A man jumps out of an airplane with a parachute on his back. As hes falling, he realizes hiss chute is broken. He doesnt know anything about parachutes, but as the earth rapidly approaches, he realizes his options are limited; he takes off the parachute and tries to fix it himself on the way down. The wind is ripping past his face, hes dropping like a rock, and at 5000 feet, another man goes shooting up past him. In desperation, the man with the chute looks up and yells, Hey do you know anything about parachutes?!

The guy flying up looks down and yells, No, do you know anything about gas stoves?!

All too rarely, airline attendants make an effort to make the in flight safety lecture and announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

1. On a Southwest flight (SW has no assigned seating, you just sit where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced, People, people were not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!

2. On a Continental Flight with a very senior flight attendant crew, the pilot said, Ladies and gentlemen, weve reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants.

3. On landing, the stewardess said, Please be sure to take all of your belongings. If youre going to leave anything, please make sure its something wed like to have.

4. There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane

5. Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.

6. As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Ronald Reagan, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: Whoa, big fella. WHOA!

7. After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Memphis, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced, Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted.

8. From a Southwest Airlines employee: Welcome aboard Southwest Flight 245 to Tampa. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you dont know how to operate one, you probably shouldnt be out in public unsupervised.

9. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite.

10. Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but well try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines.

11. Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and, in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments.

12. As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. But please do not leave children or spouses.

13. And from the pilot during his welcome message: Delta Airlines is pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!

14. Heard on Southwest Airlines just after a very hard landing in Salt Lake City: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, That was quite a bump, and I know what yall are thinking. Im here to tell you it wasnt the airlines fault, it wasnt the pilots fault, it wasnt the flight attendants fault, it was the asphalt.

15. Overheard on an American Airlines flight into Amarillo, Texas, on a particularly windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain was really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant said, Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis whats left of our airplane to the gate!

16. Another flight attendants comment on a less than perfect landing: We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal.

17. An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the Passengers exited, smile, and give them a Thanks for flying our airline. He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane. She said, Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question? Why, no, Maam, said the pilot. What is it? The little old lady said, Did we land, or were we shot down?

18. After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the attendant came on with, Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Capt. Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, well open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.

19. Part of a flight attendants arrival announcement: Wed like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope youll think of US Airways.

20. Heard on a Southwest Airline flight. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing and if you can light em, you can smoke em.

21. A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles. The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax… OH, MY GOD! Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants! A passenger in Coach yelled, Thats nothing. You should see the back of mine.

An airliner was having engine trouble, and the pilot instructed the cabin crew to have the passengers take their seats and get prepared for an emergency landing.

A few minutes later, the pilot asked the flight attendants if everyone was buckled in and ready.

All set back here, Captain, came the reply, except one lawyer who is still going around passing out business cards.

(From an article in the Globe & Mail, Jul 26, written by Bryan Johnson, in
Pakistan:)

First [he] tells of a pilot who spotted tracer bullets as he approached
a runway in Northern Pakistan. So the pilot swung around and approached
the runway from the other end only to find bullets winging by there too.
So he tried to land on a road and cracked up.

From whence came the bullets? Afghan rebels? Terrorists? No,
just one hell of a wedding party. In the Peshawar region, wedding
guests can rent an AK-47 for a day for $2 or the use of a water buffalo.
With tragic results. In one case, jubilant cousins accidentally
blasted away the bridegrooms father. The wedding was postponed for 40
days of mourning, then again celebrated amid ecstatic volleys of flying
lead.

In another wedding in the region, shots from a wedding severed
high tension electrical wires, the falling wires electrocuted 8 guests and
set parts of the village on fire. As well there have been sevearl injuries
to people not even attending the weddings who happen into the path of a
stray bullet.

Although authorities have promised to crack down, little success is
expected. In the words of a city councillor, If I do not use my gun when
invited to a wedding, I will be considered a mouse, not a man.

Rambo would be proud.

P.S. along a similar note, although Rambo III has not been pulling in the
North American box office receipts the producers would have liked, they
are reportedly not worried because Rambo movies pull 80% of their gross
from foreign receipts.

Its that time again… They are finally out again. You all know about the
Darwin Awards – Its an annual honour given to the person who did the gene pool
the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid
way. Last years winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which
toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

And the nominees for 2001 are:

A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk
cheaply, because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with
milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the
fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire burned his house down,
killing both him and his sister.

