The Pilot Said What?
May 9, 2016, 8:36 am
#1
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The Pilot Said What?
Had an interesting "welcome aboard" speech last night.
Was connecting ATL-IAD on 1201. Last flight of the night, delayed an hour due to late arriving crew (no biggie, arriving at 1:15a instead of 12:15a makes little difference in my world). Then the captain welcomes us aboard:
"Sorry for the delay folks, we had a plane go down in Detroit."
I've never heard anything like it and the collective double-take from the rest of the PAX on board makes me think they hadn't either.
Was connecting ATL-IAD on 1201. Last flight of the night, delayed an hour due to late arriving crew (no biggie, arriving at 1:15a instead of 12:15a makes little difference in my world). Then the captain welcomes us aboard:
"Sorry for the delay folks, we had a plane go down in Detroit."
I've never heard anything like it and the collective double-take from the rest of the PAX on board makes me think they hadn't either.
May 9, 2016, 9:07 am
#2
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Ummmm..... I'd assume he meant "we had a plane with mechanical issues, causing it to be taken out of service". If so, amazingly poor choice of words. Because, really, who would want to go down in Detroit, of all places? San Diego, sure, but not Detroit.
May 9, 2016, 9:30 am
#3
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May 9, 2016, 10:05 am
#4
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Military jargon for jet that can't fly...e.g. "Tail 345 is down for hydraulics."
May 9, 2016, 2:03 pm
#5
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Yes, but even when talking about airplanes, when phrasing something like that we say "Went offline" in the past tense. If we use the word 'down,' we are more referring to the current state of the plane, such as "N455AM is still down, maintenance is trying to find the source of the hydraulic fluid leak."
But hey, at the end of the day, we all have said something while thinking of several ways to phrase it and it comes out a mess. Perhaps he was thinking something like 'the plane is down for mx' or 'it went offline' or 'is broken' or whatever, and it came out jumbled as 'we had a plane go down.' Who knows. At the end of the day, everyone figured out what he meant.
But hey, at the end of the day, we all have said something while thinking of several ways to phrase it and it comes out a mess. Perhaps he was thinking something like 'the plane is down for mx' or 'it went offline' or 'is broken' or whatever, and it came out jumbled as 'we had a plane go down.' Who knows. At the end of the day, everyone figured out what he meant.
May 9, 2016, 3:52 pm
#10
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A "plane go down" sounds fine for me. While there are many "better" word like "an unserviceable plane", it is not as worrisome as the words "a crashed plane". A crashed plane certainly brings to mind different images then a crashed server.
May 11, 2016, 1:21 pm
#13
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I had a strange pilot on a recent domestic flight. He began his preflight announcement by telling us that for DL flights, the "price includes pilots" and then continued to say a bit about his background and experience (33 years, retired Navy pilot).
Later on he said something about peanuts (taste buds prepare for takeoff) and pretzels (we have reach snacking altitude) that didn't make much sense, but I wasn't listening closely.
May 12, 2016, 8:38 am
#14
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Well, that beats mine from yesterday.
Think the pilot left his mic on by accident when it came over the PA.
"Are they going to send someone from maintenance to fix it?...No,well we can do without it for this flight."
That got a few pax looking around anxiously.
Think the pilot left his mic on by accident when it came over the PA.
"Are they going to send someone from maintenance to fix it?...No,well we can do without it for this flight."
That got a few pax looking around anxiously.
May 12, 2016, 12:45 pm
#15
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One of the airlines I worked for called these type of items: DMI: Deferred Maintenance Item or sometimes MEL: Minimum Equipment List (i.e. what MUST we have).
I was on a PACK (read: air conditioning) deferred CRJ flight yesterday. CRJ's have two PACKs, but can fly with just one operable...although it's really hot on the ground in the summer.