Stephen Keshner: Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot

“Have you noticed that pilots always look neat, with freshly pressed shirts and jackets? Japanese translation. “Well, this is our steam and press table, and it is my job to steam and press the pilot’s shirts and jackets during each flight,” More translation. “That way, everyone looks neat once we are on the ground.”

The Station Manager is rapidly translating my statements for the TV Star, she is quickly repeating it all into the camera and microphone for her live audience.

We are a success. They are all very impressed, all very happy with the interview, and they make their bowing goodbyes.

So far as I know, all of Japan, or at least all of Tokyo, is now convinced that the Flight Engineer’s table is a steam press, and that the Flight Engineer is in charge of laundry, to make the rest of the crew look presentable.

As an aside about Japan: prejudice and pride were definitely part of my make-up as a young DC-10 Flight Engineer. J.A.L. (Japan Airlines) was our ground handler in Narita and Nagoya. That is, they took care of our fueling, passenger, gates and maintenance needs in Japan. I used to bristle with annoyance whenever a Japanese maintenance guy would come flying into the cockpit and reach for a switch on my panel. “Don’t touch anything!” I would insist, knowing that nobody knew anything about these aircraft but me, especially not some Japanese guy in overalls, with limited English communications skills. After all, I had weeks of training as a Flight Engineer…who could know these aircraft as I did?

It didn’t take long to discover how thoroughly well trained, and how professional Japanese Maintenance men are (as are all the other Japanese in every department within aviation), and how much more they knew about these planes then I did. Further, their integrity would never permit them to pencil-whip a problem they couldn’t solve or fix… a habit all to common on the U.S. Domestic side of the industry.

During my first Manila experience, I was taken under the protective wing of B.G. “Wild Bill” Chowder. Bill was a senior Co-Pilot in those days, and he bid the Philippines all the time. Bill was our resident Manila pussy expert, the specialist (just ask him), who spent all of his time in the smoke-filled whore houses on Del Pilar street…Misty’s, Bloomers, The Firehouse… Apparently, Bill was dating one of these hookers, and paying her family money to fix up their house.

The first night of our one week layover, I go with Chowder to his bar. He takes me into Bloomers, and introduces me to his girlfriend, one of the hookers there. Behind her back, Bill is flirting with some of the other girls, trying to be discreet. One night of this shit is enough for me… “shooting pussy in a barrel for Christ’s sake,” I tell Chowder.

I spend the rest of the week on my own, taking in the sights, smells and sounds of Manila within walking distance of our residence, the Hotel Manila, a magnificent wooden palace used by McArthur as his headquarters during the WWII.

My practice in a new city or country is to prowl the streets, trying to get lost and to somehow find my own way back. This is the best way I know to reach the soul of a new culture. In Manila, I am taken with the Chinese section’s flavors and disparities.

One eerie place I visit is the Chinese cemetery, where mansions serve as mausoleums, complete with electricity, T.V. sets, furniture, and running water. All this luxury provided for the dead relatives inside. Leaving the guarded cemetery, one sees hundreds of destitute Filipino families living on the bare ground along Manila Bay’s sea wall. They have nothing, no home, no money, no jobs, no future.

Most people in the “PI” are starving, while a small minority of the people have everything. Thanks to Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda and their Cronies, the Philippines is largely bankrupt. Corruption and greed were rampant in the Philippines back then, and it remains so today. Bill

Chowder would challenge anybody to “name one country ever colonized by the Spanish that isn’t fucked up today?” Nobody could think of a one.

By the time we were ready to leave, I hadn’t seen my crewmates for days. In the cockpit on the way home, Chowder tells me of all the fun I missed, and that he almost got caught by his girlfriend as he tried to make a play for one of the other young ladies.

“Hey, Bill,” I say in disgust, “let me explain something to you. These women are prostitutes, this is not junior high school, you don’t have to worry about cheating behind their backs, they get paid for sex.”

Wild Bill is miffed, refusing to accept my view of his reality, convinced that when he is away from Manila, his girlfriend is faithful to him. A year later, Bill brought his Filipina honey to Honolulu, now as his fiancée. He was weeks away from marrying her when he discovered she was also about to marry a local Hawaiian lawyer at the same time.

When I first began visiting the Philippines, I would jog from my hotel early every morning, smugly watching those poor street people who allowed their representatives to steal everything from them, looting their entire National Treasury. I felt disdain towards them for allowing such a thing to happen.

Over time during my jogs, I watched as entire families woke up on the street. Mothers and fathers would get buckets of water from god-knowswhere, they would bathe their children and then themselves. They would scrub their clothing in the same leftover water. Naked, they would hang their only set of clothes out on bushes to dry in the hot Manila sun. After dressing and grooming their kids, they would do the same for themselves.

I came to realize that here were people who didn’t have anything, no food, not even a place to sleep, and yet every day they would wake up and take care of their children, and themselves. How strong they must be. With no hope for a job, day in and day out they continue. I don’t think I would have the strength, the resilience to go on under those circumstances. I would probably commit suicide instead.

One day while walking through Rizal Park, near my hotel, I have a revelation. I own an expensive suite, bought and paid for by Continental Airlines. I am out of my room almost all day long during these six-day layovers. I could bring some deserving families up to my room and give them the luxury of hot soapy baths, clean towels, and some sleep on a real bed.

Returning to the hotel, and wanting to immediately implement my new idea, I see a family beginning their day. I stop and chat them up…

"Comustica? M’buti po.” I discover their English is better than my limited Tagalog. I invite them to come back with me to the hotel, making my intentions understood. Happily, they follow along behind me.

Outside the gates we are stopped by Security. An argument ensues, and I ask that Management be summoned… ( all this happening just outside the metal detectors and x-ray machines which guard the hotel lobby ).

Although the room is mine, bought and paid for, I am not allowed to bring my guests inside the hotel. Hookers I can bring inside at anytime, as everybody does; but a certain pecking order seems to exist between those lucky enough to have jobs, and my guests who have nothing. My adopted family graciously vaporized into the general population of the impoverished crowd loitering outside, so as to save me further embarrassment.

Now, when I am stopped on the street by kids begging, I bring them to the many food-stands along the roads, treating them to as much as they can stuff down.

Except for the southern island of Mindanao, forever trying to gain independence as a separate Muslim state, the Philippines is almost exclusively Catholic. Man, where’s Jesus when you need him? As my good buddy D.B. Swayde would probably say, “All it takes is people to fuck up a good thing.”