Plane hits pig on runway and passengers panic

by Jamie Rhein on

It wasn’t a wolf’s huffing and puffing that led to the demise of a pig on the runway at the Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe last Tuesday. Nope, it was a MA60 60-seater attempting to take off. The wild bush pig may or may not have seen the Air Zimbabwe plane coming. But, come it did.

Poor pig. Poor plane. Poor passengers–and poor flight attendant who had to yell, “‘Evacuate!'” after the damaged plane ended up off the runway with dust and smoke filling the cabin.

That’s not the worst of it.

When the panicked passengers and crew tried to escape using the plane’s emergency exit doors, they couldn’t go out one of them. It was jammed. As if that wasn’t bad enough, once they managed to wrestle the plane’s main door open with a mighty effort, two passengers were hurt when they fell into a ditch as they scrambled away from the plane. Because this mishap happened at night, the ditch wasn’t easily visible in the dark.

There’s more. The emergency rescue team didn’t show up for five minutes after the crash because the secret police beat them to the plane. Instead of offering assistance, the police’s main concern was arresting two passengers who were taking pictures.

That’s not all. It took an hour for the 37 passengers to be given water and five hours for them to be allowed to leave the airport. Friends and relatives, who came to the airport after finding out about the accident via cell phone calls from people on the plane, were not told any details about what had happened or given access to the passengers.

Along with reading like a bizarre slapstick story, this pig-on-the-runway-makes-mayhem tale is a good reminder that no matter how bad a flight might seem, it could be worse. [The Times]

Man accidently ejects himself from plane

by Jamie Rhein on

This is a what NOT to do story if you’re ever in a Pilatus PC-7 Mk II. Do not, I repeat, do not, use the black and yellow handle located between your legs to steady yourself. Not even if you’re pretending to be Tom Cruise in the movie Top Gun. Pull on that handle and you’ll find yourself out of the plane before you can say, “Ooops, I shouldn’t have done that.”

That handle is what the pilots and passengers can use to activate the ejector seat in order to shoot out from the plane in case of an emergency.

In the case of this recent mishap, the passenger was on a joy ride with an expert pilot of South Africa’s Silver Falcons air display team when he pulled the lever during one of the maneuvers.

And whoosh!, there he went–the two rockets attached to the back of his chair catapulting him right out of the plane 100m up into the wide open sky.

Luckily, the ejector seat is designed to release a parachute so the man safely floated back to solid ground near the Langebaanweg airfield not far from Cape Town, South Africa.

If one could be assured that you’d land as safely as this guy did, you have to admit this does sound like it would be a blast in more ways than one.

I wonder if pilots will now post a sign in front of the passenger seat saying, “DO NOT pull the yellow and black lever. DON”T EVEN TOUCH IT. Ever.” [news.com.au]

*The Pilatus PC-7 in the photo is from the Royal Netherlands Air Force

Greyhound bus driver heads wrong way: Where’s a GPS when you need one?

by Jamie Rhein on

Greyhound bus drivers generally don’t make national news. Pilots who overshoot airports, however, end up having their story told over and over again on about every entertainment vehicle there is. How many places did you hear or read about the Northwest Airlines pilots who missed Minneapolis and didn’t figure out their mistake for 150 miles?

Now, how many of you heard about the Greyhound bus driver who headed the wrong way for more than an hour last week? Yep, last Saturday morning at about 7:14 a.m on October 31st, that’s exactly what happened–a bus driver went the wrong way for more than 70 miles.

Here’s an exclusive Gadling report that has yet to show up anywhere. Gadling knows because Gadling was there.

What started out to be a slam dunk from Cleveland’s bus station to Port Authority in Manhattan turned into a Twilight zone episode. For the band of riders who were heading to New York for a variety of reasons–like the R&B singer who was moving from Michigan to Manhattan to try to make a living, and the young man moving back to Hartford, Connecticut from Cincinnati, the bus was the cheapest travel option.

For this mother and her daughter, it was certainly the cheapest way for a last minute trip to NYC for a Halloween weekend that doubled as a 17th birthday present.

Each of us were initially thrilled to be on the spillover bus out of Cleveland. When there are too many passengers for one bus, another driver is called for a second bus. Riding on the second bus generally means more room.

When the second bus pulled out of the Cleveland terminal at 2:30 a.m. or so, the passengers, mostly with two seats to themselves, settled in for slumber. The bus’ interior lights were off creating an aura of cozy humanity as the bus headed to I-80 east for the trip straight to Manhattan. With the stop in Newark dropped because no one on the bus was going to Newark, this meant arriving ahead of the 11:15 a.m. schedule. Sweet!

At 6:55 a.m., the bus pulled into a truck stop near Milesburg, Pennsylvania. Most everyone got off in search of coffee and a toilet that didn’t move from side to side. Some huddled together for a quick smoke.

By 7:15 everyone was back on the bus, settling in for more shut eye as the sun began to rise. At 8:30 the dream come true ride ended.

The driver’s “Oh, my god! Oh, my god! I don’t believe this. We were almost there,” paired with her frustrated laughter–the kind of laughter one uses when there’s no other possible response because crying would be just too awful, woke up this Gadling rider. From the vantage point of three rows back from the driver on the right side of the bus, it was clear the driver was talking to herself.

