Stephen Keshner: Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot

The Captain, a very distinguished looking fellow in his fifties, with graying temples, in every way resembling my (and the public’s) perception of the professional pilot. The Captain graciously gives me the okay. Introducing oneself to the Captain, and requesting his jump-seat, is proper etiquette in the industry. I sit directly behind him through the flight, silently admiring his smooth flying skills.

Approaching Fort Lauderdale, the Boeing 727, gear and flaps down, is lined up to land, and the cockpit has been “sterile,” silent, from 10,000 feet on down. Now, descending through three hundred feet, on short final, the Captain suddenly screams “Fuck you, Frank Lorenzo, you queer cock-sucker!”

Shocked, I look over at the First Officer, catching his eye. Taxiing in, he explains that the Captain screams that out on every flight, so that in the event they crash, those will be the last words anyone ever hears on the cockpit voice recorder.

In 1983, Mr. Francesco (Frank) Lorenzo, Chairman of the Board of Continental Airlines, had “broken the code.” No pilot ever started flying for the money — we fly for fun, we have to fly…flying is our joy, our life, our addiction, and now in many cases, our damnation. Having broken the code, Lorenzo then broke the unions at Continental, and he now had his sights set on Eastern Airlines.

1983 was not a good year for Airline Pilots, it was the beginning of the end of many good careers at Continental, Pan Am, Brannif and Eastern Airlines.

Trans Air became a Piedmont commuter, so they now required two pilots up front for safety and insurance purposes. Captain Kerry Cinder, “El Cind” and I were paired together flying the twin-engine Cessna 402.

The 402 is open cockpit, no partition separating the cockpit from the ten seats filled with barfing passengers.

“Low and slow,” the days were long and grueling. We lived for weeks at a time in hotel rooms in Tallahassee. Departing at six A.M., we would fly eight-leg days, from Tallahassee to Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale to Treasure Cay to Marsh Harbor, and back the same way, finishing up about midnight, back in our cheap hotel in Tallahassee. We flew “quick turns,” which allowed only for a quick pee and a smoke, but no food.

Room service was closed by the time we got back to our hotel, but I was too exhausted to be hungry. Days into this coffee-only existence, hunger finally kicked in. Returning to my room one night, I was starving. I see a used food tray on the floor, by the room next to mine. There, calling to me from the tray, sat an untouched salad with oil-soaked croutons. I stealthily removed the salad and a fork, trying not to alert my benevolent neighbor. After cleaning the fork, I devoured the salad. I’m in heaven, it seemed the best meal I ever had.

Next morning, rushing, showering and shaving at the same time, I get a bug in my head. I don’t want the maid to find the empty salad bowl in my room. Obsessed, the shower still running, I step out of the tub, still wet and covered with soap. I peek out my door, salad bowl in hand, only to find that my unwitting host’s tray is gone.

Its five AM, not a soul up yet. I dash diagonally across the hallway, wanting to plant the “evidence” in front of someone else’s door, and I hear the single worst sound ever… slam-click! My door locks itself behind me. Balls-naked, dripping wet, I’m in the hallway of a cheap hotel, unable to get back into my room. The salad bowl has now become my fig-leaf.

In my Hotel experiences, there has always been a maid’s cart somewhere on each level, but at five AM, having searched the entire corridor, I was out of luck. I was now standing in the little niche of the service elevator, deciding whether or not to leave the floor in order to find a maid who might get me back into my room. Its one thing to be caught naked in the hallway on your own floor, but how to explain being on some other floor?

These thoughts are whizzing through my head, as the elevator starts to move on it’s own, and stops on my floor. The doors slide open, and there stand, on either side of a cart, two very stout, black chambermaids.

Their wide open eyes and shocked facial expressions quickly resume an implacable “We’ve seen it all before” nonchalance, as they look at me, naked, wet and salad-plated.

“I’ve locked myself out of my room.” I manage, and turn towards my room.

Without a word, they follow me down the hallway. Walking with as much dignity as I can muster, our strange procession marches along the corridor. In this emotional agony, I now can’t remember my room number. In desperation I point at a door, guessing that it’s about where my room should be. One of the maids opens the door with her passkey. Handing her the salad plate, I say “thanks” and step inside. Thank God, it was my room.

“No meal is worth that,” I tell Captain Kerry Cinder, explaining my morning’s experience.

“Kid,” he grins wide, “welcome to the airline industry.”

Kerry was a high-tech guy, a Pan Am furloughee and Naval Aviator, flying fighter aircraft off of carrier decks. He was very kind-hearted to me, a man with a generous nature and loads of patience.

It was a perfect Florida morning. Cobalt blue skies, and 70 degree weather as we’re descending through 3,000 feet. I always loved landing to the east at Fort Lauderdale International. The beaches, and the ocean beyond spread out in Gaugin palettes of blues and greens.

Approach control handed us over to the Tower frequency, and Tower has cleared us to land. Landing check complete and we’re cleared to Land. We were fat, happy, and enjoying the view.

Captain Rehza Kehani and I loved flying together. An Iranian and a Jew in the same cockpit, what a combination. We respected each other’s flying skills, and made each other roll with laughter, both of us having the same perverse sense of humor.

Now, lined up on final, we are about three minutes from touchdown. We watch as a light, twin-engine airplane begins his take-off roll, rotates and climbs into the beautiful Florida sky.

Plane: “Tower, we have an emergency.”

Tower: “What’s the nature of your emergency?” Silence… nothing.

We are the spectators of this pantomime, and as we watch, the plane rolls to the right, turns over onto its back, and comes straight down, a lawn-dart, plummeting straight into the Jai Alai parking lot south of the Ft. Lauderdale field.

Smoke, dust and flames without sound, the unreality of what we’re witnessing makes no civilized sense. Neither Rehza nor I say a word to each other for the rest of the day, nor do we look at each other directly. Six more legs we flew that day, all in silence.

Trans Air obtained ten brand new Spanish Casa turbo-props from G.E. Leasing on very good terms. The government of Spain, as part owner of Casa, was subsidizing it’s Aviation Industry. To create an entrée into the American market for these aircraft, we were being allowed to use them free of charge for the first twelve months (including a free half-million dollars of parts inventory), with the first note payment not due for one year. Meanwhile, the Bent brothers, owners of Trans Air, were collecting the revenue from the use of these new planes.

Stigo and I agreed that we could predict when Trans Air would go out of business. Although the other guys didn’t believe us, we figured that the Bents would disappear exactly one year from the date that the lease was signed, when the first note payment would come due. Unfortunately, as the date approached, bills started not getting paid, and our paychecks were late.