Speaker 1: Really Now, Really, really.
Speaker 2: Now, really Hello, and welcome to Really No Really with
Speaker 2: Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind you that once
Speaker 2: you subscribe to our show, the sky's the limit and
Speaker 2: the sky is where we're heading today, because this episode
Speaker 2: attempts to answer the question are airlines actually putting dangerous
Speaker 2: planes into the sky. Recently, a Boeing seven thirty seven
Speaker 2: Max made an emergency landing after a door plug blew
Speaker 2: out at sixteen thousand feet, blessing a massive hole in
Speaker 2: the fuselage, and though no one was killed or injured,
Speaker 2: a startled teenager had his shirt literally sucked right off
Speaker 2: his back from the sudden pressure change. Really No, Really,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four may well be a nightmarish year for
Speaker 2: air travel, as there are major shortages of air traffic controllers, pilots.
Speaker 1: And planes.
Speaker 2: To enlighten us, Jason and Peter invited CNN's always entertaining
Speaker 2: aviation expert and correspondent to Richard Quest to explain why
Speaker 2: Boeing aircraft are having so many issues where the actual
Speaker 2: safest seat on a plane is located pilot statistics you
Speaker 2: really hope aren't true and if it's okay, to drink
Speaker 2: the water or ice on a plane. So fasten your
Speaker 2: seat belts. This one could be bumpy. Here's Jason and Peter.
Speaker 1: All right, so here we are. We're back.
Speaker 3: So you know, we had an option today we could
Speaker 3: have flown to each other's locations. But how dangerous would
Speaker 3: that be? That's really the question of the day, right,
Speaker 3: we're talking about that.
Speaker 4: While we were recording, we had a sound effect that'said
Speaker 4: forced segue.
Speaker 1: Well, we can put that up, we can, we can?
Speaker 3: You know, no, actually, you know, you and I've been
Speaker 3: doing the fair amount of traveling lately, and because of that,
Speaker 3: I guess we're bumping into more and more stories that
Speaker 3: at least catch our eye about.
Speaker 1: What the hell's going on on in aviation.
Speaker 3: And we saw a story where both of us kind
Speaker 3: of stopped in our train.
Speaker 4: Wait wait, wait, everybody saw this watching stories come on,
Speaker 4: Bolts falling off, doors, doors popping open all.
Speaker 3: The one that got me that an Alaska Airlines flight
Speaker 3: and on a seven thirty seven Max nine. Seven thirty
Speaker 3: seven Max nine is that sixteen thousand feet or so,
Speaker 3: And apparently what they do is they refit this aeroplane
Speaker 3: so that which was a doorway they took the doorway
Speaker 3: off and put in what they're calling a plug. Now,
Speaker 3: the only plugs I know going to outlets and bathtub
Speaker 3: drains and they come out really easy.
Speaker 4: And also into hair into into bold heads, right, and
Speaker 4: they sometimes work, sometimes they don't take And this plug
Speaker 4: on this seven forty seven, seven thirty seven, sorry, Max
Speaker 4: nine at sixteen thousand feet decided to give it up.
Speaker 1: It just kind of popped out.
Speaker 4: See you later.
Speaker 3: And I believe while no one was hurt or killed,
Speaker 3: thank god. I love this line. It sucked the shirt
Speaker 3: off of a nine year old boy, just took the shirt.
Speaker 1: Right off his body. And I'm going, was it an
Speaker 1: over the head? Was it a button up?
Speaker 4: What? And you know what's amazing? The next time that
Speaker 4: kid has to fly with his mother, how does she say,
Speaker 4: nothing's gonna happen because the kid's gonna go and you
Speaker 4: can bleep this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So producer David reminded me of this documentary about Boeing
Speaker 4: and the Max airplane and how it came about and
Speaker 4: what it is. And we're going to talk about that
Speaker 4: a little bit with our guests. Who excites you because
Speaker 4: you love Richard Quest, who was the CNN aeron Onyx corresponding.
Speaker 3: Now, can I just say I don't think I stand
Speaker 3: alone in this right I Richard quest The man could
Speaker 3: be talking about ice melting somewhere, but the enthusiasm and
Speaker 3: a passion, the excitement makes me go, I should be
Speaker 3: caring about this. This is important stuff. There's something about
Speaker 3: him that I just find.
Speaker 4: So, So today's question that we're gonna get to and
Speaker 4: then we will decide if we got an answer, is yeah,
Speaker 4: are they putting unsaved planes in the sky? And I've
Speaker 4: got some stuff to tell you to start this that
Speaker 4: airlines some secrets. Airlines may not tell you.
Speaker 3: By the very nature of a secret, Why would they
Speaker 3: tell me that's there?
Speaker 4: You go? Okay, So we're gonna we're gonna do this.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, captain, We've done.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, here we go. They're stingy when it
Speaker 4: comes to fuel because it saves money keeping low levels
Speaker 4: of fuel. So if you hit an unspected weather delay, yeah,
Speaker 4: or something happens there's rough weather, they gotta go down.