A 34-year-old white male found dead in the basement of his home
died of suffocation, according to police. He was approximately 62 tall and
weighed 225 pounds. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra, black and white
saddle shoes, and a womans wig. It appeared that he was trying to create a
schoolgirls uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas mask that had the
filter canister removed and a rubber hose attached in its place. The other end
of the hose was connected to one end of a hollow wooden tube approx. 12 long
and 3 in diameter which was inserted into his rectum for reasons unknown, and
was the cause of his suffocation.

Police found the task of explaining the circumstances of his death to his family
very awkward.

Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low
altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the
occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and
crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their
ankles.

A police officer in Ohio responded to a 911 call. She had no
details before arriving, except that someone had reported that his father was
not breathing. Upon arrival, the officer found the man face down on the couch
naked. When she rolled him over to check for a pulse and to start CPR, she
noticed burn marks around his genitals. After the ambulance arrived and removed
the man, who was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, the police made a
closer inspection of the couch, and noticed that the man had made a hole between
the cushions. Upon flipping the couch over, they discovered what had caused his
death. Apparently, the man had a habit of putting his penis between the
cushions, down into the hole and between two electrical sanders (with the
sandpaper removed, for obvious reasons).

According to the story, after his orgasm the discharge shorted out one of the
sanders, electrocuting him.

A 27-year-old French woman lost control of her car on a highway
near Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously injuring her passenger and
killing herself. As a commonplace road accident, this would not have been
remarkable except it appears the drivers attention had been distracted by her
Tamagotchi key ring, which had started urgently beeping for food as she drove
along. In an attempt to press the correct buttons to save the Tamagotchis life,
the woman lost her own.

A 22-year-old Reston, VA, man was found dead after he tried to use
octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle. Fairfax County
police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps
together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle
at Lake Accotink Park, jumped and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police
spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found
nearby. The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the
distance between the trestle and the ground, Carmichael said. Police say the
apparent cause of death was Major trauma.

A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and
a friend were playing a game of catch, using a rattlesnake as a ball. The friend
– no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate – was hospitalized.

Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the
smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building extinguishing
all potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc. After the building had
been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon
entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To
their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the
sight of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an
object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter like
object, the gas in the warehouse exploded,sending pieces of it up to three miles
away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually
untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had
never been thought of as bright by his peers.

And the winner:

The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve.
The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type
of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was
and what had happened.

It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take
Off – actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military
transport planes an extra push for taking off from short airfields. He had
driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long and straight
stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up
some speed and fired off the JATO!

The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the 1967
Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the
crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at
that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum
thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350
mph (563 km/h) and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The
driver, and soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces
usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing
him to become insensible for the remainder of the event.

However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles
(15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes,
blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then
becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a
height of 125 feet (38 m) leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.
Most of the drivers remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of
bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail and bone
shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the
steering wheel.

Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron nearly reached Mach I,
attaining a ground speed of approximately 420 mph (676 km/h)!

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircrafts electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopters position and course to steer to the airport.



The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopters window. The pilots sign said WHERE AM I? in large letters.



People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.



The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.



After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER sign helped determine their position.



The pilot responded I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because, similar to their help-lines, they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer.

The chief of staff of the US Air Force decided that he would personally intervene in the recruiting crisis affecting all of our armed services. He directed a nearby Air Force base that will be opened and that all eligible young men and women be invited. As he and his staff were standing near a brand new F-15 Fighter, a pair of twin brothers who looked like they had just stepped off a Marine Corps recruiting poster walked up to them. The chief of staff walked up to them, stuck out his hand and introduced himself. He looked at the first young man and asked, Son, what skills can you bring to the Air Force? The young man looks at him and says, Im a pilot! The general gets all excited, turns to his aide and says, Get him in today, all the paper work done, everything, do it! The aide hustles the young man off. The general looks at the second young man and asked, What skills to you bring to the Air Force? The young man says, I chop wood! Son, the general replies, we dont need wood choppers in the Air Force, what do you know how to do? Thats what I do, I chop wood! Young man, huffs the general, you are not listening to me, we dont need wood choppers, this is the 20th century! Well, the young man says, you hired my brother! Of course we did, says the general, hes a pilot! The young man rolls his eyes and says, So what! I have to chop it before he can pile it!

