Danger!! Danger!! Muslims praying onboard! Smoke in the cockpit!!!

[Dr.Phool]

Saddam's Airline. Where the hell are Barney Fife and Donald Rumsfeld when you need them?

Actually, it's a pretty interesting article about flying around the mid-east.

http://dailynightly.msnbc.com/2006/12/somewhere_over_.html

Posted by Brian Williams, Anchor & Managing Editor (08:37 am ET, 12/ 1/06)

Brian Williams, Anchor & Managing Editor

A few departure notes from Jordan: first, our traveling party referenced the recent Muslim cleric incident on that commercial plane in Minneapolis -- when we looked up at the moving video map on our Royal Jordanian Airlines flight -- and saw the constant orienting arrow to Mecca. Sure enough, a man was praying in the back of the aircraft prior to takeoff. Prayer is often part of the flying experience on RJ, and I've now flown this airline so much over the past few years (they do, after all, fly to or close enough to all the best "hot spots" in our business of late), I've found myself regretting that I'm not a part of their frequent flyer program.

This flight, on a brand new Airbus A320, is mostly Jordanians. There are about half a dozen American security contractors -- instantly recognizable and now ubiquitous in any airport in the region. As is the case on board many airlines based in the Middle East, there is a man standing in the front galley hallway, facing the First Class cabin, wearing a leather jacket with his back to the cockpit door. He stood there during takeoff and will stay there for the rest of the flight. He is armed. An in-flight security guard. Very effective. The only hint that we're on a non-U.S. carrier (aside from the guy in the leather jacket, the guy praying in the rear of the aircraft and the little "moving Mecca" icon) is the smell of cigarette smoke. I asked about it, and was told that both pilots smoke. It's now wafting through the passenger compartment after the cockpit door was opened to serve meals to the pilot and first officer. You'd think they'd open the window a crack, but apparently not.

Of interest to airline buffs was what I saw off our left wing on takeoff from Amman: five mothballed Iraqi Airlines jets, mostly old 727s, some missing engines. They are parked on a remote patch of outlying desert on the airport grounds. The last time I saw aircraft with that same "livery" (paint scheme) was at the Baghdad airport during the U.S. invasion. Some were simply parked on the tarmac, while others were blown to pieces. I remember a 3rd Infantry colonel telling me at the time that some young tank commander took a little "target practice" and got in big trouble for blowing up the jets -- evidently finding the big white targets just too irresistible after days of amped-up driving across the desert. The Army was not happy that photos of the jet carcasses were published, as they saw it as needless destruction. I believe the whole episode was chronicled in one of the many insta-books published after the invasion by various newspaper staffs.

Anyway, if anybody is looking for Saddam's old commercial fleet: it's in Amman.

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