Speaker 4: They gotta land because they're running out of gas. They
Speaker 4: didn't anticipate another twenty five minutes in the air. So
Speaker 4: it's like we got to put it down.
Speaker 1: That begs the question how long can they glide?
Speaker 4: You know what? Right that down? For Richard. I'm curious
Speaker 4: if there is how long?
Speaker 3: Because there I know on smaller planes the engine they
Speaker 3: do it whole thing with the engine. They turn the
Speaker 3: engine off, and then you gotta fly it while it's
Speaker 3: gliding and deal with it.
Speaker 4: Well, it's playing.
Speaker 3: But if the plane weighs seventeen tons, does it also glide?
Speaker 4: We'll find as ask Richard, I will ask her this
Speaker 4: is my favorite, and you'll hit the really really bell
Speaker 4: if you had it there.
Speaker 1: I don't have sound, David, don't hit it later.
Speaker 4: There is a do not pair list? Do you know
Speaker 4: that pilots and co pilots fill out a list of
Speaker 4: people they don't want to fly with because they don't
Speaker 4: want insanity and two adversaries flying in the cockpit constantly,
Speaker 4: So you put down on your list you don't want
Speaker 4: to fly with everything pun who they don't want to
Speaker 4: fly with.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting.
Speaker 3: I wonder if I could get that in my uh
Speaker 3: in one of my clauses in my contract's hair.
Speaker 4: Do not pay Yeah, fascinating because you don't want two
Speaker 4: guys who hate each other's guts because.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely I like it. I actually I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty good.
Speaker 3: Safest sea, you know, safe, see I I have been
Speaker 3: told the safest seats are over the wings, so that
Speaker 3: sort of like the front seat that's still over the
Speaker 3: wing is the most stable, and in the event of
Speaker 3: a inopportune landing, that that section of the plane is
Speaker 3: the most likely to stay intact.
Speaker 4: You know what, you just did it, David. If you
Speaker 4: can mark that down, I think we submit that to
Speaker 4: the I mean to the airlines. An inopportune landing. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 4: please put your your head between your legs. We're gonna
Speaker 4: have an inopportune land stop. Inopportune landing is such a
Speaker 4: nice way to put it. So here's the deal. They
Speaker 4: studied in the analysis of seventeen plane crashes over the
Speaker 4: last thirty five years. They found the back of the
Speaker 4: plane out of sixty eight percent average chance of survival
Speaker 4: compared with sixty one in the middle, sixty two in
Speaker 4: the front, and and the middle seats, especially near the
Speaker 4: rear of the plane, are absolute safest. I guess I
Speaker 4: hate to say this, because your two companions are acting
Speaker 4: as padding and package packaging. You're keeping you Here's the
Speaker 4: one and I'm sure you're going to want to bring
Speaker 4: this up with our guests. Do you know where most
Speaker 4: airplane repairs are? A lot of the airplane reshll you.
Speaker 1: Tell me, so I'm going to play stupid.
Speaker 4: Where be there? So the answer for those listening they
Speaker 4: really not really is Costa Rica, China, Ethiopia, Argentina, Kenya,
Speaker 4: Al Salvador, Indonesia among the countries the mechanics who deconstruct
Speaker 4: and reassemble planes. This is where they take take them
Speaker 4: apart and put them back together, and overwhelming are not
Speaker 4: certified by the FAA. And the majority also don't speak
Speaker 4: fluent English, which wouldn't normally be a problem except all
Speaker 4: the technical manuals for airlines are written in Airplanes and
Speaker 4: wiring stuff are written in English, as are all flightingpials,
Speaker 4: so they don't have Wait, they also don't have inspect
Speaker 4: but they don't have supposedly they don't have enough FAA
Speaker 4: inspectors over there whatever, so they're outsourcing to other countries. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it's increasing. We got to ask Richard about that.
Speaker 3: I got to push back on you with the manual
Speaker 3: because my Dustbuster came with a manual that's in seven languages.
Speaker 1: I find it.
Speaker 3: Hard to believe that a bone seven didn't come with
Speaker 3: it with more than one language. Who's the pilot that
Speaker 3: when they land the plane and they go, yeah, this
Speaker 3: baby needs a check up. Hey, Phil, fly it over
Speaker 3: to Ethiopia. We got to check this fuck. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: a fun flight. That love being the captain of that flight.
Speaker 3: It's probably okay, but just get it over to Ethiopia.
Speaker 3: So clearly you and I have a lot that we
Speaker 3: don't know and have experienced in the wonderful world of aviation.
Speaker 3: And you went and got us a gentleman who really
Speaker 3: is well versed in an expert in many many areas.
Speaker 3: But Richard Quest is among his many other credits credits,
Speaker 3: he is. He's basically the airline and aviation correspondent at CNN.
