Saw this on the news today that occurred on a flight to Basel. Fortunately the FA or anyone else was not seriously hurt. Never seen anyone, much less an FA and her beverage cart bouncy of the ceiling.

 

I have seen this once, although the outcome was better because the cart floated to just about an inch below the ceiling, and as gently as it could landed in almost the same place where it started.  We had just crossed the eastern flank of the rockies and we had per the pilot's warning of severe chop ahead about sixty seconds to prepare, not enough for the FA's to secure the cart.  I was doused with a mixture of white wine, whiskey, and seven up, which made cleaning and blotting the wetness a "breeze", pardon the in flight pun, lol....  But when I got to my destination in Oklahoma, my client thought I was teasing the bottle a bit too much and I do not think they bought into my turbulence story, the flatlanders they were who had probably never been more than ten miles from their Oklahoma settlement.  I knew the ambience and laid back attitude (which I found seriously quite refreshing) of the place when I was told "Ya shald be fixin' to go get ya suppa now"...  After a week there, I was talking like they were, I went native....

John

A strong argument for keeping your seat belt fastened all the time!  The FA's don't have a choice if the plane hits clear air turbulence but everyone else does.

Jim Driskell

Also there is a Murphy's law, seldom mentioned, when it comes to turbulence:  The timing of turbulence follows you when you go to the in flight facilities and/or, just as you are trying to eat your meal.

I know this all too well when I was a weekly flyer and had to choreograph the movement of my utensils with the approximate location of where I assumed the food would be a second later.  If I timed it right I usually was able to grab a morsel of meat when my food tray was floating above my seatmates left armrest.............

Edited June 18, 20196 yr by John_Cillis

13 minutes ago, John_Cillis said:

  The timing of turbulence follows you when you go to the in flight facilities 

 

I didn’t even think about that, can you imagine if you were on the toilet when that hit!!

Fortunately I’ve never had to poop on a plane and have never even sat on the toilet in a plane, but that jolt could have made quite the mess had someone been doing business or just finished doing business and hadn’t flushed yet. 

Just the thought made me puke in my mouth a little bit. 🤢 

The heads on aircraft have a anti-turbulence feature; the seat has a sensor that recognizes weight and automatically opens the exhaust valve, holding the recipient down during turbulance! 🐵

1 hour ago, jmdriskell said:

The heads on aircraft have a anti-turbulence feature; the seat has a sensor that recognizes weight and automatically opens the exhaust valve, holding the recipient down during turbulance! 🐵

Ha ha, I wish I could find Whoopi Goldberg's monologue on going to the facilities on an aircraft.  I believe it was on Johnny Carson and it was the first time I ever saw her in any form, especially stand up comedy.  It was sooooo funny and only a simmer or frequent flyer could appreciate the fun she poked at the experience.  On my coach trip on Trafalgar thru Europe in 2017, we were told we had a facility "for emergency use while moving only".  I can only best describe the space to an Iron Maiden, and it made aircraft facilities look like the Ritz in comparison.  

To even use it, one should have reviewed a Houdini water torture video first so one could get the "muscle memory" required to twist and turn oneself in a direction approximate to where most astronauts might use during reentry into the atmosphere.  And a coach has more bumps than an aircraft, and given the average tenant of the coach's facility was six inches taller than the facility's interior, many who tried like I did a few times after German beer had to wear neck braces after the experience.  And, as Forrest Gump might say, that's all I have to say about that.  The rest, as my ex wife and I joke about, would be "TMI"--not three mile island, but too much information....

This is why I stay in my seat and keep my seat belt on during flight.  I fasten the seat belt as soon as I am in my seat, unfasten it once the aircraft has arrived at the gate.

I was on a military flight long ago in my mid teens. It was a long flight and we were on para "jump" seats along the length of the fuselage. Our seat belts were off and we moved freely about the plane. We hit an air pocket, no warning of course, and we all ended up on the ceiling briefly before exiting that air pocket and resuming normal "lift". Everyone crawled back to a jump seat and immediately fastened seat belts securely. I have never forgotten that drop and now always keep my seat belt done up unless going to the facilities or for a stretch walk. Oh yes, I always flush the toilet as soon as I am done, even before redressing!

The only time I've experienced anything remotely similar was crossing the Sierra Nevada's in a 727-200 in the early 70's. We dropped several thousand feet and had I not had my belt on, I would have probably hit the ceiling bins. Pretty scary.

