Stephen Keshner - Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot

Over the loud speaker, I heard my flight being cancelled by the Piedmont Station Manager in Tallahassee. After he had taken care of the passengers, I asked him what had become of my flight? “Go look at your plane, out on the ramp,” was his response. Walking out onto the ramp, I saw a Sheriff’s car parked in front of my plane, and an airport van blocking it’s rear. The Airport Manager and a Sheriff are taping a document across the door of the aircraft. Getting a closer look, I discover it is a lien notice “…non-payment of fuel, non-payment of landing fees…”

“Hey, guys, can I get my underwear off this plane?” I ask. Smiling, they allow me to get my personal gear off.

A few times we pilots would show up at Fort Lauderdale to start our flying, and our airplane would be missing. The banks, we discovered, would send repo pilots in at 2 A.M., to fly these planes away.

Trans Air’s death spiral continued until finally, the only flying left was from Ft. Lauderdale to the Islands and back. This required that Kerry Cinder, myself and a pilot buddy of his from the Navy, had to drive down from Jacksonville, to pick up our flights.

One dark night, in the truck with Kerry and his friend, they ask me how old I think the Earth is? Something tells me that this question is not lightly asked. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it much, but I guess it’s about four, maybe five billion years old, what with Carbon dating and such.”

“Carbon dating is a fraud,”they explode together! “The Earth is only 4,772 years old,” Kerry insists!

Seems that they both go to the same church in Orange Park, a bedroom community serving the large naval aviation community of Jacksonville. Anyway, their church (I never did ask which one it was) teaches that the Bible is to be taken literally. That if one were to add up all the begats and such, and they’ve certainly done just that, the age of the world would be 4,772 years old.

Sitting between these two modern men, men of computers, men who’ve flown the most advanced, sophisticated aircraft in the Military world, I am trying to decide whether I am being put on. I am not. Kerry “El Cind” Cinder, and his buddy, genuinely believe Carbon dating to be a fraud, they and their wives and friends are raising their children to believe that the world is less than five thousand-years-old, and I am now feeling a Pariah….not an overt Pariah, mind you, they are too polite for that, but things were never quite the same after that.

The trip to Ft. Lauderdale was about four hours long. After pulling into the first fuel stop, I voluntarily moved to the bed of the pick-up truck where I sat for the remainder of the trip.

Kerry was recalled by Pan Am from which he had been furloughed years earlier. I heard, years later, after the demise of Pan Am, that Kerry was working for Delta Airlines.

I don’t know whether Kerry Cinder still believes that the Earth is only 5,000 years-old. But if you do Kerry, I ask you now, what difference does it make? The only possible difference it can make, for you and your fellow congregants, is in trying to convince yourselves that (mathematically speaking) your personal interpretation of the bible is correct…so, my advice to you is, watch out for Janet Reno!

It’s 1987, and Dave Fielding and I are “Sim” partners, training to become Second Officer Flight Engineers on the DC-10 for Continental.

Sam Prickton, a Texan in Continental’s training department, is training us on the panel. He calls us “Switch Niggers,” sitting sideways (facing the Flight Engineer’s panel), we are pilots trained to be Flight Engineer / Second Officers, responsible for the hydraulics, electrics, fuel, pressurization, and all other “systems” on the airplane.

It becomes apparent that Dave and I are comfortably past the worst, that Sam Prickton is confident of our competence, and that he will have no trouble passing us along to the Feds for our Flight Engineer’s check-ride.

Relaxed a bit now, we hit a cowboy bar in Houston. A few beers into our evening, Sammy Prickton asks, “Do you fellers know what the only good Yankee is?”

“What’s that, Sammy?” we ask in tandem.

“A New Yawk Je-ew, moves to Texas, marries him a nigger, ’dopts a couple Mexicans, then moves himself and his new family back to Jeeeww Yawhk.”

My breath / heart catch in my throat, unsure after the initial shock exactly how I’m going to react. We are probationary new-hires, and can be fired by anyone, for any reason.

Before I can come out of my protective, emotional capsule, Dave says: “Sam, let me show you some pictures of my family.” In slow motion, I watch the fat wallet appear on top of the spilled beer and peanut shell mess on the bar. Dave flips one by one through his wedding photos.

His black-as-coal bride and her ebony family, framed by their pure white gowns and tuxes, are all smiles, enjoying the occasion, all mixed in with Dave’s northern “Yankee” family.

Sam Prickton was a dead man…we all three knew it. From his shirt collar up, neck to face, all six quarts of Sam’s bigoted blood flooded upwards… “red on the head like the dick on a dog,” is all I can think of. Nothing more is said. Dave has no intention of turning Sammy in. Sam, sure as shit, isn’t going to say anything to anybody, and I’m the asshole who ducked the draft, too late or too chickenshit to react to the anti-Semitism.

I’ve found out over the years that the bigotry in the cockpit is pervasive…lots of genuine racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and homophobia. Also, lots of brotherly love, based strictly on personality and professional respect.

Blacks and other obvious minorities have it easy. They know they’re being talked about behind their backs, but they don’t have to hear it (decide how to deal with it) directly. In my case, my looks can make me Italian, Greek, Mediterranean, anything. Very few people (other than New Yorkers, who would immediately know better) take me for Jewish. So, I get to hear all the Jew shit, and have to decide how to react to it.

Flight attendants, “…the single most important safety feature on an airplane."

"Definition of a Flight Attendant: A life support system for a pussy."

In our Honolulu base, we have a senior flight attendant named Wanda Decker, also known as “Thunder Pussy” to the cognoscenti. She is a quick witted, acerbic Jew-girl from Brooklyn. Wanda doesn’t take any shit from anybody. She’s also a great “trolley-dolly,” who does a fantastic job. Today, we would be flying the Honolulu to Manila run, and Wanda was working the first-class section, as well as being our “cockpit-queen.”

We are still on the blocks, passenger boarding still in progress, and Wanda is serving Champagne to her first-class guests. Wanda had no trouble noticing that one gentleman was already drunk. He had apparently gotten blotto at the VIP lounge in the terminal, just prior to getting on the airplane. Wanda cuts him off, refusing to serve him a pre-departure drink. The gentleman was Senator John Tower, of Texas.

Indignant at having been refused alcohol, Senator Tower asks, “Do you know who I am?” Without missing a beat, Wanda makes a P.A. announcement to her first-class passengers: “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. The gentleman in seat 2B doesn’t seem to know who he is…does anyone here know who he is, we’d like to help him out?” The snookered Senator doesn’t find this to be amusing.

“My,” he says, “you’re a real witch, ain’tcha?”

“That’s right, I’m a real witch, and POOF, you’re a pile of shit!”

Wanda stood her ground, and John Tower of Texas received no alcoholic beverages during the eight-hour flight to Manila.