Speaker 3: He's covered a number of breaking aviation stories like like
Speaker 3: the downing of the Malasia Airlines flight in the Ukraine
Speaker 3: and the Virgin Galactic Spaceship two crash and the disappearance
Speaker 3: of the Malaysia Airlines flight. He wrote a book about
Speaker 3: that called The Vanishing of Flight MH three seventy, The
Speaker 3: True Story of the Hunt for the Missing Malaysian Plane
Speaker 3: so I find him fascinating, as I know you do too.
Speaker 3: He began his career and still has a huge career
Speaker 3: as a business correspondent. I actually adore his travel show
Speaker 3: on San So let's welcome mister Richard Quest.
Speaker 1: Welcome to really no relation.
Speaker 5: Thank you, gentlemen. I'm Julia.
Speaker 3: I don't know how or why he found time for this.
Speaker 3: I don't understand it, but I couldn't be happier.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Richard, first of all, airline, because you are
Speaker 4: the guy you've interviewed all the CEOs. What are you
Speaker 4: that fascinated with flying? Is it something that you love
Speaker 4: so much? I know that you've probably come back and
Speaker 4: forth at least once or twice month.
Speaker 6: This week, I've done. Over the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 6: I've done Mexico to buy Doha, Sydney, and then I
Speaker 6: got back into New York yesterday, a grave risk of ruining.
Speaker 6: Just sort of just bear with me a minute. So
Speaker 6: can you see the planes?
Speaker 4: Oh we do yet?
Speaker 6: Tabletop that there are plane souvenirs all round my office
Speaker 6: and whenever.
Speaker 5: And the reason is simple that I can give you a.
Speaker 6: Practical reason why, Because they are vast economic engines. You
Speaker 6: don't have one person answering the phone. You have hundreds
Speaker 6: of call.
Speaker 5: Centers that plane.
Speaker 1: Think about it.
Speaker 5: Let me just take one, let me take a Let's
Speaker 5: just do it. Now. You think about that corn aircraft.
Speaker 6: It's got to get the right crew with the right
Speaker 6: passengers and the right luggage and the right meals in
Speaker 6: the right place for the right slot at the right time.
Speaker 5: And you've got to do it hundreds of times a day.
Speaker 6: And if you're talking about they say Unite or a Delta,
Speaker 6: thousands of times a day.
Speaker 5: And I was just.
Speaker 6: Looking only yesterday because I really am that sad at
Speaker 6: the number of passengers that United flew in to twenty
Speaker 6: twenty three.
Speaker 5: You're talking about over one hundred and sixty million.
Speaker 6: And if you look at Ryanair in Europe, one hundred
Speaker 6: and eighty million odd passengers. I mean, they are so
Speaker 6: these these machines. Besides being beautiful, they fly.
Speaker 3: I mean just look, Oh, if you're not watching on YouTube,
Speaker 3: Richard richardid just created a beautiful flight, a beautiful parabola.
Speaker 5: These things are magic. They fly.
Speaker 6: They are vast economic engines in their own right. They
Speaker 6: are geopolitical. One other industry gets affected by war volcanoes,
Speaker 6: economic growth, and pandemics in manifestations, and the aircraft industry
Speaker 6: or the aviation the airline industry simply touches every tentacle
Speaker 6: of the global economy, and that I find fascinating.
Speaker 4: But the question today, I guess to get right to
Speaker 4: it and I'll let you get everybody listening up to speed.
Speaker 4: So there's incidents that keep happening, bolts falling off, et cetera,
Speaker 4: and problems. We have one one executor who said he
Speaker 4: won't fly. He actually got off the Max seven would
Speaker 4: have seven thirty seven Yeah, Max, because because he said,
Speaker 4: it's just they should be grounded based on this software
Speaker 4: program that they didn't allegedly or maybe they proved it
Speaker 4: didn't tell the pilots about. So we watched the documentary.
Speaker 4: We've seen what happened with the merger of the two
Speaker 4: airlines McDonald Douglas and Boeing, which was the gold center.
Speaker 4: I guess, but can you get people up to speaking?
Speaker 6: Of course, said the seven three seven the Max. The
Speaker 6: decision to create the Max they had a choice bout
Speaker 6: they were falling dangerously behind Airbus, which had the eight
Speaker 6: three to twenty family of planes, A three twenty with
Speaker 6: the Neo, which is the new engine option, which is
Speaker 6: basically the engine was giving about fifteen to twenty percent
Speaker 6: better fuel efficiency, and it was going to cost too
Speaker 6: much money for Boeing to redesign the seven three seven
Speaker 6: from scratch. This is a plane, by the way, going
Speaker 6: back to the nineteen sixties. So they did what they
Speaker 6: always did. They bolted bits on, they changed things around,
Speaker 6: they extended it, they did this, that and the other.
Speaker 6: But what they did was unconscionable because they added a
Speaker 6: piece of software that was perfectly legitimate. Absolutely. In fact,
Speaker 6: Airbus has always had this software. It basically means that
Speaker 6: the plane can't crash. It basically means that if a
Speaker 6: situation happens, the aircraft will.
Speaker 5: Do something in its own right to.