 

16 hours ago, John_Cillis said:

I was doused with a mixture of white wine, whiskey, and seven up

Shaken and stirred, I presume. 

36 minutes ago, Holdit said:

Shaken and stirred, I presume. 

Yesss Mr. MoneyPenny.....😑

15 hours ago, John_Cillis said:

On my coach trip on Trafalgar thru Europe in 2017, we were told we had a facility "for emergency use while moving only".  I can only best describe the space to an Iron Maiden, and it made aircraft facilities look like the Ritz in comparison.  

On the off-topic topic of movable facilities, I will briefly describe the facilities on Iranian trains as they were (and still may be!) in the early sixties.

The basic Persian facility is easiest to explain by the first two stanzas of a poem* my late mother and I wrote shortly after beginning our sojurn in Tehran, Iran in 1961. This was authored by my mother and myself to honor my father for whom this was a real life experience!

Quote

I have no pleasant memories of the Persian thunder mug,
The bombsight in each household where you go to pull the plug.
It's a monster of enamel, measures nearly three by three,
With two raised serrated footprints, which you squat on buttocks free.

It all slopes to rear of center, that's for drainage and a hole,
We refer to as the target or the golf cup or the goal.
In the target there is water, which it seems is ever cool,
And it splashes on occasion, even wets the family jewels.

On a train, instead of ceramic/enamel, the bowl was made of stainless steel. Since one had to squat over the torture device, there was a chain with a wooden t-bar at the end hanging from the ceiling. One was supposed to grasp said t-bar with one's teeth to provide needed stability.

* Nota Bene: anyone interested enough can read and giggle at the full poem in the following "Spoiler":

 

                                                  ODE TO THE BOMBSIGHT

by Helen Egger Leaming and Russell (Bill) Leaming, Tehran 1961

I have no pleasant memories of the Persian thunder mug,
The bombsight in each household where you go to pull the plug.
It's a monster of enamel, measures nearly three by three,
With two raised serrated footprints, which you squat on buttocks free.

It all slopes to rear of center, that's for drainage and a hole,
We refer to as the target or the golf cup or the goal.
In the target there is water, which it seems is ever cool,
And it splashes on occasion, even wets the family jewels.

On the right there is a faucet, which is just for washing hands
Which substitutes for paper in the best of Persian cans.
Where a man can't sit in comfort, with his elbows on his knees
Cause he's sitting there on nothing, hinder dangling, if you please!

I remember one cold evening, I was feeling rather foul
And my innards ever rumbled and gave forth a constant growl.
They they did a sudden flip-flop and tied themselves in knots
There was little doubt about it; I'd contracted Persian trots.

There was no chance to tarry as I raced along the hall,
Cause I had to reach the bombsight, ere I heeded nature's call.
I was ready as I entered, shorts and trousers at half mast,
So I just relaxed a little, cause I thought the danger past.

I had reckoned incorrectly, as I settled down with care,
And the jet propulsion started, and it splattered everywhere.
So the engineer designer is the one I blame of course,
Cause he didn't make allowance for the unremitting force.

I straightened up a little as one must to reach the chain
And the contents of my pockets all went tumbling down the drain.
I retrieved the most important, not too happy as you can guess.
There is no need explaining, things were in an awful mess.

Now a new dilemma faced me as I crouched there in despair,
I'd forgotten toilet paper, and there wasn't any there!
Well, I washed up at the faucet and crept slowly to my lair
To curse the bombsight roundly for the things that happened there.

If I live to be a hundred, or a thousand, even more,
Not a thing that I could think of could begin to tie the score
With that engineering genius and his warped and evil mind
Who built the Persian toilet with no place for your behind!

--------------------------------
Nota Bene (2019): This was authored by my mother and myself
to honor my father for whom this was a real life experience!

My sincere thanks to Eydie Shoptaugh Mellin who was prescient
enough to retain a copy of this in her scrapbook!

I was flying on a Frontier Convair 580 back in the day from Denver to Pueblo with a stop at Colorado Springs.  It was a very windy, turbulent day and the pilot elected to bypass COS on the southbound flight.

The stewardess began handing out the barf bags.  Since I've never been air sick or car sick or sea sick I passed it up telling her, "You pay a dollar a minute to d this in an amusement park."

Noel