Flying - In whom we trust
February 2nd 2008 15:37
Travel stripes in the London sky
While I’ve never held that pilots were infallible, I’ve always believed that behind those calm, measured voices crackling down from the cockpit with cheery welcomes and reassuring facts about altitudes, temperatures, airspeeds and ETAs, were rock solid people. Perhaps I was naive, or maybe in denial, but I'd never considered the awful possibility that they might be subject to the same random moments of frailty as any human. However, last week, a disturbing story in a London newspaper made me think again.
An hour out of Heathrow, the co-pilot on an Air Canada flight from Toronto was dragged, in great distress, from the cockpit by fellow crew members. He was bound and shackled to a seat where he shouted, cursed and demanded to talk to God. The pilot said that his co-pilot had become agitated as they began the descent towards Heathrow. He began talking loudly to himself and calling on God. The pilot immediately called for assistance and had the co-pilot removed from the cockpit. He then requested an emergency landing at Shannon Airport in Ireland where the co-pilot was taken by ambulance to the psychiatric unit of a nearby hospital. The plane finally made it to London eight hours late. The pilot said that at no time was there any danger to any of the other passengers or crew.
The newspaper also recalled a similar story from the eighties when the co-pilot of an Air Egypt plane began to call loudly on God in mid-flight, then turned off the automatic pilot and plunged the plane into the sea killing over 200 passengers.
Kind of shakes your faith, doesn’t it?
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