Stunned Passengers Left on Plane : Pilot, Fed Up With Delays at Airport, Stalks Off Jet

An Eastern Airlines pilot frustrated by the long wait for takeoff in Atlanta told stunned passengers he was “sick and tired” of airport delays and stalked off the plane.

“I’m fed up with it,” the unidentified pilot told passengers aboard Flight 141. “I’m sick and tired of the delays, tired of the waiting. I’m hanging it up. You can have it. This flight will be my last flight.”

The pilot walked off the plane Tuesday night shortly before the DC-9 was to have left Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport for Pensacola and Tampa. Eastern assigned a new pilot to the plane, and it departed two hours late.

Granted Retirement

Eastern spokesman Glenn Parsons said the pilot, who is based in Miami, asked to retire during a “cordial” 30-minute meeting Thursday with airline supervisors and was granted voluntary early retirement.

“There is obviously some stress involved, and we don’t want to identify him prematurely in light of a possible career change,” Parsons said. “We regret the whole situation. It affected a number of people and we wish it hadn’t happened.”

Fred Fox, a photographer for the Tampa Tribune who was aboard Flight 141, said the plane experienced several delays, including the late arrival of the pilot, failure of a galley door to close properly and a shortage of fuel.

Recalls Diatribe

The pilot later came on the intercom after getting in a line of jets waiting to take off and said: “We’re going to be stuck out here for about 20 minutes,” then paused for a moment, Fox said.

“When he came on again, I thought I was listening to an ad for a thriller movie, but I didn’t hear the commercial,” Fox said.

“The captain said: ‘You know they say when you die you have to change in Atlanta,’ ” then he launched into a diatribe about airport delays.

Stunned passengers murmured among themselves while the pilot spoke, but Fox said few seemed to want to get off the plane.

The pilot taxied the plane back to the gate and walked off the aircraft, Fox said.