Pilot Pranks on Flight Attendants / Cabin Crew

Sometimes pilots pull pranks on new flight attendants and cabin crew. There are a lot of different ones here are several pretty well known ones, if you have more send them to my IG 74Gear I may use them in a later video.

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Chapters:

0:00 Intro
1:42 The Keys
4:32 Onboard ATM
8:58 Ozone Check
13:34 Drug Test

[mixolydian]

"Is this the face of somebody who'd play pranks on a flight attendant?" Yes. Yes it is.

[DavidJones-icxt]

I’m a retired airline pilot. One morning I was on a flight to Las Vegas. There was a flight attendant trainee on board. On short final the lead asked the trainee if she emptied the coffee pot to which she replied she forgot! Just then tower issued us a go around. The trainee thought we went around because she didn’t empty the coffee pot and was afraid she would get in trouble!

[mknight]

Laughed my butt off!
I was on a regional flight and an attendant came and checked my window temp with his hand. I was USAF at the time and knew what was going on. I calmly advised him that he needed to advise the pilot that the propeller warning paint had come off every blade and they needed to be redone with sticky yellow as the paint was now only on the blade tip. I explained that it MUST be due to centrifugal force and that it was rather common in order to save money for the airline. He advised the Capt.
The SECOND the aircraft had stopped the Capt and First Officer were out out of the cockpit and waiting for people to disembark, watching who left. Both thanked me for my concern for passenger and ground crew safety with EVIL grins. Neither had heard that one before and no doubt used it many times afterwards.

[HoustonTom]

“I’ve never played a prank on anyone.” Proceeds to tell prank stories in the 1st person.

[margotrosendorn]

I'm glad you covered that hapless newbie's tab after pranking her; pranks should never be too mean. Amuse and confuse, but never abuse!

[thomasaltruda]

My airline flight attendants don’t push a drink cart, instead, they just go through the isle with a tray. One day, the other flight attendants put a note on it that said “Single, looking for dates” on the side facing the pax! She was so confused why everybody kept flirting with her! Haha so it’s not just the pilots who play jokes!

[davidamoritz]

I've been a passenger and have seen the ozone check being done by a flight attendant. Years ago on a KLM flight Amsterdam from Houston.

[raysplace]

Kelsey: "I've never done any of these"
C'mon dude, you wrote the book...😂😂😂👍👍 thanks for another one🍻🍻

[rickgould]

On the ‘Aircraft Keys’ joke, years ago (pre-internet), I was in the US Navy P-3 Flight Engineer school. I already had 10 years working on F/A-18s, A-6s, etc., so the first time instructor asked me to go get the keys to the airplane during our brief, I tactfully told him that I might be a student FE, but I wasn’t a rookie to aviation. He tried to convince me and I kept pushing back. As it turns out, the P-3 has a hasp built into the main cabin door for a padlock, so there REALLY are keys to the plane (not to start the engines, though). Thousand of hours on P-3s and C-130s and I just landed a job with NASA’s SOFIA 747!

[TrueOpinion]

"The ozone test" is similar to a prank we played in the Army on the new guys fresh from basic training and jump school. During vehicle maintenance day, we'd have all the new guys gather "exhaust samples" from every Humvee in the platoon and give them to the maintenance Sargeant. It was a lot of fun watching the maintenance Sargeant smoking all the new guys for delivering him dozens of trash bags full of stinky truck exhaust.

[skydiverclassc]

Pilot: "We forgot the keys to the aircraft. Go ask the gate agent for another set."
Flight Attendant: "Hold on. My boyfriend showed my how to hotwire a car. I'll get it started."

[ManonLovesSMG]

on my first flight they had me go outside with a fire extinguisher to “supervise fueling” and i fell for it and my colleagues had the time of their life watching me prom the inside....😩😩😂😂😂

[d.peters]

Kelsey, I hope you see this one.


Captains mess with ground crew, too. You need to stay with this story to the end. Shortly after starting work with the airline, I was being trained on and checked out for marshaling aircraft. This was my first time on the ramp, so my trainer was standing behind me. My airline also uses different color safety vests or wording on those vests to indicate rookies, experienced, supervisors, etc. So as this plane was taxiing in, with me in a trainee vest and an experienced vest on the guy behind me, the entire world would know I was new and inexperienced.


As I start the signals to line up and bring in the aircraft, it starts doing things I am not telling it so, weaving on and off the lead in line, slowing/speeding up/stopping, etc. Of course, I'm in the "WTF am I doing wrong" mode and keep trying to get things under control so I can this plane in safely, parked and let all the passengers go about their day. What my trainer is doing behind me, I have no idea, probably laughing to he's wetting himself is my guess nowadays.


I finally get the plane onto the stop bar, chocked and get the jet bridge up to the door. Then I begin my post arrival walk around. Part way around the plane, the captain comes under the wing with a huge smile on his face and sticks his hand out telling me his name and apologizing for messing with me and how he could tell it was my first time and it would be remembered for the rest of my career. We laughed a good one. I have a great sense of humor. But now let me also add, what comes around...you know the rest of that cliche'. His first officer pulled me aside and told me how the captain was enjoying himself and gave me an idea on what to do as a payback, but I assured him, I had a plan already.


