Unexpected departures
Flight attendants are a mysterious bunch. Now you see them, now you don’t. Between changing routes and changing schedules, a flight attendant could transfer, retire, quit –or die — without much notice from co-workers. Maybe that’s why we have such a fascination with each other’s deaths — that, and the sometimes-unexpected nature of our departures.
Death notifications at my airline are usually made in the company newsletter. If the flight attendant is not retired at the time of death, a picture is often placed somewhere in the office along with the sad announcement. Often it’s hard to recognize the deceased because the picture shows the person out of uniform or in an unaccustomed pose.
This was particularly true of one feisty older flight attendant, who had specifically asked that a certain picture be displayed if she passed away. In the picture, she was sticking out her tongue and wagging her hands by her ears. Everyone laughed when they saw it. That’s the way I would like to be remembered: with a chuckle instead of a tear.
June, another flight attendant, was a lady whom I knew only by reputation. As I looked at her picture, nothing came to mind except the circumstances of the accident. June was working up in first class before the boarding call. It was a hot day and the air conditioner was broken, so the doors at the front and back of the plane were open to provide cross-ventilation. On a 747 airplane, the distance between the ground and the door is approximately 32 feet. June was having a debate with Pete, another flight attendant, about the distance.
“I’ll bet it’s 55 feet,” Pete remarked.
“Nonsense,” she replied. “Thirty, tops.”
“You’re way off!”
“See for yourself. All you have to do is look …” June walked over to the door — and disappeared.
Pete, in shock, ran to the door and stared down. June was sprawled out on the pavement.
She survived, but she had broken her back in two places. Five years of rehabilitation later, she returned to work. On her third flight back, she was working in business class and noticed that the airline, even after her accident, continued the practice of leaving the doors open on hot days. She began to complain vigorously. A junior flight attendant, who had heard only some of the story, asked her exactly what had happened.
“I’ll show you,” June said. “Come with me.”
June took the junior flight attendant to the open front door. Other curious crewmembers followed along behind them.
“I was walking toward the door like so, and I lost my footing …”
Incredibly, June lost her footing and fell out the open door once again. This time, luck wasn’t with her.
Can you imagine the expression on the bystanders’ faces? Talk about a real-life re-enactment. From that point on, no doors would be left open without a safety strap. At Pan Am, the strap was affectionately called the “June strap.”
I do feel death is tragic, but I also feel that some cases are worth a second glance for the unintended lessons they teach. The following is a closer look into a few strange-but-true flight crew departures.
* On a Frankfurt layover, two male flight attendants challenged one another to a late-night swim across the Rhine River. They had drunk too much German beer, and the current was way too strong. They both drowned. Clearly, drinking and “Double dare!” do not mix.
* Then there was the flight attendant who bragged that there wasn’t a hotel window she couldn’t open. While on a layover in Japan, she unlocked her window to have a cigarette, leaned out too far, and fell 30 floors to her death — proving once again that smoking is dangerous to your health.
* How about the pilot who rented a wood chipper to dispose of his flight-attendant wife? The reason he got caught is that he used his union credit card to rent the chipper, instead of paying cash. And why did he do that? To save 15 percent on the rental. Apparently, murderers can be cheapskates, too.
* And what about the flight attendant who discovered that her husband, a pilot, was cheating with countless co-workers? That investigation was not highly publicized, perhaps because of this unsavory coincidence: the pilot’s body was never found, but the flight attendant was famous for bringing homemade sandwiches to work, then generously handing them out to passengers and crew when there was no scheduled meal service. Talk about getting rid of the evidence.
* Then there’s the case of the flight attendant who prided herself on keeping well hydrated on the plane. It would not be unusual for her to drink six liters of water in the course of one flight. Once, in an attempt to break her record, she downed an incredible 10 liters of water. Afterwards, she felt unwell and went to the lavatory, where she died. Officials determined she had passed out and choked while being sick. The unofficial cause of death was drowning.
* A 72-year-old flight attendant always insisted that someday she would die on a layover in Italy. One day, after showing up for her flight to Rome, she had to return home: the flight had been canceled. She passed away the very next day. You see, canceled flights can ruin a flight attendant’s plans, too.
By far the most bizarre case I have ever heard is about the flight that took off to Europe with a crew of four pilots - but landed with only three. Somehow, on his break, one of the pilots wandered off, never to be heard from again. The authorities took the plane apart but have yet to solve the case.
Airline officials noted that the pilot was suffering from depression and was several months behind in his alimony payments; they surmised that he slipped off the plane as a passenger in hopes of starting a new life. But there was no record of him going through customs or immigration, and his bags were all still on the airplane. Who knows? Maybe he flushed himself down the toilet.
Ah, respect for the dead. Not a laughing matter, you say?
Well, the way I figure it, we are all going to meet Death sooner or later, so we might as well laugh along the way.