Speaker 6: Prevent you from stalling and crashing and bowing and always
Speaker 6: got haha.
Speaker 5: Will never put that on our planes.
Speaker 6: We will never have to lord, no law, We'll never
Speaker 6: do it because we believe at Boeing the pilot in charge.
Speaker 6: We believe that Boeing that if you know, sorry, I
Speaker 6: think all excited at the prospect of this.
Speaker 5: We believe at Boeing.
Speaker 6: You know the famous saying, if it ain't a bowing eye,
Speaker 6: ain't going well.
Speaker 5: Guess what?
Speaker 6: With the seven three seven, they redesigned the plane in
Speaker 6: such a way that the engines were further forward and
Speaker 6: were higher up, and were more powerful, and there was
Speaker 6: a real risk that the plane could stall. Exactly what
Speaker 6: they did was sow. They put into place this little
Speaker 6: bit of software called encast maneuvering something something something. But
Speaker 6: what this bit of software did was say, in a
Speaker 6: certain situation, if certain circumstances happen, we will.
Speaker 5: Fly the plane regardless, all right.
Speaker 6: So with both the Ethiopian and the other one, that
Speaker 6: was what happened was in both of these cases, in
Speaker 6: both crashes that the pilots or the first crash they
Speaker 6: didn't know. The first crash they didn't even know this
Speaker 6: thing existed, and the second crash they knew it existed,
Speaker 6: and they did realize it was this situation, and they
Speaker 6: did it, and they still crashed. And the reason was
Speaker 6: you had ten seconds. You had ten seconds to do
Speaker 6: it before it was irrecoverable.
Speaker 5: When all was said and done and the changes were.
Speaker 6: Made, and we saw what they did to m Cass.
Speaker 5: Do you know what they did?
Speaker 6: They made m Cass, They followed their own creed. They
Speaker 6: made it so it was never too powerful for a
Speaker 6: pilot to overwhelm. They made it so that it wouldn't
Speaker 6: do it far again and again and again, so that
Speaker 6: pilot could take back control. They added redundancy to when
Speaker 6: it would kick in. Instead of just having one sensor,
Speaker 6: they added two sensors, and they made sure pilots knew about.
Speaker 5: It and how to counteract it.
Speaker 6: Now, those sound really simple, but those things were the
Speaker 6: creed of Boeing going back to when they air to
Speaker 6: when they started making planes, and it was the creed
Speaker 6: that they had forgotten.
Speaker 5: And we know the reasons why.
Speaker 6: Because they didn't want pilots to have to retrain on
Speaker 6: the seven thy seven Max, because they'd committed to airlines
Speaker 6: that no retraining would be necessary.
Speaker 3: So if I'm on a seven three seven Max tomorrow,
Speaker 3: am I reasonably assured that the pilots have the training
Speaker 3: and they know how to deal with the system.
Speaker 6: I was on one last week. And what a magnificent
Speaker 6: aircraft it is. It is beautiful, it flies comfortably, it's
Speaker 6: got tremendous power.
Speaker 5: M CASS is still there.
Speaker 6: But MCASS has been now put into its proper box
Speaker 6: so the pilots know about it. The pilots have been
Speaker 6: trained on it. And even if, even if if mcass
Speaker 6: fires wrongly, mcass was pushing the nose down. It was
Speaker 6: such a force that the pilots physically couldn't pull it back.
Speaker 6: Now it can't do that, It can only push it
Speaker 6: down a bit. The pilots can pull it back up.
Speaker 6: If it goes wrong, it'll do it again. The pilots
Speaker 6: can pull it back. After three goes, mcass switches off.
Speaker 6: M cass can no longer be the runaway frankenstyle that
Speaker 6: it was. Pilots are back in control. The seven three seven.
Speaker 6: Boeing built a beautiful plane, and if my anger with
Speaker 6: them is anything is that they root it up for
Speaker 6: themselves by not telling the pilots and telling people, and
Speaker 6: of course by lying to regulators.
Speaker 4: In the opening, Jason and I were talking about things
Speaker 4: that you may not know about airlines, and that they
Speaker 4: outsource repair to countries. I don't know how much, but
Speaker 4: it seems like they're doing it more and more to
Speaker 4: save money. Where the first language is not necessarily English,
Speaker 4: and all the manuals are English, all the services English,
Speaker 4: and they may not even be FAA regulated because they
Speaker 4: don't have the people there to actually oversee the work.
Speaker 4: Is that still happening, Richard? Is that growing? Is that?
Speaker 4: Is that diminishing?
Speaker 5: I'm going to stop you there.
Speaker 4: And they may not even be FAA regulated because they
Speaker 4: don't have the people there to actually oversee the work.
Speaker 4: Is that still happening, Richard? Is that growing? Is that?
Speaker 4: Is that diminishing?
Speaker 6: I'm going to stop you there. It's an absolute load
Speaker 6: of old bollocks.
Speaker 4: Oh good, No, No, of course.
Speaker 5: There aren't sourcing.
