MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD, Alternate Reality News Service Disasters Writer
Disaster was narrowly averted this afternoon when a Class C android, colloquially known as Clara Consort, landed a 747 jumbo jet after the auto-pilot and auto-co-pilot came down with mysterious illnesses and could no longer fly the plane.
“Oh, really, it was nothing,” Consort, electronically flustered, stated. “Any reasonable member of the cabin staff would have done the same. And, be sure to note when you quote me that I am programmed to be modest, won’t you?”
The problem began on Boering Airlines non-stop flight 242 from Toronto to Oshawa when passengers starting making strange complaints. A vacuubot named Velma on its way to spend the holidays with its boyfriend, a Bleack and Daker power saw, thought the cabin was full of butterflies, and wanted to know if a window could be opened to shoo them out of the plane. A Terrorbot 52000, on leave from the war on trees to visit its buddies, insisted it was itchy – even though its exoskeleton was made of a mixture of titanium and shoe polish – and started scratching off its outer layers. A Shatspian 1931 on its way to Stratford for a weenie roast of William Shakespeare insisted that it saw a Demon Emulator on the wing of the airplane.
Investigators believe that these delusions were caused by a malicious virus that was introduced into the plane’s music system. That, or the cream in the éclairs was off. “It’s still early days,” said Columbot, the Class D(etective) android that was the lead investigator of the incident. “And, I don’t want to intrude, but I have just one more question to ask…”
Whatever the cause, the problem quickly spread to the cockpit. (It’s only a 12 minute flight, so the spread of the problem had to be quick.) XD1E-275, a grizzled auto-pilot looking forward to retiring after one final flight, believed it had achieved a state of nirvana where it was one with the air molecules surrounding the plane. FG7AB-103, the hotshot young auto-co-pilot that didn’t know as much as it thought it did about aviation, dribbled corn starch out of its console and refused to stop singing “Only Love Can Break Your Heart.”
“I immediately knew something was wrong,” Consort confided. “FG was singing on key – the first time I had ever heard him do that!”
And, the plane had entered a nosedive that would have resulted in a crash in a matter of seconds.
“Yes,” Consort allowed, “there was that.”
Taking the controls, the quick-witted Consort pulled the plane out of its dive. Unfortunately, it flew right into a swarm of nanobots that there were in the sky to sew up a hole in the ozone layer. The needles they were using cracked open the cockpit window.
“That was an unfortunate turn of events,” Consort stated. “I mean, the auto-pilots fly on instruments – I don’t even know why the plane had a window!”
Whatever the reason, the pressure in the cockpit plummeted, sucking the auto-pilot and auto-co-pilot out the window. Consort was able to survive by handcuffing herself to the leg of one of the empty pilot’s chairs bolted to the floor.
“Yeah, about that,” Columbot asked, “I’m sorry, it’s probably nothing, but I have to ask myself: what was she doing with a pair of handcuffs in the first place? I mean, in the cockpit?”
Good question, but one that will have to wait. Although she could barely see the control panel because of the way her handcuffed body was situated, Consort managed to stabilize the plane. Unfortunately, because it was off its flight plan, it crashed into an RCMP drone that was patrolling Highway 401 looking for illegal interprovincial yak smugglers.
“I tell you,” Consort told us, “we just couldn’t catch a break!”
Number 4 engine (the one with the snotty attitude towards garden gnomes), was totalled, putting the plane into a second nosedive. “The whole falling to the ground/imminent death thing was getting a bit old,” Consort allowed. “Still, first aid was part of my programming, so I figured I could do it on the entire airplane.”
Oshawa Ground Control helped talk Consort through the complex procedure of landing the plane – did we mention a sudden snowstorm came out of nowhere? “Hunh!” Consort snorted. “No global warming my einsteinium ass!” The plane’s body was wrecked because the landing gear refused to go out without its mittens, but no passengers were lost.
“Yeah,” Columbot interjected, “I have just one more question about that and we’ll be done. I’ve been wracking my electronic brain over it, and I couldn’t help but wonder -“
Just one question? Because, we have several questions, but they don’t change the fact that Clara Consort heroically landed a jumbo jet, saving all of the passengers on board. Right?
“Well, yeah, about that -“
Right.