.  He turned 50 on the 21^st and that isn’t something you can let go without a drink or two.  We found a restaurant in the domestic terminal that was more reasonably priced than the $40 a plate restaurant in the Hotel Lobby.  Rodney, who was the one celebrating his birthday, had spent 28 years as an aircraft mechanic for the Air Force before becoming a flight and was full of interesting stories.  It’s always the crew that makes a trip fun.  

I have another Jump Seat Legend Coming but I haven't had the time to work on it recently.  I'll post it soon.  The last and scariest will come out on Halloween. 

Jumpseat Legends: When Turbulence Bites

It was a sweaty summer day in the Dallas Fort Worth Airport and the flight crew was trying their best to keep cool as the plane was filling with passengers. Jen was greeting while Neil and Mary were dealing with luggage and seating issues in the back.  Jen was trying her best to stay alert and focused, but her natural cheeriness was pretty well worn out after the first half of the third leg.  They were starting the fourth and final leg of the day. 

“Good afternoon… hello…hello… hello, welcome aboard… hello.”

A man came down the jet bridge with a yellow lab wearing a “Don’t Pet Me. I’m Working” harness.  The man wore thick sunglasses and a hat pulled low over his forehead. 

“That’s a pretty dog,” Jen said.

“Is he?” the man asked.  “I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh,” Jen said embarrassed.  “Sorry.”

“Can you help me find my seat?  He’s pretty good with numbers,” the man said lifting the dog’s harness, “but he’s having some trouble with the alphabet.”

 

Thirty minutes into the hour and a half flight the flight attendants were in the aisle with their carts doing a beverage service.  The captain’s voice comes over the PA. 

“Ladies and Gentleman, this is your captain speaking.  ATC is reporting some heavy turbulence up ahead and it looks like we aren’t going to be able to miss it.  Please return to your seats and make sure your seatbelts are securely fastened.  Flight attendants, please be seated.” 

            Jen, Neil, and Mary parked the carts in the galley, returned to their jumpseats and strapped in. 

            The turbulence was the worst any of them had been through.  The plane dropped five feet and then was thrown ten feet back up.  The cart tipped over in the galley sending buckets of ice and exploding soda cans rolling down the aisle.  A few passengers were letting out short chirps of fear but those were quickly drowned out when the blind man began to scream. 

            The sound of fear and the sound of pain have two different tones.  Fear has a higher pitch, it comes from the sharp exhalation of lungs holding their breath.  Pain comes from deep within the lungs, maybe even from the sub-lungs.  It’s more like a roar than a scream. 

            “AAAAAAAAHHHHHH.  He’s got my leg! He’s got my leg!”

            Dogs have a lot of senses that people lack.  They can hear, smell, and feel things that we’re unable too.  They cannot, however, predict turbulence and so they’re more prone to panic than people when the floor starts throwing them around.  Also, planes aren’t equipped with doggy seat belts. 

            The normally docile Lab had bitten into his owners leg as the plane started to pitch him around and wasn’t letting go.  When the plane dropped another ten feet, as the passengers and flight attendants were being thrown up against their seatbelts, the dog was thrown up against the cabin ceiling and then dropped back two rows behind where he promptly decided to hold on to another passengers arm…with his teeth. 

            The man who’s arm he had latched on to was a bit stronger than the blind man and he was able to grab the dog and throw him towards the aisle.  The Lab slid into a woman’s ankle and again tried to hold on.  She was too quick for him and was able to plant her heel into his nose, which sent him rolling backwards down the aisle as the captain pulled the plane upwards in an attempt to rise above the violent turbulence. 

            The Lab, with blood and panic smeared all over him rolled down the aisle towards the back of the plane.  A leg was sticking out from the last row of seats and the panicked dog grabbed a hold of it. 

            “OOOWWW! You son of a,” BANG.

            Unfortunately for the dog, he had grabbed a hold of the leg of a Federal Air Marshal, one of the few people allowed to carry a firearm on an airplane. 

            “Stay calm,” the Marshal shouted as people began to scream again.  He lifted his badge in the air for everyone to see.  “I’m an Air Marshal.”

            The cabin went silent as people tried to comprehend everything that had just happened. 

            “Did someone shoot my dog?” the blind man asked in a cracked voice.  “Did someone shoot Teddy?”  

Jumpseat Legends: Playing With Fire

We’ve finally reached October.  As the weather turns cold we get in the seasonal mood for bone chilling stories of ghosts, goblins, and ghouls… something I’m currently out of.  What I do have plenty of are jumpseat legends; those scary stories that travel the world on the uncomfortable pads of airplane jumpseats.  In addition to my other posts this month I’m going to be putting up a weekly Jumpseat Legend.  This is the first.

 

Playing With Fire

 

The scheduled trip was New York’s JFK to Mexico City on an Airbus 320, which holds just under 150 passengers.  It was a routine trip for the crew with a short layover, less than 14 hours.  More time than is really needed in Mexico City where it’s almost too dangerous to leave the Hotel.  The pilots, Tom and Scott, were busy at work in the cockpit and the flight attendants, Jane, Gloria, and Stewart (not Steward), were finished their safety checks when the passengers started to board.  Gloria and Stewart took their positions in the aisle and Jane stayed by the door to greet.

