Accounts of exchanges: airline pilots and control towers around the world! (TOO FUNNY!)

Private Email | DECEMBER 10, 2004 | Unknown

[CHARLITE]

Accounts of actual exchanges between airline pilots and control towers around the world.

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Tower: "Delta 351, you have traffic at 10 o'clock, 6 miles!"

Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"

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"TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 Degrees."

"Centre, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?"

"Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"

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From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: "I'm f... ing bored!"

Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!"

Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f... ing bored, not f... ing stupid!"

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O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."

United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this... I've got the little Fokker in sight."

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A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight.

While attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked, "What was your last known position?"

Student: "When I was number one for takeoff."

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A DC-10 had come in a little hot and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down.

San Jose Tower Noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadeloupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."

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There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked."

Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.

"Ah," the fighter pilot remarked, "The dreaded seven-engine approach."

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Taxiing down the tarmac, a DC-10 abruptly stopped, turned around and returned to the gate. After an hour-long wait, it finally took off.

A concerned passenger asked the flight attendant, "What, exactly, was the problem?"

"The pilot was bothered by a noise he heard in the engine," explained the flight attendant. "It took us a while to find a new pilot."

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A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in

Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."

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Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7"

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact

Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger; and yes, we copied Eastern... we've already notified our caterers."

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One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee.

Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said, "What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"

The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have enough parts for another one."

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The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them.

So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206 Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- And I didn't land."

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While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.

An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew, screaming:

"US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!"

Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting hysterically: "God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take forever to sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour, and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"

"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.

Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high.

Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone,

asking: "Wasn't I married to you once?"

[Question_Assumptions]

I was sitting on a plane in Newark (NJ) during a long delay and the pilot put the cockpit radio on one of the channels in the passenger compartment and I decided to listen to it. A line of thunderstorms had appeared from Canada to Tennessee so nothing was having much luck going West (the plane I was on never actually took off -- they were itchy to leave because they were close to FAA time limits and didn't make it).

In any event, at one point, one of the other pilots asked for clearance to Route 78 to just drive the plane West because it would be faster. The tower responded, "He knows where he's going."

[Polybius]

You could tell that the British pilot was getting a little nervous with this Mig flying a few miles directly behind him and finally asked the controller what he should do. Before the controller could say anything, the Pan Am pilot, who must have been from Texas, came on the frequency and said "Ya'll oughta just go back and flush your toilets!"

"I was a rear gunner for British Airways."

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

My father was a career pilot in the Air Force. He told me about an Alaskan bush pilot who was asked, "What do you do if you are IFR (instruments in clouds) at night over the Alaskan mountains and your engine quits?"

The response was, "Check your position on your chart and begin a controlled descent. Determine the elevation of the terrain beneath your position. When you reach an altitude approximately 100 feet above the terrain, turn your landing light on. If you don't like what you see, turn it off."

[Alien Gunfighter]

Oh, yeah. Gotta mark this one.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Very funny stuff ;-)

[Americanwolf]

Yup... Us navy boys couldn't read gauges very well.. :)

[Poohbah]

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."

A "that said it all" ping (c8

[Poohbah]

I was hoping someone would explain that one to the rest of us nonaviators...

B-52s have eight engines. One shutting down isn't exactly a life-threatening crisis.

[oldtimer]

Three months after I got my Private Pilate, 'Mommy' (my flight instructor) who was an American Airlines dispatcher left us at the Mobile Ala airport in my C182 to deadhead home.

We are going to fly from there a short hop to Edwards in Gulf Shores.

I am serious nervous.

My wife hops in the right seat with our Golden Retriever almost out of his sedative in the back.

I successfully call for taxi clearance, successfully call for take off clearance, and about three minutes into the flight:

I decided maybe I ought to contact clearance...with more than impatience, he said "Did you try to contact me?". "Yes sir, I must have some radio problems".

"You stay at this altitude!".

The moral of the story is that Pilots learn to tell fibs when they screw up.

Finally, when I got back home and told 'Mommy", I got serious training on clearances flying through Class B air space as in DFW Airport.

[RVN Airplane Driver]

Brought back memories...used to fly that corridor all the time in the 70's and those MIGS loved using us for target practice and frankly scary the bejesus out of us. You folks would give us traffic as we humped along at about 250 knots and then a MIG would fill the windscreen as they went vertical...I remember they had a back course ILS as you entered the corridors from West Germany and if you got off centerline we promptly got a call from you folks. Great job..Thanks

[Tribune7]

ping

[politicalmerc]

ping

[Robe]

A few jewels from my flying days.....

A Female Voice..."Charlotte Approch, United 324 is with you for 18 Right"
Unknown Male Voice....."There goes another empty Kitchen"

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Departure Control .."Freighter 808, Traffic your 2 o'clock passing to your 9, a thousand below, He's a Shorts 300
Freighter 808 ...."Yeah we got your Shorts out here"

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[ops33]

I loved being an air traffic controller but without a doubt, working traffic in Berlin was the hardest, most complicated, and difficult place I ever worked. Where else could a Master Sergeant screw up and have it land on the desk of the Secretary of State the next morning!!

[Poohbah]

Sign in the ready room, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314: "ALL NEAR MISSES ARE TO REPORTED IMMEDIATELY."

Penciled in underneath: "After you change your underwear, of course."

[xone]

bttt

[nmh]

Thanks!

I had a couple good laughs.

[knews_hound]

BTTT

[Americanwolf]

LOL :)

I am famillar with the pilot fib to cover up errors.... I dealt with fighter jocks...

We had one that it was his first "fleet 2v2 training with our sister squadron. He took of got airborne and was engaged with the "enemy" but could not get his AIM-9 to lock up or work properly.

needless to say he landed proceed directly into the ordanence shop with the maintiance slip demanding that we investigate and fix what we screwed up (or so he thought we screwed up.)

Needless to say I went out check the missile over and the weapons system.. ran diagnostics and found nothing wrong.

The pilot continued to sit in our work center and berate us. At that point I turned around and call the other pilots involved in the flight and asked if they had expirence and issues with their weapons systems. (or work center took great pride in being able to keep our weapons system alway working. 95% up rate.) The other pilots including the CO stated that they had not. They were in the debrief at that time.
The CO asked me to come up and speak with him real quick.
I figured it would be another chew out for messing something up, but the I could hear laughter in the back ground. So went up to see the CO, he hands me fuming pilots flight video and tells me to put it in the VCR. I do hit play and about 3 minutes into the engagment. I see the pilot looking frantically around the cockpit, and the calling out no joy, and asking to break the engagment off because he cannot get his weapons system to work.

I have to give the pilot credit, If i had not seen the video and realized what had happened.. We would have been troubleshooting the weapons system all night.

The pilot almost got it right. He had selected his air to air weapons, and even got to the point of selecting the AIM-9.. the correct weapon. His frantic search was for the Switch that cuts the coolent to the head so that it can seek freely.

Needless to say after spliting my side laughing. I headed back down to the work center handed the work request and tape to the pilot. with it signed off that seeker head on aim-9 cannot work if you don't uncage and let it seek freely.(The infamous switch will not work in OFF position.)

The pilot always made sure after that to let us know what steps he took if he reported a problem from there on out.

I still love to hear stuff like that... It is human nature at its best. :)