Speaker 6: Of course they aren't sourcing to places where it can
Speaker 6: be done more efficiently, where it can be done cheaper.
Speaker 6: But your question doesn't go to that. Your question goes
Speaker 6: to standards of the.
Speaker 4: Repair, right and right?
Speaker 6: What Western arrogance that says, oh, no, we can't send
Speaker 6: it to those countries because they may not be able
Speaker 6: to understand how to repair.
Speaker 5: Absolute bollocks.
Speaker 6: No, the United sends its planes off, Delta sends its
Speaker 6: planes off. You send your planes off to where the
Speaker 6: repair can be done in the most cost effective, efficient
Speaker 6: and safe way. Now, can that always be done in
Speaker 6: home in the United States?
Speaker 5: In the EU?
Speaker 6: No, because cost of labor is higher. Your next question
Speaker 6: Jason is ah, but how can we be sure that
Speaker 6: if it goes to Malaysia comar on. The answer is
Speaker 6: you have to put in place in these places proper protections,
Speaker 6: proper safety regulations, and these places have to be certified
Speaker 6: to do the repairs at the same standard. But this
Speaker 6: idea that somehow a plane can't fly to Singapore to
Speaker 6: be repaired.
Speaker 3: No, Actually, my next question was going to be doesn't
Speaker 3: it disturb you that Peter would just be so dismissive.
Speaker 1: Of you know, no, no, I can hear. We all heard,
Speaker 1: we heard.
Speaker 5: The tone and.
Speaker 6: Chooses to outsource it's and it tends to be the
Speaker 6: heavy maintenance, the big stuff.
Speaker 5: You know it's going to take.
Speaker 6: A month where they choose to outsource heavy maintenance. Then, yes,
Speaker 6: the regulator does have a duty to make sure it's
Speaker 6: being done to but.
Speaker 4: But don't make that.
Speaker 1: Against the sheer arrogance.
Speaker 4: I had an obligation to end.
Speaker 1: If I had a bell, I'd be ringing a shame ship.
Speaker 1: I'd walk you naked through a crowd. There it is, there,
Speaker 1: it is by.
Speaker 4: Tomorrow, will be on seeing it. He'll bet an Ethiopian factory.
Speaker 4: It was charged with sixty yard plans has cut again.
Speaker 3: And now and now trying to assimilate an accident that
Speaker 3: you are not qualified to do.
Speaker 6: The fuselage on the seven three seven Max was built
Speaker 6: by Spirit, It was transported across to Bowing's factory. It
Speaker 6: was assembled in Bowing's factory. The door was removed, the
Speaker 6: door was put on, the bolts were left off, and
Speaker 6: the rest is history.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, and a little boy's shirt was lost. No,
Speaker 1: that's that.
Speaker 5: That's what happened, Jason. That shirt wasn't lost.
Speaker 6: That shirt was was dragged off by wind.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine?
Speaker 4: I know we know this.
Speaker 5: From either way.
Speaker 6: I don't want to get really unpleasant about this, but
Speaker 6: we know this from plane crashes which have depressurized a
Speaker 6: height that often the bodies are naked.
Speaker 5: God forbid. And it's because.
Speaker 1: If if.
Speaker 6: The seat belt sign had been switched off and the
Speaker 6: plane had been higher, and people had been able to
Speaker 6: walk around the aircraft, we would have lost people.
Speaker 1: We would have had a cad So, Richard, so.
Speaker 3: You have reassured me that the planes are now sound,
Speaker 3: the maintenance is now sound, so and the pilots are
Speaker 3: in control, which now begs the other thing that Peter
Speaker 3: and I have been listening to in the articles that
Speaker 3: we've read, that there seems to be an increase or
Speaker 3: a preponderance of pilots being asked to work truly stressful hours,
Speaker 3: stressful situations, that mental health among pilots, poor mental health
Speaker 3: or mental health that it requires some sort of attention,
Speaker 3: has increased, and that there is really no system in
Speaker 3: place to assess, that there is not an environment in
Speaker 3: which it is encouraged for them to come forward with
Speaker 3: any of their own concerns, and so that the real
Speaker 3: possibility of pilots who are struggling are up in the air.
Speaker 3: What's the take on that?
Speaker 6: It's a really, really tricky one. Listen, Okay, it goes
Speaker 6: like this. There are an entire raft of rules. You've
Speaker 6: got the regulator first of all, with an entire raft
Speaker 6: of rules that you have to follow in terms of
Speaker 6: mental health, physical health, et cetera, et cetera. The FAI
Speaker 6: which pilot wants to go to the company and says, actually,
Speaker 6: I'm having a few, you know, mental difficulties. I might
Speaker 6: need six weeks off to go and do it, but
Speaker 6: I'll be fine afterwards. Oh you're going to put him
Speaker 6: back in the you know, any form of substance or
Speaker 6: alcohol abuse. It's very difficult for pilots to come forward,
Speaker 6: admit the problem, deal with it, and easily get.
Speaker 5: Back in the air. It's possible, right, it is possible,
Speaker 5: but it's not easy. My point is.
