Ep. 11: After Landing I’ll Call You

On July 4, 2000, Malév Flight 262 rolls into Thessaloniki with big “I’ve done this a thousand times” energy, and then casually forgets the one accessory that makes landings landings: the landing gear. Bianca and Tiffany break down the incident where a Soviet era Tu-154 turns Runway 28 into a smoke machine, scrapes along the pavement for hundreds of meters, and still manages to go around and fly away like it just bumped a curb. We get the full chaos menu: an approach that starts drifting into tight S turns, a First Officer with very little time who politely hints at reality, and a cockpit culture where the “TOO LOW GEAR” warning is treated as an annoying ringtone you silence, not a final boss you respect.Then it gets even better, ATC is trying to help, the crew is transmitting PAN PAN, callsigns get mixed up, holding instructions go sideways, and the captain drops the most unintentionally hilarious line of the episode: “After landing I’ll call you.” Yes, after landing. That landing. The one that just happened on the aircraft’s belly.It’s a story about checklist discipline, CRM that never shows up for work, alarm fatigue, and the uncomfortable truth that a plane can be engineered like a tank, but it still cannot save you from a cockpit that treats procedures as vibes.