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I rarely have a problem with my passengers, but on one flight, there was an exception. Some of my first-class passengers called me a liar which, naturally, elicited a response from me. Here is the story.
It was a 6am departure from Seattle flying down the coast to San Diego in a B-757. We departed Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (KSEA) in darkness, but half way to San Diego (KSAN), the sun popped up to the east over the Sierras. Cruising along peacefully at 28,000 feet, and maybe 200 miles north of Los Angeles, I got a call on the interphone from the purser. She told me that some of the passengers on the right side of the first-class cabin were saying out loud that they thought the right engine was not running.
Specifically, they could plainly see the fan on the left engine spinning away, but the one on the right engine was not turning which meant the engine was not running. Naturally, my first officer and I got a good laugh from this as our 757 was cruising along effortlessly at about 300 knots indicated airspeed, and was not yawing towards the supposedly dead engine. I simply told the purser to tell those were concerned that the engine was, indeed, running quite normally. I concluded incorrectly that this would alleviate their concerns. However, I had forgotten that we live in a cynical culture where the news media and Hollywood movie producers have convinced their audiences to trust no one in positions of authority, including airline captains! I had also forgotten that today, everyone is an authority on things they know nothing about, such as airplanes.
The passengers could plainly see the fan on the left engine spinning away, but the one on the right engine was not turning which meant the engine was not running.
My denial of their suspicion that the right engine was not running quickly began to fuel a conspiracy theory among the first-class passengers that there was a serious emergency and it was being hidden from them. Another call from the purser informed me that several passengers on the right side of the cabin were trying to convince the others that the engine had failed, and the captain was lying about it.
I then realized what it was they were seeing. The sun had just come up in the east. We were flying almost due south, so the left side of the airplane was brightly illuminated making the fan in the left intake clearly visible. However, the right engine was in a shadow caused by the fuselage blocking the sun, and the fan in the right engine was not visible.
On the Pratt & Whitney PW3700 engine, there is a large fan in the front of the engine and right behind it is a set of stationary guide vanes. The passengers were seeing the stationary guide vanes on the right engine and mistook them for the fan. I got on the PA and explained all of this to the passengers and thought that would end the conspiracy theory. WRONG!
The passengers were seeing the stationary guide vanes on the right engine and mistook them for the fan.
The interphone chime sounded a few minutes later and it was the purser again. She told me the passengers didn’t believe me! Three of them were using their cell phones to take videos of the left engine and the right engine, and saying out loud that they could plainly see the difference.
No doubt about it, the right engine was not running and the captain was lying about it. I can only assume these video clips were to be released to the news media upon our arrival in San Diego and eventually posted on social media, making them heroes of the social justice crowd.
We were nearing the LAX airport at 18,000 feet and starting to get busy with the descent into SAN. I was getting irritated at the conspiracy theory advocates who were trying to convince all the other passengers that something was dreadfully wrong with the airplane and that they were being lied to it about it by the captain! I made one more PA announcement saying;
“Folks, this is the captain. There is a conspiracy theory among our first-class passengers that the right engine is not running, and that we are trying to hide it from you. The Los Angeles airport is directly ahead of us and if the right engine really had failed, we would have declared and emergency and be diverting to Los Angeles, and those of you listening to air traffic control on Channel 9 would have heard this.
I can assure you that the right engine is indeed running and is spinning at about 15,000 rpm while consuming jet fuel at 3,500 pounds per hour. Both of these are more than circumstantial evidence that the right engine really is running.” I thought that this would squash the conspiracy theory, but again, I misjudged my audience.
B-757 Captain Joel A. Turpin standing in front of the Pratt & Whitney PW3700 engine. Note large fan in front of stationary guide vanes.
Finally, the purser asked if I could send my first officer back to show the passengers that what they were looking at was an illusion created by the sun. Sending him back would be a pain in the rear as we were getting very busy with ATC, but decided to do it anyway. When he got back to the cockpit, he told me he did not think the passengers had bought his explanation.
Our normal after landing procedure was to shut down the right engine and make a single engine taxi to the gate. This was done to save fuel and to allow the rampers to open the cargo doors on the right side sooner. However, after I landed in San Diego, I elected to taxi to the gate with both engines running so that the passengers would not see the right engine shut down.
After parking the gate, I got on the PA and invited those who had called me a liar to watch the fan on the right engine spool down when I cut the fuel to it. By the time we had completed our shutdown and parking checklists, all of the conspirators in the first-class cabin had deplaned.
Later, I asked the purser what their reaction was when they could plainly see the right engine spool down. She said there was a feeling among them that could only be described as “crest fallen.” Instead of being relieved that they had not been in any danger, they were actually disappointed they didn’t have a conspiracy story to sell to the media and, and in the process, become heroes with the social justice crowd.
His professional credentials include 5 years as captain, training officer, and chief pilot for a commuter airline where he flew the DC-3, Beech 18 and Beech 99 in scheduled passenger operations, and 6 years as Director of Training for both FlightSafety International and Simuflite’s King Air Division.
Turpin was hired by United Airlines in 1986, where he flew the Boeing 727, 737, 757 and 767 in both domestic and international operations including 100 oceanic crossings, and 6 equator crossings. Turpin retired in 2015 at age 65, and currently has some 30,000 hours in his log book.
He is currently employed as captain and chief pilot flying the Pilatus PC-12NG for a company in Pennsylvania. Joel has been a current and active flight instructor since 1970 and teaches instrument flying in a variety of single engine airplanes. Turpin also writes technical articles with an emphasis on instrument flying and airplane systems.
In 2016, Joel Turpin earned the FAA Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for 50 years of flying accident and violation free, and for his contribution to aviation safety for all of those years.
He currently lives in Punta Gorda, Florida with his wife, who is a United Airlines flight attendant. While Joel has had an amazing career in aviation spanning over six decades, he still considers himself to be just a general aviation pilot who got lucky.
- The Captain is Lying and We can Prove It - September 30, 2024
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Joel, You should have shut down the left engine after landing and taxied in on just the right one! Or, you could have shut down the left one when you got in the chocks and then told everyone that you would shut down the right engine and they could deplane only after they shut up!
Great story. I would ask the writer to rethink and learn a bit more about “social justice”. The conspiracy theory crowd has nothing to do with social justice.
Social justice is about fighting for people’s t rights. Even if that can be annoying at times on how people go about it, it does not mean they are not fighting for a better and more equitable society.
It will be ok snowflake.
Snowflake? It is twits like you who foul up the discussion. Brave & mouthy you ard sitting on your dupa behind the keyboard
But I got a nice laugh out of the snowflake comment.
It looks like the first class pax were fighting for their right to struggle against reality.
This country is doomed when we have stupid people with the Finacial ability to fly first class.
These passengers are just a window of what’s to come. Creating a disturbance to the flight crew. Who by the way are responsible for your life as well as their own. Great to notify , but when you signed on you’re committed to the crew and their word is etched in stone. Listen to what they say, sit down and shut up. Heaven help my grandkids.
Social justice is a fringe concept that differs from true justice. It is a theory that insists people should be viewed, and treated differently, based on their tribe’s perceived level of victimhood. It is also antithetical to American law and Constitition.
Yes sir
Waaaah (crying like a little baby)!
I believe it was P.T. Barnum who said that no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
Hi Robert: Great quote but wrong source. H.L. Mencken was the author. He was a newspaper columnist in Baltimore and an extremely astute observer of the general American public making many of these sorts of true statements over his career in the 1920’s.
You are correct, Dave. Barnum purportedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but even that statement is debated as being true. I have to agree though that there are a LOT of idiots in our society. We just get to hear more from them in our highly-connected, social media environment. 99% of what most people have to say is what one would term “opinion.” Please pardon my “French”, but an opinion is like an anus. Everybody has one, but most of them stink. ;-)
Obviously you can’t let the paranoid passengers enter the flight deck to see for themselves that the engines are both running. What if the purser had taken the passenger’s phone to the flight deck to take a picture of the EICAS? That would be solid proof that both engines are running. After I write this, the paranoid conspiracy theorist in me would suspect the phone was explosive as we recently saw in the Mideast news. Let the purser take a picture, send it to the passenger.
On what airline can pax still listen to atc comms? Hasn’t been a thing on any airline I’m aware of since forever.
If you read the biography of the author, you’d see he retired from United. Using my amazing powers of deduction, I’d say United was the airline in question. The time frame of his retirement, also in his biography, would indicate it has been 10 yrs or so since this event occurred which is significantly less than ‘forever’.
United airlines does it right now. I had “channel 9” on for the pax last week. Not all United aircraft are equipped with it and it’s at the captains discretion.
I found article fascinating but a little depressing, and representative of our time.
Two reactions I had —
It’s too bad the author mistakingly chose to use such a loaded and misunderstood term “social justice”. The passengers in the article did not fit this characterization in any way. They are part of the “conspiracy theorist” crowd…..
Second, what airline can you still listen to ATC? I would love to still be able to do this….
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I perceive a certain unkind mindset among some of the comments, but I think Capt. Turpin tells a good tale with an important message about conspiracy thinking in our society. I agree that “social justice warriors” would have been better expressed as “social media warriors.” Social justice is an important concept that deserves respect—social media, not so much. And Bryan forgets that Capt. Turpin retired from United 10 years ago, so this event obviously occurred more than 10 years ago.
Great Story Joel. I had something like that years ago on a Martin 404 night flight from Tampa to Tallahassee. As you know those big R-2800’s have straight exhaust . We had a Pax sitting just behind the cowl flaps and thought for sure we were on fire. At night that exhaust is a beautiful red flame when leaned correctly.
My first airline flight in, I think, 1957, was a night flight on a DC-6. Same thing, I sat glued to the window, fascinated by the world gliding by and that fierce red glow from the #3 engine.
My first (Only) flight on a DC-6, still in uniform I believe,) was on the way back to DCA from Memphis When I noticed oil running out of the 2 engine cowling back over the aft nacelle, I asked the stewardess to ask the captain about it. “Normal” was the response. Afterwards I learned that’s how you can tell if radial engines and Harleys have oil in them! Not to mention Lycomings and Continentals.
Great story, Mike. Reminds me of a ride I took in the back of a USMC CH-46 about 40 years ago. I noticed what I thought was a pretty significant hydraulic leak in one of the lines overhead. I pointed it out to the Plane Captain who said, “That’s normal, Sir. If you see it stop leaking, however, please let me know because then we have a problem.” ;-)
You should have requested a route deviation, and turned the airplane so that the sun shown o to the #2 inlet. Then they could have seen the turbine turning just like the pax on the left saw on the #1. Besides giving them proof, it would have extended their arrival time s bit! Poetic justice!
Great story with an important message, just a weird/incorrect use of “social justice crowd” at the end.
Capt,
As a recently retired Capt myself, I can only smile at the frustration you must’ve felt having been there myself.
Social Media and the loss of critical thinking skills has made idiots of large swaths of humanity, and this is yet more evidence of that.
Great example of contemporary American psyche. I believe that Rush Limbaugh (self appointed expert in everything) got the ball rolling decades ago by convincing his dittoheads that “anyone/everyone can be an authority, therefore anyone’s opinion is as valid as the experts”.
This is the first step in discrediting and fomenting distrust in science/scientists and other professionals who though not correct 100% of the time, do truly know much more about their given area than the average Joe, who goes by their own often misguided perceptions or anecdotal evidence.
News update. The Rash is still dead!
As a 21 year captain I always wondered how the nut in 39H knew more about what was going on than the crew.
if i was the captain i would of grabbed the morons and took them to the front of the engine and told them to stand there as i went back inside the cockpit and revved it up. then as they were being sucked into it? i want to hear them scream.. damn fool captain was right! bbq at 11
I would have asked the first person who started this conversation to go stand in front of the right engine so the rest could watch on Minced meet
IM wondering with this being 10 yrs ago are there about was the law in place that states it is a criminal offense to try and convince others there is a dire problem that would convince other passengers to panic…sorta like screeming fire in a theatre? If so warning them they need to stop spreading fear after you have told them there is no problem and they will be REPORTED to the authorties upon landing !
Interesting article which demonstrates that some people today are very sceptical of authority and expertise and overly confident of their own “knowledge” despite have virtually no expertise whatsoever on the topic at hand. There is a phenomenon described in the psychology literature called the Dunning-Kruger effect with characterizes this kind of behavior. I think social media has played a big role in promoting this kind of behavior.
I must say, however, that the author’s flippant attribution of this type of behavior to the “social justice crowd” is frankly inappropriate. His comment says more about him and his prejudices than it does about those whose behavior he (correctly) found so exasperating. The problem of rejection of authority, scientific and technical expertise and overestimation of one’s own knowledge is, unfortunately, widespread in our society and, from where I sit, is at least as prevalent (and probably moreso) amongst those on the right of the political spectrum than the left.
And, as a flippant aside of my own, I’m guessing that most “social justice warriors” wouldn’t be flying First Class.
Aviation is a big world. If you are interested in promoting it to the widest possible audience I suggest that you avoid dragging culture war nonsense into this arena unless you want to alienate (and lose) a significant portion of your clientele.
You’re correct! Most social justice warriors don’t fly first class, they own their own jets!
Hell of a thing to go through. But…. “heroes of the social justice crowd”? Trafficking in conspiracy theories seems to be a right-wing hobby too, doesn’t it? Also, if you want to stay current as a good MAGA should, you probably want to denounce them as “woke.” “Social justice” (as in “social justice warriors” is so 2016…
As Kirk Moon suggests above… maybe spare us your narrow-mindedness next time.
So glad I fly a 777 full of freight vs. pax.
With the due respect for the other comms, IMHO the best one was the made from J.D.J.
what does “Social Justice” have to do with an engine running? Guess I was lucky, cell phones were just becoming popular when I retired or the TCAS warning at 37000 feet, engine failure at 800 ft, land hold short problem at ORD OR wake turb. encounter at 50 ft. (used 2 min delay behind
What does “Social Justice” have to do with a running engine. Guess I was lucky, cell phones were just becoming popular when I retired or I might have been on the news. TCAS at 37000 ft, engine failure at 800 ft, wake turb. encounter at 50 ft on takeoff (had delayed takeoff for 2 min behind B757), land hold short problem at ORD plus others. Social Justice? B727, B777 captain.
I never had this problem with my passengers in my glider as I was giving a ride!
It’s human nature to try to elevate ourselves by highlighting someone else for being wrong. Its a character flaw, really. The proof is in the comments of those who just can’t help themselves from pointing out something that just doesn’t matter. Get over it and move on. Thank you, Joel, for a good story.
Perhaps a requested deviation and turn to the East unmasking the right engine could have quashed this. Illumination is a good policy.
Never heard any complaints from the back end of the B767F at FedEx. Thank you Fred Smith!