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Dinner's Ready
Hal Maynard
We were on our way from Elmendorf AFB to Travis AFB, 41,000 feet, smooth as
glass and trying to stay awake. Both pilots were in their seats and I was
working on the per diem forms.
All of a sudden there was a loud explosion in the cargo compartment and a white
fog formed in front of the flight deck entrance door. I called "Decompression!"
over the intercom and we started an emergency descent. With oxygen mask on and
throttles to idle, down we went ... but only for a few seconds.
The loadmaster came running to the flight deck door shouting and waving his
arms to stop the descent. We leveled off at about 39,000 and the load said we
had no decompression. It was something worse ... and it was caused by the
co-pilot
A few minutes before, the co-pilot had placed a can of beef stew in the oven at
450 degrees, set the timer for 30 minutes and did not punch hole in the can. In
short order the can exploded and blew open the latched oven door. The sides of
the oven were bulging out and beef stew was all over the front end of the cargo
compartment, including the sleeping auxiliary crew members.
What the oven looked like
(pre-stew)
Too bad this was the last leg of the mission because the CP would have been
buying drinks the rest of the trip.....
Hal Maynard
C-141 Navigator