Oh you've got terrorists? We've got dead pilots...

Woah, you guys, have you seen this? There is a Boeing 777 with 247 passengers on board, about to land at Newark Internationl Airport any moment now, coming in from Brussels, with a dead pilot on board. The guy, who's been working for Continental Airlines for over 20 years, was 62 years old, and the flight crew reports that he just up and died in mid-flight "of natural causes." Everything appears to be fine as far as the actual flight goes, since there are two first officers aboard who took control of the jet quite commendably while the rest of the flight crew carried the dead body out of the cockpit and into the crew rest area after it had been declared dead by a medical doctor who happened to be on board.

This. Is. SO. Awesome.

I mean, let's just take a look at the multiple ways in which this news story is making my disgustingly soggy and dreary Thursday morning less crappy through osmosis, shall we?

1) I'm reading the book "Stiff" by Mary Roach right now, and just last night I finished the chapter about how cadavers can and cannot be used to determine the causes of plane crashes. The chapter basically went in depth about the multiple ways in which one can die on an airplane when something goes wrong. So I was feeling pretty nervous about the prospect of flying there for a good 12 hours or so, after reading that your best chance of surviving a crash lies in either a) being male (so you can push people out of your way), or b) flying first class. Neither of these were looking like options to me. But then, I got to work today, and voila! Fears dissolved! If I fly on Continental, which I OBVIOUSLY will from now on, my pilot can literally croak during my flight OVER THE OCEAN and I can be safe. I'm feeling pretty good about this.

2) Did I mention that the guy died? Mid-flight? I find this hilarious because, well, I know there are lots of ways in which people can just suddenly keel over with little or no warning, but doesn't it seem like somebody should've maybe taken a good look at him before he got behind the controls of a 777, for God's sake, and said, "Hey, Mr. Pilot, you're not looking oh so very healthy right now. Maybe you should call out today and get another pilot to do your international, trans-continental, ocean-crossing flight"? Doesn't that seem like a reasonable expectation? But, oh well, he died, everybody else is fine, and according to a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, "this is not an issue for us."

3) And, hey, I agree with that guy. Everybody who reads this, I would hope, has probably seen or heard the Lewis Black standup routine about how he thinks that to really scare the crap out of the terrorists, we should vote a dead president back into office. Reagan, perhaps, because that would convince them that we're crazier than they are and they should probably back the hell up. I totally agree - when the crazy get guns, one has to get crazier, I always say. And what better way to send a message to any possible plane hijacking terrorists than this? I think we should media-frenzy the crap out of this one. "Oh, yeah, you want to come on board and kill our pilot and terrorize our passengers? Yeah, well we don't CARE. This is NOT AN ISSUE FOR US. We fly around with dead pilots all the TIME. You do not scare us. In fact, now that our pilot's dead body is hanging out with the flight attendants and they've drawn some funny stuff on his face with Sharpies, let's dress him up as a stewardess and tie him to the beverage cart, just for a laugh." I can get behind this kind of mentality. Terrorists, schmerrorists.

4) And let's not forget - let's NOT FORGET - that a medical doctor who happened to be aboard the plane declared the pilot deceased. This means that, on this flight, one of the flight crew had to step out of the cockpit and say: "Is there a doctor aboard the plane today?" Or, maybe, for kitsch value, "Is there a doctor in the house?" It's like a cheesy movie. It's like Airplane. It's like Snakes on a Plane. It's like... awesome. Just awesome.