Fun_People Archive
20 Feb
Flying Blind?

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 97 02:05:04 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Flying Blind?

Forwarded-by: Ninafel@aol.com
From: weiss@sita.mro.dec.com (Roger Weiss)

One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are
seated, waiting for the cockpit crew to show up so they can get under way.
The pilot and copilot finally appear in the rear of the plane, and begin
walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle.  Both appear to be
blind.  The pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right and
left as he stumbles down the aisle, and the copilot is using a guide dog.
Both have their eyes covered with huge sunglasses.  At first the passengers
do not react; thinking that it must be some sort of practical joke.
However, after a few minutes the engines start revving and the airplane
starts moving down the runway.  The passengers look at each other with some
uneasiness.  They start whispering among themselves and look desperately to
the stewardesses for reassurance.  Then the airplane starts accelerating
rapidly and people begin panicking.  Some passengers are praying, and as
the plane gets closer and closer to the end of the runway, the voices are
becoming more and more hysterical.  Finally, when the airplane has less than
20 feet of runway left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts
as everyone screams at once, and at the very last moment the airplane lifts
off and is airborne.  Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of
relief and tells the pilot: "You know, one of these days the passengers
aren't going to scream, and we're gonna get killed!"

© 1997 Peter Langston