Speaker 6: We vest these men and women at the front with
Speaker 6: tremendous authority and power, but I sometimes question whether we
Speaker 6: give them the mental and physical health and space necessary
Speaker 6: so that they can also be human beings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is why my mother and Peter knows this well.
Speaker 3: Back in the days when she was a flyer, a
Speaker 3: very nervous flyer. Those were in the days where the
Speaker 3: cockpit door was open to the captain oft and greeted
Speaker 3: the passengers as they boarded the plane, and my mother
Speaker 3: would stop and have a conversation about how's your family,
Speaker 3: Everything good with the wife, You're good? Any any physical
Speaker 3: mental problems coming out? Because she would interrogate him, so
Speaker 3: she was comfortable that this man was qualified to fly her,
Speaker 3: you know, the thirty minutes she had to get me.
Speaker 6: Sometimes you do look at them. Sometimes you look at
Speaker 6: Captain Donut going into the cockpit and you're thinking, yeah,
Speaker 6: you're you're currently waiting to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, jeez, so let me let me switch to this.
Speaker 3: So now let's go into the cabin. Maybe I'm just
Speaker 3: aware of it because those stories break through. But there
Speaker 3: seems to be a greater preponderance of passenger outbreaks or
Speaker 3: passenger rage in the air.
Speaker 1: And I understand we live.
Speaker 3: In stressful times, and so there may be more people
Speaker 3: flying with mental health issues and whatnot. And then but
Speaker 3: there also seems to be no you know, everybody's got
Speaker 3: a system. If this happens, you do this. If this happens,
Speaker 3: you do this. But there doesn't seem to be a
Speaker 3: quantified protocol for when somebody loses it up in the air.
Speaker 1: Am I right?
Speaker 5: Two times of losing it.
Speaker 6: There's losing it because of the mentally disturbed or the challenge.
Speaker 6: There's losing it because we are now seeing just simple rudeness, right, rudeness.
Speaker 6: This A lot of what you're talking about can be
Speaker 6: put down to courtesy. This is this is this is
Speaker 6: what your mother taught you to behave with courtesy.
Speaker 5: And I flew back yesterday.
Speaker 6: From I went Sydney to Doha, Doha to charge Dubai
Speaker 6: to New York and it's a fifteen hour flight from
Speaker 6: Dubai to New York. But everybody was very respectful. I'm Terribus,
Speaker 6: of course, I'm British, so if you if you step
Speaker 6: on my foot, I will apologize to you. Of course, yes,
Speaker 6: it just requires a bit of courtesy.
Speaker 3: All right, So I'm going to now let's let's do
Speaker 3: the fast ones, Pete. You ready, safest place to sit
Speaker 3: on the plane average on.
Speaker 6: Average, statistically safest places to the back and facing backwards,
Speaker 6: facing forwards. It makes no difference the reality. The reality
Speaker 6: is if you go into a mountain, it won't matter.
Speaker 3: Never drink the unbottled water on an airplane, not even
Speaker 3: if it's coffee or tea, live or not. I am
Speaker 3: told that they are kept in these tanks that are
Speaker 3: never really routinely sanitized or cleaned. Bollocks. I love that
Speaker 3: because I'm drinking a lot of flicking tea for people
Speaker 3: who are are still wearing masks on the plane. Is
Speaker 3: it true that the the interior atmosphere has recirculated something
Speaker 3: like every seven to ten.
Speaker 1: Or four minutes three minutes?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: True or false?
Speaker 3: If a if a typical airline window were compromised at
Speaker 3: thirty thousand feet, let's say blown out and I'm standing nearby.
Speaker 3: I'm not buckled in. Am I really going out that window?
Speaker 5: Is there?
Speaker 6: Is there a theoretical risk if you're sitting next to
Speaker 6: it that you will be sucked out the window? Yes,
Speaker 6: if the plane is at thirty is at full pressurization. Yes,
Speaker 6: it has happened as somebody who has been pushed and
Speaker 6: squeezed out of the window.
Speaker 5: But I'm looking at you, gentlemen, I think that m right.
Speaker 1: It would have to be forty.
Speaker 6: We're I'll give you another quick myth, good myth?
Speaker 5: Can you open the emergency exit in flight?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: What happens if my phone is not an airplane mode
Speaker 3: on takeoff and learning?
Speaker 1: Is it truly a dangerous bullets?
Speaker 5: No, of course it's not.
Speaker 1: What will happen, god blow?
Speaker 6: What will happen if your phone is not on an
Speaker 6: airplane mode? Is it will literally search for a signal
Speaker 6: for the whole flight, and when you get there, it
Speaker 6: will be dead.
Speaker 4: Sully Sullenburger, Jason and I go, Praisin. The man landed
Speaker 4: a plane. No one died on water. Never been done before.
Speaker 1: Or could anybody? Is any pilot trained to do this? Theoretically? Yes?
Speaker 6: Absolutely, absolutely, they're all trained to land on water completely.