They had about 90 minutes between arrival and their departure. So needless to say, everyone scattered to do whatever they do in between flights and the crew went to get food. As I entered the terminal, I had a man approach me and ask me what was happening when I was bringing the plane in, he could tell I was being punked and wanted to hear the story. After telling him, I asked him when his flight was leaving and if he's help me with something. He hesitantly agreed since his flight was leaving after ours way. He enjoys planes and always gets to the airport several hours earlier than necessary to watch the ramp and runways. I filled him in on what I wanted him to do for me which was just stand in the window with his suit fully on (he had his coat off and tie loosened) and when he saw me board the plane and enter the flight deck, when he saw me point up at him, he was to sternly motion "come here, now" type gestures. He wanted to know what I was going to do, but I told him if he knew up front, he's probably not help me, but I'd fill him in after the fact. I assured him he wouldn't get in trouble.


So the gate agent lets the crew out to the plane. I come along and board, making sure the guy in the window was in position as requested. He was. I enter the flight deck and start talking with the captain and first officer. I point up to the guy in the window and proceed to say: "I'm sorry to be the one who has to tell you this, but see that man in the window"...pause, both look up and the captain says, yeah, what about him. "Ah, he's an FAA inspector and someone reported that you were consuming alcohol in the bar while you were in the terminal and he's here to give you a drug test." My guy is doing exactly as I asked, and became even more insistent the longer the captain looked up at him. The F/O in the meantime, realizing my prank, turned away and was looking out his side window trying to not be noticed laughing, but the captain noticed the shoulder bounce and after processing the matter, looked at me with a nervous smile and cracking voice, "you're joking right, this is just payback for my arrival stunt, right?" I started laughing and said, never screw with a master prankster my friend. I won.


At this point, relieved, he wanted to know who the guy was in the window, I told him just another passenger for the flights leaving after yours and I enlisted him to help me out when he asked about you punking me with your customized arrival. He jumps out of his seat and wants to meet this guy. We go up to the concourse and he asks the guy who he is...and he reassures the captain that he's leaving on the next flight. Captain says "So you are not with the FAA?" The guy looks shocked, says no and turns to me asking what he had gotten himself into with me. So we told him. He said to me, had I known your plan, I wouldn't have helped, but now that I did, that's funny. I again assured him he was not going to get into trouble. As I turned the plane out on departure, the captain gave me a huge smile, the sharpest military salute I've ever seen and a wave. He conceded, I won the exchange with that salute.


Now this is where it gets better, for over a month, every single crew from his regional airline that flew into my city asked for me so they could meet me. Seems that this particular man had quite the reputation as a prankster punking flight attendants, pilots, mechanics and office staff equally as all were fair game. And having admitted being bested that day, he (or more likely his F/O) shared the story with everyone and the word spread like wildfire. Thus everyone wanted to meet the guy who put him in his place. I can't tell you how many pops, sandwiches, etc. that were purchased for me as a thank you for getting him paid back in a big way from all his fellow coworkers. It was certainly an experience neither he nor I will forget and he certainly did make it one event during my career that I have not forgotten and that's been quite some time ago.

[SunfireGTX]

Lol when I was in the army, we had recruits go ask the logistic office for the "brass magnet" to pick up all the empty shells on the range. That's always been a great laugh when they returned with an angry look on their face! 😂

[kaspidian]

Aircrafts are very expensive and delicate pieces of technology, there are restrict procedures to operate every system.
Pilots:
*brrrr printer prints money lmao*

[jnlketcham]

Hi Kelsey! Love these. My good friend was a pilot for PSA (back in the day), and he had new flight attendants turn all the passenger air vents aft because the added 'thrust' would help overcome a low fuel situation.

[tack]

The ''i need the keys" prank seems like the kind of prank the girl who said ''We'll be at an altitude of 300ft and a speed of 6000kts" from Catch me if you can would fall for.

[dystopianlucidity]

Omg! That ozone check! I’ve seen that happen. I was confused AF trying to figure out wtf she was doing! Now I know.

On another note I know the dreamlifter is performing very important missions. You are saving lives, thank you so much. More than words can say. In these times, it’s comforting knowing that there are brave and wonderful men and women willing to fly all the important equipment where it needs to go!

[Skepperly]

When was a maintainer in the Air Force, the new pilots would get asked to assist with doing the WXR (weather radar) check: walk back and forth 50-ish yards in front of the aircraft with a giant wad of aluminum foil on the end of a broom handle held as high as possible. This was necessary to verify the radar was working properly 😂

[martinda]

I was on a Greyhound bus going across the Nullarbor Plain Australia...The drivers played a few jokes on the passengers. He asked us to check the air coming out of a row of holes running along below the windows. There was none - He said the air conditioning sometimes messed up and the pipes ran under the floors. he got us all to stand up and jump up and down to fix it...We all did.