Peering out the window looking to see what was up, the first thought was traffic caused by an accident. Nope. That wasn’t it. The highway was clear.

When the bus pulled off the highway, making a jog along a side road, the thought was another rest stop already?

Nope. That wasn’t it either. The driver swung the bus back onto the highway.

When an I-80 east sign appeared, so did a sinking feeling–and an urge to start moaning, “No, no, no!”

When the “Bellfonte 65 miles” (or so) sign appeared, it was clear what had happened. At Milesburg, the driver headed off on I-80 west instead of going east, thus driving back towards Cleveland. We had driven miles in the wrong direction past the State College turn off in the center of Pennsylvania where we had been before.

Unfortunately, it took the driver over an hour to figure out that she was heading away the wrong way.

We would not be arriving in New York City before 11:15. That’s when we’d be hitting the Poconos just in time for Saturday afternoon traffic.

The R&B singer’s friends who were at Port Authority to meet the bus called her wondering where she was after the first bus showed up on time. They told her that they had to go to work and would not be able to help her with her luggage after all.

By the time the bus pulled into Port Authority at 1:30, more than two hours behind schedule, five people felt steamed up enough to head to Greyhound customer service to complain. That meant filling out paperwork describing the event and leaving contact information.

For Gadling, the mistake meant two less hours in Manhattan. For others, it meant missed connections that ended up costing money and a travel headache they hadn’t counted on. The R&B singer had Greyhound comp her the price to store her luggage until she figured out how to get it to her new digs. When we left the customer service counter, the young guy was still trying to figure out how to get to Hartford and contact the people who were to meet him there. He was hoping Greyhound would put him on the train.

Greyhound customer service is going to let us know if they’ll be any ticket compensation once the incident is investigated. A voucher for future travel on Greyhound would be nice. You never know what kind of adventure you’re going to have when a bus pulls out of a station. I’m thinking about taking my son to Manhattan the middle of December to take in the holiday lights.

As for the ride back, the bus pulled into the Columbus, Ohio bus station right on time–7 a.m. on Monday morning.

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Pilots and crew brawl at 30,000 feet because of a flight attendant

by Jamie Rhein on

The wide open skies turned into the Wild West on an Air India flight when the pilots and crew started fist-fighting. The plane was heading to New Delhi from Sharjah, UAE when the altercation that had started before the plane took off heated up.

This was not a remake of the 1980’s movie Airplane, although the scenario that unfolded at 30,000 feet sounds as if it could be. Picture an Airbus A-320 bouncing around in the skies, if you will.

The fight started when one of the pilots supposedly molested one of the female flight attendants. In response to the allegation, the pilot and the co-pilot and two of the crew members threw punches in a display of fisticuffs that began in the cockpit and spilled out into the galley.

As they looked on, the 106 passengers probably wondered what the heck was going on and who exactly was flying the plane, as in should one of them offer to take control.

By the end of the incident that has subsequently grounded the four brawlers, one of the female flight attendants and one of the co-pilots did end up with bruises. There is an investigation as to what happened exactly. Sorting out who did what may not be all that difficult considering there were eyewitnesses.

I’m wondering if beverage service was disrupted. It sounds like this would have been a flight to add popcorn into the snack option. You can read more about this truth is stranger than fiction story here.

Farmer in Bangladesh kills more than 83,000 rats and wins a color TV

by Jamie Rhein on

I’ve seen a rat scurry across a New York City street at night. It looked like a small cat. Startling. Rats in New York are one of the city’s long-standing jokes. The idea of the 83,450 rats that one farmer in Bangladesh killed over the last nine months, thanks to a government rat killing campaign, is astounding–seriously disgusting. Truly.

Pair those rats with the 37,450 that another Bangladeshi farmer caught and YOWZA! They are not the only two farmers who have been killing rats. Five hundred farmers showed up to the event this last week where the contest winner was named.

This massive rat killing campaign with a color TV as the grand prize was part of Bangladesh’s government’s response to the country’s serious rat problem. The rats destroy at least 1.5 million tons of grain each year, half the amount that the country exports. Last year the rats destroyed the rice crop.

Along with getting rid of a massive amount of rats in one year, the campaign has had another positive effect. Farmers have learned that they can do something about the rat problem and have motivation to do so. No, it’s not the idea of winning a color TV.

As Mokhairul Islam, a poultry farmer and first place winner found out, he needs to buy three less bags of poultry feed a week now that 83,450 rats aren’t chomping away at his chickens’ food. Killing rats makes good economic sense. Islam has vowed to keep up with his efforts.

I imagine that lessening the rat population certainly would have a positive effect on other aspects of the country’s economy– tourism for example. If there are that many rats around two people’s farms, imagine the rest of the country.

Bangladesh is a country worth visiting. For starters, it offers part of the Sundarbans National Park, UNESCO World Heritage site that protects the Royal Bengal tiger and the Ridley Sea Turtle, and also Cox’s Bazar, a fishing port town that boasts the world’s longest natural sandy beach.