Flight attendants quickly develop a knack for making pleasant conversation out of nothing and Jane was an experienced flight attendant.  The greeter has between 3 and 6 seconds from when the passenger steps onto the aircraft until he or she reaches the aisle to size them up and make pleasant conversation.  “Hi.  Welcome aboard,” gets old fast so, like most flight attendants, Jane used her 3-6 seconds with more personalized words. 

“Hi, I love your purse,” she said to the first woman who came aboard.  “Is that Prada?”

“Welcome aboard. Let’s go Yankee’s,” she said to the man with the baseball cap. 

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said to the next man who was wearing a disheveled suit to match the three days of hair rusted on his face.  He was toying with a pack of cigarettes in his right hand.  “Remember, don’t play with fire on the airplane,” she said pointing to the cigarettes.

Fast-forward… The door is closed, please turn off all electronics….to fasten your seatbelt, insert the metal fitting… cleared for take off… Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ll be offering you a beverage service shortly, followed by…This is your captain speaking.  We’ve reached our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet and we’ll be turning off the fasten seat belt sign [ding].  Please feel free to move about the cabin... would you like a beverage... that service seemed to go fast didn't it?

Three hours into the flight most people had drifted off to sleep or slipped their minds into a book.  Stewart walked up to Jane in the front of the airplane. 

“Hey,” he said.  “The lav in the back has been locked for like a half an hour and nobody is answering the door.  Did you lock it?  Neither of us in the back did.”

“No,” Jane said.  “We’ll figure it out.”

As the two walked to the back of the aircraft, Jane noticed that only one seat was empty, the seat that the man in the disheveled suit had been occupying.    

The woman next to the vacant seat was awake and reading a book. 

“Excuse me,” Jane said to the woman.  “Were you traveling with the man in this seat?”

“No,” the woman said.  “Never saw him before in my life.”

“Do you know how long he’s been gone?”

The woman looked at her watch.  “Can’t say for sure.  Maybe 45 minutes.  He spent the first half of the flight scribbling on a sheet of paper like his life depended on it then he got up and ran to the back.  He was kind of sweaty.  I think he may be sick.”

“Thanks,” Jane said. 

In the back of the plane, Jane knocked on the lavatory door.  “Hello?” she called.  “Sir, are you alright?  Do you need any assistance?  Sir, we’re going to open the door now.”  She looked at Stewart and said, “Open the door.”

“Why me?” he asked.

“Because he’s a man and you’re a man.  It’s more appropriate.”

“I think he’d like it better if it were you,” Stewart said.

“That’s another reason for you to do it.”

“Fine.”  Stewart lifted the small metal placard above the occupied sign and slid the latch to open the door.  He pushed gently.  The door didn’t move.  He pushed harder.

"Sir, are you holding the door shut?" he asked.  Stewart leaned against the door and it opened slowly with a screech of metal scraping along metal.  

He turned to Jane and Gloria and said, "He broke the door."

"Look," Jane said.  A foot was lying limply on the closed lid of the toilet seat, facing the wrong way.  The leg it was attached to extended upwards with a very slight slope.

"Oh my," Gloria said.  "That isn't good." She peeked her head into the bathroom and erupted in an earsplitting scream that woke all the passengers on the plane.  Ripping her head out of the bathroom and backing up into the galley she stuttered, "He's...he's...he's..."

Stewart poked his head into the bathroom and quickly pulled it out.  "He's hung."  

"We've got to get him down," Jane said quickly.  "Stew, get him down."

Stewart threw his weight against the door so it would open enough to let him in.  Airplane restrooms aren't designed to hold two people, especially not two grown men, but with some effort Stewart made his way in and broke off the stabilizing arm that the man had tied one end of his belt around.  He left the other end of the belt around the man's neck.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, excuse the interruption," Jane said over the PA.  "If there are any qualified medical professionals on board will you please identify yourself to a flight attendant."  

There was a doctor on board and he was already on his way to the back of the airplane from first class.  He knelt down next to the man that Stewart was pulling out of the bathroom and loosened the belt around his neck.  

"Well, he's dead," the doctor said.  

"So I could have left him there?" Stewart asked.

"No," the doctor said.  "You couldn't have.  If you leave him there for long enough his head could have popped off."

"Really?" Stewart asked as Gloria ran into the other bathroom to vomit.

"No," the doctor said.  "Not really."

There was a sheet of yellow legal paper folded several times and sticking out of the mans breast pocket.   Stewart pulled it out and unfolded it.  "It's his suicide note."

"You can't just read his suicide note," Jane said.  "It's private."  

"He didn't address it to anyone in particular," he said.  "See.  No salutation."

"What does it say?" the doctor asked.  

"It's a confession, I think.  It says he'd rather die than go to jail."

"What?" Jane asked.

"I guess he burnt down his car dealership for the insurance money.  He says he knew he was caught when the flight attendant told him not to play with fire.  Look, it says, "The FBI  will have a hard time arresting a dead man.""

Jane never again greeted a passenger with anything other than, "Hi, welcome aboard."