An airliner was having engine trouble, and the pilot instructed the cabin crew to have the passengers take their seats and get prepared for an emergency landing.A few minutes later, the pilot asked the flight attendants if everyone was buckled in and ready.All set back here, Captain, came the reply, except one lawyer who is still going around passing out business cards.

More hair than all previous Star Trek commanding officers combined.
Drinks coffee, not that sissy Earl Grey stuff.
Beams down to the planet like real Captains should.
Mutes the doctor when the doctor gets out of line.
Hasnt let an adolescent pilot the Federation flagship — yet.
Commanded ships blown up: Picard: 2 Janeway: 0
Voyager needs a female Captain. Its Captain must be willing to
admit theyre lost and pull over for directions.
Picard likes to talk his way through. Janeway likes to punch her way through.
Hasnt quoted Shakespeare — yet.
Looks better in sleepwear.
Gives guilt trips that would make a Jewish mother proud.
Isnt French with an English accent.
Will give you two days off to ponder your lifeshattering experience.
Janeway says I dont like you! to her enemies instead of trying
to convince them to behave better.
To comfort children, Janeway cares for them in a loving motherly
way. Picard sings a song… in French… about a monk… who
cant wake up for morning bells.
The only children on Voyager can be turned off at will.
Janeway has a First Officer with a tattoo.
She doesnt have any pesky Federation Admirals to get in her way.
Three words: Compression Phaser Rifles.
Acknowledges freely when she breaks the Prime Directive instead
of trying to weasel her way out of it with philosophical ramblings.
15 episodes without surrendering the ship.
15 episodes and Wesley has yet to save the ship.
Janeways holo programs create useful things like doctors and
lungs. Picards holodecks create maniacal evil geniuses who yet
again take over the ship.
She doesnt need to straighten her uniform every time she stands.
Janeway has never worn green tights and frolicked about in
Sherwood Forest. However, if she did, she would look fantastic!
Kirk looked good in ripped shirts; Picard looked good without a
shirt; Janeway would look… no, they cant do that on network television.
Doesnt force her crew to wear awful outfits, unless it is to
blend in with a primitive planet.
She doesnt waste time learning foreign languages. All lifeforms
in the Delta Quadrant speak perfect English.
Her engineer does not wear a banana clip over his eyes.
Slouches in her chair even in critical life-threatening moments.
Doesnt have a Counselor on board (thank God!).
Her telepath only lives nine years.
Janeway heard the words boldly go where no man (er, woman)
has gone before and took them to the extreme.
Picard tells alien cultures, I hope our two cultures will one
day come to a greater understanding. Janeway threatens them with
the deadliest of force.
Janeways Security Chief would never grow a ponytail.
The high point of Enterprise cuisine were scrambled eggs that
only Worf could stomach.
Janeway doesnt have to point which way to go when they set off.
Maintains an elaborate hairdo that would baffle even Princess Leia.
Has mastered facial expression understood by all to mean, Boy,
Paris, are YOU ever stupid.
Hugs her Vulcan from time to time.
Has a more manly voice.
Doesnt have a starship that splits in half when its in a tight spot.
Has a dog and a significant other, not some damn fish!
Kes. Troi. No contest.
Nealix. Replicator. Ok, this ones debatable.
At least she doesnt have to yell Hot! at her cook every time
she wants something to drink.
Her ship has neat-looking folding warp nacelles.
Her CONN officer actually went through the Academy.
Her CONN officer can use contractions.
Her first officer has a hallucinogenic device.
None of the crew members relatives have ever tried to take over
the ship, invade the Federation, steal a starship, or enslave all humankind.
To help her relax, Janeways first officer helps her contact her
spirit guide. Picards first officer helps him get… to Risa.

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircrafts electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopters position and course to steer to the airport.



The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopters window. The pilots sign said WHERE AM I? in large letters.



People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window.

Their sign said YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER OVER SEATTLE.



The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to the Seattle airport, and landed safely.



After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER sign helped determine their position?



The pilot responded I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building, because similar to their help-lines, they gave me a technically correct but totally useless answer!