Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (55 page)

In an instant, Pearson lost the digital instruments that displayed the plane’s airspeed, altitude, and heading. He lost his transponder, which gives the plane’s location, speed, and altitude to air traffic controllers, and he lost his vertical speed indicator, which told him how fast the plane was losing altitude. He didn’t even have a clock.

There was more. The hydraulic system, which controls the landing gear and rudders, is also powered by the engine. So as the engines were quitting and the cockpit was going dark, Pearson felt his control yoke (similar to a steering wheel) and his rudder pedals stiffen and become unresponsive.

He had no fuel, he had almost no instruments, and he was quickly losing his ability to control the aircraft.

Greasing palms: Some Amazon tribes liked Vaseline so much they used it as currency.

FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY

Airplanes are designed with many redundancies built in, so that if a piece of equipment fails, there’s usually a backup and the plane can fly and land safely. Quintal flipped the switch to activate the auxiliary power unit (APU), which is designed to provide backup electricity and hydraulics. There was just one problem: like the generators, the APU was powered by jet fuel. The hydraulic system and the glass cockpit flickered to life for a moment, then went dark again when the APU sputtered out.

That was it for the digital instruments—there was no other source of power for them. But there
was
one more backup system to power the hydraulics.

SECOND WIND

Did you ever stick a pinwheel out the window of a moving car when you were a kid? The Boeing 767 has a device called a ram air turbine (RAT), located near the right wheel well. It’s a propeller on a long arm and in an emergency it can be manually extended out into the airstream, just like a kid’s pinwheel. When the RAT hits the airstream, the propeller spins, generating just enough hydraulic pressure in the process to power basic flight controls.

As Captain Pearson wrestled with the controls, Quintal engaged the RAT. Then he grabbed the 767’s emergency procedures manual and started looking for the section that told them what to do when both engines failed. There was no such section. So many redundancies had been built into the 767 that its designers never bothered to plan for the ultimate failure—no fuel in the tanks. They figured that all of the other redundancies and alarms would prevent such a thing from ever happening. The planes weren’t supposed to run out of fuel—not in the air, not on the ground, not ever.

And because the 767 had never been flight tested with both engines off, nobody knew how the jet would perform as a “glider,” or what amount of altitude it would lose for every mile traveled. Pearson knew that the plane was at about 28,000 feet when the second engine failed. But how far could it glide before it hit the ground? Were nearby airports close enough for the plane to glide to, or would it crash before they got there? He just didn’t know.

A fashion model’s career lasts, on average, about six years.

CHANGE OF PLANS

Thankfully, Flight 143’s radios had a backup battery, so
they
still worked. With help from Winnipeg Air Traffic Control, Quintal was able to estimate that the plane was losing about 5,000 feet of altitude for every 10 miles traveled. That wasn’t good news. By now they were only about 35 miles away from Winnipeg, but according to Quintal’s calculations, if they stayed the course they would crash about 12 miles short of the runway. They had to find a closer place to land.

The air traffic controllers suggested the old Canadian Air Force base in Gimli, Manitoba, about 50 miles north of Winnipeg. The base had been closed since 1971, but one of the two parallel landing strips was still used by civilian aircraft. Each one was more than twice as long as the one at Winnipeg, and long runways are a nice thing to have when you’re trying to land a 300,000-pound aircraft without any power. More importantly, Quintal was already familiar with the airport, because he had trained there when he was in the Air Force.

Flight 143 was going to Gimli.

For Part III, turn to
page 483
.

FORECAST: CHANCE OF TOAD-CHOKER

Arizonans have their own slang when it comes to rain. A few samples
.

Dust-Settler:
A teaser. Enough rain to do just that—settle the dust.

Turd-floater:
This happens when it rains so much that the ground and everything on it gets completely saturated, lifted from its place of deposit, and transported to a lower elevation.

Tank-filler:
This is the next best kind of rain—enough to fill the livestock water tanks, saving the ranchers from having to haul it in. Tank fillers are usually heavy rains that come after a “turd floater.”

Toad-choker (or “frog strangler”):
Lots of rain in a short time. Result: drowned amphibians on the open range.

Gully-washer:
This type of rain can be deadly. It happens when rain falls faster than it can be absorbed into the ground, turning gullies and just about any other low spot into a temporarily raging river.

The whistling swan has the most feathers of any bird, about 25,000.

You can blame your problems on bad luck or boneheaded mistakes. But is it possible, at least once in a while, that they’re the devil’s fault?

R
AGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

Microsoft users experienced problems in 2002 due to a network administration program known as Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks (SATAN). According to news reports, computers “possessed” by SATAN performed slowly and caused numerous unrelated programs to malfunction.

UNLUCKY NUMBER

The British Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency announced in 1990 that license plates with the number “666” would no longer be issued. Reason: The office had received numerous complaints from previous 666-plate holders that their lives and cars were cursed. One man reported that a week after receiving a 666 plate, his home was burglarized, his water became contaminated, and his car was run over by a truck.

