Plane crazy: From China’s coin-thrower to drunk Russia pilot
shanghai — An 80-year-old Chinese woman delayed a domestic flight from Shanghai this week for nearly six hours after throwing coins into an engine of the plane supposedly for good luck.
Shanghai police later said they would take no further action against the woman — said to be a Buddhist — due to her age, although Chinese Internet users were far less forgiving.
AFP looks at flights across the world that were delayed or failed to reach their destinations for unusual reasons.
Passengers in Moscow demanded that the pilot for their Aeroflot flight to New York be removed because he was drunk. The first sign of trouble came when the pilot slurred his words during the pre-flight announcement, The Moscow Times said in February 2009.
At a time when Aeroflot’s reputation was already at rock-bottom due to a series of safety incidents, one passenger told the newspaper: “The first thought that occurred to me was, ‘This guy is drunk’. His speech was so slurred it was hard to tell what language he was speaking.”
The pilot emerged from the cockpit of the Boeing 767 redfaced with bloodshot eyes and appeared unsteady on his feet. The crew was replaced and the flight later departed safely.
An Air India passenger jet heading to Frankfurt was forced to return to Mumbai after a bag of curry powder set off smoke and fire alarms. Pilots on the Boeing 747 activated fire extinguishers after receiving a cockpit warning about a fire in the cargo hold in June 2009. But on the plane’s return to India engineers said the alert had been triggered by a leaking bag containing curry powder. The bag was removed before the plane took off again after a 12hour delay.
Snakes, rats, mice and scorpions have all prevented planes from taking off, but in January last year a bee delayed an Indonesian passenger plane for four hours after getting stuck in vital equipment and causing a problem with the aircraft controls. —