Speaker 6: Solemburger's genius bearing back. First of all, he was a
Speaker 6: training captain. Secondly, he was a specialtiest specialist in safety,
Speaker 6: so he thought about all these things.
Speaker 5: It's not like he was your average pilot.
Speaker 6: He was a training safety person who actually was a
Speaker 6: consultant on safety, so he knew all about this.
Speaker 5: His genius genius was not doing the landing.
Speaker 6: His genius was deciding to do the landing because is
Speaker 6: he's been.
Speaker 5: Told that Teterborough's there?
Speaker 6: Could I get back to La Guardia there, there's Westchester there?
Speaker 5: What do I know?
Speaker 6: He says, no, I'm not going to make it, but
Speaker 6: there's a perfectly straight stretch in which I can prepare
Speaker 6: myself to land. And by the way, if you look
Speaker 6: at the report, you know the reporter obviously has to
Speaker 6: go into the in depth of it. If you look
Speaker 6: at the Airbus report, there was about four or five
Speaker 6: things they did not do. According to Airbus, they didn't
Speaker 6: lock off this particular water tight compartment, they didn't close that,
Speaker 6: none of which was totally significant. But you have to
Speaker 6: dottize and cross teas. They didn't do this, do that.
Speaker 6: But what he did do was prepare the aircraft and
Speaker 6: himself mentally for what he was about to do, which
Speaker 6: was an on water landing. Now this wasn't an on
Speaker 6: water landing, by the way, in the middle of the
Speaker 6: Atlantic Ocean in darkness, in the middle of the night.
Speaker 6: This was in as near perfect conditions on a smoothiece
Speaker 6: of water, not taking anything away from him to do it.
Speaker 6: But his genius was to basically was committing to it
Speaker 6: and saying, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4: May well, thank you, thank you for thank you for
Speaker 4: being on a treat.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, there you go.
Speaker 3: We actually this is one of the few times that
Speaker 3: we actually set out to get the answer to a
Speaker 3: question and cleanly got it. I feel better now about
Speaker 3: I would get on a seven thirty seven max.
Speaker 1: He told me. I'm good.
Speaker 3: He told me where to sit. He told me, I
Speaker 3: am not likely to get sucked out the window. I
Speaker 3: can drink the water, and I and I can go.
Speaker 3: Took us first across the person next to me, as
Speaker 3: long as I say, I beg your pardon.
Speaker 4: It is funny, though, when you have an expert on
Speaker 4: and you're asking questions about on the plane. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: sitting with the girl I'm the grotesque populos for ninety
Speaker 4: nine percent of the right. Right when your business class,
Speaker 4: you're going, No, it's not, it's better than it's been. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you got your own bedroom. If the people in the
Speaker 4: back knew how you were living, they'd be even right.
Speaker 3: As we said on Seinfeld, my one of my favorite
Speaker 3: life was Jerry. We did an episode where Jerry was
Speaker 3: booked in first class and Elene is in coach and
Speaker 3: she goes up to talk to him and she's barred
Speaker 3: and they draw the curtains, right, and she gets upset
Speaker 3: and she turns to the economy crowd and she goes, you.
Speaker 4: Know, they're getting cookies up here, and that's why they
Speaker 4: have the curtain. Yeah, you right, when you can't put
Speaker 4: your seat back.
Speaker 1: Well, all right, very good. This is what we've accomplished.
Speaker 3: The skies are safe, ladies and gentlemen if you make
Speaker 3: them so.
Speaker 4: And by the way, we should have known that from
Speaker 4: the number the number when he gave the number of
Speaker 4: people fine, it is staggering. How many successes.
Speaker 3: And you know what, seriously, in our research it did
Speaker 3: say I was looking at the numbers of fatalities and
Speaker 3: crashes over the last.
Speaker 1: Year down every year, down every year.
Speaker 3: They're doing an amazing job keeping all of us relatively
Speaker 3: safe up there and getting us where we're trying to get.
Speaker 4: Also, not good for pr when things fall out of
Speaker 4: the air, when that's your business.
Speaker 1: So no, no.
Speaker 4: Google time, What do we got? What didn't we cover?
Speaker 4: What did you say that was wrong?
Speaker 7: One thing that you guys actually did bring up Peter
Speaker 7: had suggested asking Richard about is how long can a
Speaker 7: plane glide?
Speaker 1: Oh damn, yeah, like a commercial plane? Right, yes, so
Speaker 1: I have the answer to that now. Obviously it depends
Speaker 1: on the type.
Speaker 7: Of aircraft, how heavy it is, how much gas you know,
Speaker 7: But assuming that you're cruising at thirty three thirty six thousand.
Speaker 1: Feet in a regular size plane, a regular.
Speaker 7: Size plane lose all of your engines, you could go
Speaker 7: anywhere from sixty to one hundred miles before hitting the ground,
Speaker 7: which will be about twenty to thirty minutes.
Speaker 3: That's a long time to go, oh boy, this isn't good.
Speaker 4: Accept that.