AN OFF-HANDED GESTURE

Thomas Passmore of Virginia chopped off his own hand with a power saw because he believed it was possessed by the devil. He was rushed to a hospital, but refused to let doctors reattach the hand. Passmore later sued the hospital, saying that the doctors should have ignored his refusal and realized his pleas of being possessed by the devil were signs he was psychotic. (He lost the case, too.)

IN OTHER NEWS: YOU’RE THE DEVIL!

The usually sedate Croatian newspaper
Vecernji
caused a panic in 2001 when it ran an article that estimated 100,000 citizens of the Croatian capital city Zagreb were possessed by the devil. As proof,
Vecernji
noted that victims were suffering the telltale symptoms of satanic possession: nausea and fatigue (which also happen to be symptoms of the flu, food poisoning, and numerous other medical conditions). The mass possession, the article said, was part of a plot by an international league of satanists who were planning their annual convention in Zagreb and had invited the devil.

’70s fans, rejoice: Corduroy literally means “the cord of kings.”

BAD KITTY

In preparation for a trip to the Hague in 2001, newly appointed Attorney General John Ashcroft sent an advance security team to the American embassy. According to one report, they found cats in the residence and were concerned that some might be calicos. Ashcroft reportedly dislikes being around calico cats because he believes they are minions of the devil.

DEVIL MUSIC

A “voodoo priest” calling himself Doktor Snake used eBay to offer struggling musicians a unique opportunity: achieve success by signing a contract with the devil. Snake says he got the idea from the legend that blues musician Robert Johnson traded his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar brilliance. Doktor Snake’s deal includes a guided tour through the Crossroads (where many such satanic pacts are made) and a genuine contract. Snake’s work is guaranteed (musical success or your money back), and he has references! He says many of today’s major rock stars are clients.

WWW.SATAN.COM

While scoring the film
The Passion of the Christ
, composer John Debney told an interviewer for Assist News Service that the face of the devil frequently appeared on his computer screen to interrupt his work or crash the machine. “The first time it happened, it scared me,” he said. But after the ninth crash, Debney got frustrated and started screaming at the devil to meet him in the parking lot for a fistfight. Did Satan show up? “He didn’t manifest himself,” Debney admits. “But I wished that he would have.”

A WORD ORIGIN: THUG

Meaning:
A violent person or criminal

Origin:
“From the Hindustani
thag
, which means ‘thief.’ But these Indian thugs were not ordinary thieves. They were members of a religious society that waylaid wealthy travelers, then strangled and buried them, supposedly committing these heinous crimes in the name of the goddess Kali (after whom Calcutta is named).”

—From
The Story Behind the Word
, by Morton Freeman

Pope John XXIII installed a bowling alley in the Vatican.

It seems that people will sue each other over practically anything. Here are some real-life examples of unusual legal battles
.

T
HE PLAINTIFF:
Barbara Hewson

THE DEFENDANT:
Virgin Atlantic Airways

THE LAWSUIT:
After an 11-hour flight from Wales, Hewson arrived in Los Angeles with torn leg muscles, a hematoma in her chest, and a permanent case of sciatica. Cause of injury: Hewson claimed to have been crushed by the obese woman seated next to her. The woman was so large that she couldn’t fit into her seat without removing the armrest, effectively sitting on top of her neighbor. When Hewson complained, attendants told her to “ask if another passenger would exchange seats.” She should have asked the woman’s husband—he was sitting in the row behind them and apparently knew better than to book a seat next to his wife.

THE VERDICT:
Initially Virgin Atlantic sent Hewson a £15 ($22) gift basket of canned goods. Eventually it was upped to £13,000 (about $19,500), plus all of her medical and legal fees.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Lee Williams

THE DEFENDANT:
Eternal Tattoos

THE LAWSUIT:
Williams got the word “VILLAIN” tattooed on his right forearm in 1996. Years later a friend noticed the word was misspelled: it said “VILLIAN.” It turns out that when Williams went in to get the tattoo he wasn’t sure how to spell the word. But rather than look it up in a dictionary, he decided on what turned out to be the incorrect spelling. Knowing that it was his own mistake didn’t stop Williams from seeking $25,000 in damages from the tattoo parlor.

THE VERDICT:
Unknown (but he got the tattoo removed).

THE PLAINTIFF:
Troy Bowron

THE DEFENDANTS:
The Jannali Inn, and Ross Lucock, a customer

THE LAWSUIT:
Bowron sued for “future loss of earnings” (he’s an upholsterer) due to the nasty spill he took in the Sydney, Australia, pub. Lucock had been refused service at the bar because he wasn’t wearing shoes. Extremely drunk (but very creative), he attached two pork chops to his feet with masking tape and, incredibly, was permitted back in the bar. Bowron slipped on Lucock’s greasy trail of disintegrated meat and broke his left arm.