Would you stay on this plane? November 30, 2006
Posted by Al in : scary,transport,travel , trackbackSo you’re sitting in the plane, waiting for take-off, and you look out the window to see a lot of concerned people fussing around the flaps on the right wing. As you watch a guy climbs a ladder and uses duct tape to stick some loose material down. They then do the left wing, then you start taxiing for take off. Would you be happy to risk a flight on that plane? Watch the video and see what you think, it’s also worth reading the comments to discover that this form of tape is FIAA approved and used regularly.
As a sidenote I remember flying to the Isle of Man about 8 years ago. The flight there, from Liverpool was short and sweet in a turboprop commuter, but the return flight caused me some worries. Douglas airport, on the Isle of Man, is not the most advanced and we had to walk out onto the tarmac and then climb a wheeled ladder onto the same type of plane. However on this occasion, as we are queuing to go up the ladder there’s a man standing on a stool with his head and arms in the left engine. There’s a lot of banging and occasional metal parts dropping to the floor, accompanied by curses. He finishes in a rush, and as my seat allowed me to watch him pack away, I noticed that he didn’t do a very good job of cleaning up after himself – he even left an oily rag on top of the engine cowling. Next thing I know that engine fires into life, the rag flies off and we’re off to a racing start – no wait at the end of the runway, just taxi, turn and accelerate. I didn’t have time to be as scared as I should have been – but everything went OK and that engine lasted the flight.
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