Speaker 1: That gives the pilot, it gives me time to try
Speaker 1: and fix it and.
Speaker 4: Talk down Yeah wow, yeah right.
Speaker 3: I always used to say to my I had a
Speaker 3: family member who was a commercial pilot, and I always
Speaker 3: used to say, because I also have a fairy fights,
Speaker 3: I feel better the closer we get to the ground.
Speaker 1: He goes, you shouldn't. He goes.
Speaker 3: If something goes wrong at one thousand feet, I got
Speaker 3: no time to fix it. At thirty thousand feet, I
Speaker 3: can think about it for a while.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so google him any last words.
Speaker 7: The only thing I will say is that, according to
Speaker 7: Airline Ratings dot Com, if you're looking for the most
Speaker 7: safe airline in the world, it wants honest almost Air.
Speaker 4: New Zealand.
Speaker 7: Was was beaten by by just a hair So there
Speaker 7: you go.
Speaker 3: Well back when they made what was that? What was
Speaker 3: the movie with Hoffman and uh and Tom Cruise where
Speaker 3: Hoffman plays the autistic brother rain Man.
Speaker 1: That was what they think quantas quantas safe?
Speaker 4: Remember that Qantas?
Speaker 1: Really things have changed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Remember he didn't want to fly and and Cruise
Speaker 3: says to him, is there, what's the safest airline?
Speaker 1: What's the Raymond? What's the same want?
Speaker 4: Wow? So they've had a record since rain Man.
Speaker 1: That's oppressive. All right, I'm out of here. I got
Speaker 1: to get out of flight. Goodbye, That's all I know. David.
Speaker 1: Good to see you.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Producer, Laurie, thank you very much, and Richard Richard,
Speaker 4: it was what a great call Jayson, right character.
Speaker 3: I want to go through one minute of my life
Speaker 3: the way he goes through every day of his It's just.
Speaker 4: Can you and man who comes home and mashed potatoes,
Speaker 4: potatoes we're having man is dancing and it's unbelievable. Got
Speaker 4: to live his life like like somebody who's at Yeah,
Speaker 4: every minute he is a seven.
Speaker 1: Thirty seven Max.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you that, right, Yes, I want to joy,
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you everybody.
Speaker 2: Now, Really as another episode of really no really, he
Speaker 2: comes to it closed. I know you're wondering, what are
Speaker 2: some of the most bizarre things people have done during
Speaker 2: a commercial airline flight. Well, I've got a doozy of
Speaker 2: an answer for you in a moment, but first let's
Speaker 2: thank our guest, Richard Quest. His daily program Quest Means
Speaker 2: Business Airs on CNN International Mondays through Fridays. You can
Speaker 2: find his fascinating investigation into a mysterious flight in his
Speaker 2: book The Vanishing of Flight m H three seventy, the
Speaker 2: true story of the hunt for the missing Malaysian plane,
Speaker 2: and you can follow him on x where he is
Speaker 2: at Richard Quest. Our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
Speaker 2: and threads at really No Really podcast and of course
Speaker 2: you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online
Speaker 2: at reallynoreli dot com. If you have a really some
Speaker 2: amazing factor story that boggles your mind, share it with
Speaker 2: us and if we use it, we will send you
Speaker 2: a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the
Speaker 2: thought that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube,
Speaker 2: hit that subscribe button and tick that bell so you're
Speaker 2: updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we
Speaker 2: do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: And Now, what are some of the weirdest incidents ever
Speaker 2: to occur on commercial airline flights?
Speaker 1: Well, here are a few documented.
Speaker 2: Once, a man on a Southwest Airlines flight attempted to
Speaker 2: air drop nude photos of himself to other passengers on
Speaker 2: the plane. As a result, Apple now recommends turning off
Speaker 2: the air drop feature during flights. Authorities dragged a very
Speaker 2: drunken pilot off a Jet Blue flight. When questioned, the
Speaker 2: pilot said he'd had ten twenty two ounce tall Boy beers.
Speaker 2: The night before, his blood alcohol was four times the fit,
Speaker 2: which begs the question why does the FAA have an
Speaker 2: alcohol limit that is not zero. In February twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: life imitated art when an actual Burmese python was found
Speaker 2: slithering freely among the light fixtures of a Malaysian airline's flight.
Speaker 2: Where's Samuel L. Jackson when you need him? And lastly,
Speaker 2: in August twenty ten, a fed up flight attendant on
Speaker 2: a Jet Blue flight called it quits with a flourish
Speaker 2: after being hit by an unruly passenger as the plane
Speaker 2: was taxing to its gate. The stewart smacked the passenger
Speaker 2: with a coffee pot, grabbed the intercom, and cussed out
Speaker 2: the entire cabin, then grabbed a bottle of veer, deployed
Speaker 2: the emergency exit chute, and slid off the plane. Fun fact,
Speaker 2: that's the only time that one of those shoots has
Speaker 2: ever been used by a real human being. Really No,
Speaker 2: really is production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment