Why is this post still up?

October 27, 2004 7:48 AM

The Delta is (probably) declaring bankruptcy thread, which features nothing more than a rumor backed up by a link to Delta's home page, is truly teh suck.
posted by mkultra to Etiquette/Policy at 7:48 AM (21 comments total)

Even if it were confirmed fact. Even if it were chapter 7 and not chapter 11, it is teh suck.
posted by jpoulos at 7:51 AM on October 27, 2004

kaisers's hose!
posted by quonsar at 8:32 AM on October 27, 2004

I saw a turtle.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:50 AM on October 27, 2004

Agreed. Even if it comes true today, it's bad form.

Is Keyser a day trader? Did he sell short on Delta or something?
posted by me3dia at 10:00 AM on October 27, 2004

Delta almost killed me one time. I was on a SouthWest flight from San Diego to Oakland, and just as we were cruising in to land, the engines revved way up and the pilot executed a tight circle left. Apparently a Delta plane was sitting on the runway where it shouldn't have been. The pilot explained over the loudspeaker, adding: "At Delta, they're still learning to fly, and it shows." He was piiiissed.

/useless tangent

Uh, yeah, teh suck. And everything.
posted by scarabic at 10:13 AM on October 27, 2004

/useless tangent

Not useless at all (at least in my humble opinion.) Great story. Now my irrational fear of flying has increased.

/useless and off topic comment
posted by juiceCake at 10:21 AM on October 27, 2004

Matt saw and posted to the thread, I figure that's a sort of tacit approval. Doesn't really make the post suck less, though.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on October 27, 2004

Scarabic - That's OK. You can thank our military for other episodes like that. I was standing on the roof of an office building near the Portland airport ... PDX has an Air National Guard base that's tasked with air defense, so they frequently have guest squadrons in town to train against. Portland also has two paralell runways, and all pilots need to veer to the left after takeoff so that they're over the river to keep within noise restrictions.

A United turboprop was just lifting off on the north runway when a visiting squadron of F-16s starts its takeoff roll on the south runway. Most of the F-16s did a nice, cautious takeoff, lifted up, got above any other traffic in a hurry, and got out over the river to form up again. The last one was a hotshot. He picked himself up off the runway as soon as possible and went gear-up and used ground effect to the end of the runway, and then pointed the nose of the jet straight up and tilted over to the left a little bit. Well, remember that turboprop? It was right in his path of travel ... although it wouldn't have been if he hadn't been flying like a jackass. He sees the turboprop in JUST enough time to jink to the left and pass about 30 feet in front of the United plane. The United plane bucks and drops about 50 feet due to the F-16's wake.

There was a guy just inside of the door that was an Air Nat'l Guard commander, and I knew he had a scanner. I got into his office just in time to hear the tower ask the United plane if they wanted to file an inflight against the F-16, and the United pilot reply in a very shaky voice that they'd get back to the tower on that... The ANG commander asked me what happened, I told him, and he laughed and said that the United pilot probably needed to clean out his shorts before they got around to filing any reports... and then he picked up the phone and called the ANG base commandant to tell him what I'd said. ;) He said that the F-16 pilot would be using his wings to peel potatoes from then on...
posted by SpecialK at 10:56 AM on October 27, 2004

SpecialK, my father was an F-16 pilot who was grounded after a near-miss incident in Portland was reported to his C.O., ending his career as a pilot in the Air Force and dashing any hope he ever had of making it as an airline pilot. Eventually the strain of working three manual-labor jobs to support the family became too much for him, and he died a broken man, after nine weeks in an alcohol-induced coma.

Thanks a lot.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:13 AM on October 27, 2004

If it's any consolation, JuiceCake, I was sitting in a window seat on the left-hand side of the plane. Our tight circle left tilted my window way down, and our loop around to retry our landing gave me a once-in-a-lifetime view of San Francisco and the East Bay, my beautiful home. Overall, I wouldn't trade the experience.

I have no consolation for you, crash. Are you kidding?
posted by scarabic at 11:22 AM on October 27, 2004

BREAKING NEWS: METAFILTER TO DECLARE CHAPTER 11 BANKRUPTCY TOMORROW.

Developing...
posted by Krrrlson at 11:34 AM on October 27, 2004

Flew United yesterday out of SFO on the red-eye. Nice hard tail-strike on the liftoff - made my jaws click together - and the guy set the plane down so hard at JFK that I'm sure a couple tires blew - you could hear the rubber tearing away during the taxi.

Plane was only half-full anyway.

Also, that Delta FPP sucked big time, even if it hadn't been wrong.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:44 PM on October 27, 2004

Has Top Gun not taught us anything? It's the hot shots who take chances and are kind of gay that make this world turn. Making them quit just because there's hundreds of others willing to pilot fighter jets is just wrong. So what if, because of their own bravado, they almost destroyed a multi-million dollar aircraft and put hundreds of lives in danger? You'll be sorry when Soviet Union collapses again and a rogue general orders his MIGs over East Germany.
posted by geoff. at 2:25 PM on October 27, 2004

I'm sorry gang, I guess word got around and delta is going to wait on it. Hopefully they finally worked out a deal with their employees. Without the big news bust, my FPP stinks.
posted by Keyser Soze at 2:41 PM on October 27, 2004

krrrlson: IS THAT TRUE? Oh man what am I going to do with all this post stock? It'll be useless now!
posted by Keyser Soze at 2:49 PM on October 27, 2004

"Are you kidding?"

If it will help SpecialK sleep better at night, yes.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:44 PM on October 27, 2004

Even with the big news bust, it's still a lousy FPP. It's all about the link, people. It may be a cliche, but this is not NewsFilter.
posted by neckro23 at 4:43 PM on October 27, 2004

That post was 20% shittier and 99% more content-free than my nearly-worthless Pinky The Cat post. You've got to aim mighty low to make a worse post than I can.
posted by majick at 5:36 PM on October 27, 2004

Pinky rocks my socks.
posted by scarabic at 5:42 PM on October 27, 2004

I would say it was 16% shittier.
posted by Keyser Soze at 6:10 PM on October 27, 2004

The pilot explained over the loudspeaker, adding: "At Delta, they're still learning to fly, and it shows."

That was mighty professional of him.
posted by Mitheral at 9:24 AM on October 28, 2004