Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. I hope you have had a pleasant flight. So far.
Please allow me to share some vital information about our flight. We’re currently flying at an altitude of 33,700 feet, about 10,000 meters. Our cruising speed is above 500 miles per hour, that is, a tad above 800 kms per hour.
Now, we’ve been experiencing some minor difficulties with our flight navigation systems. Nothing serious, no need to be alarmed. We’ve gone through all the various alternative procedures, to no avail. The “glitch”, if I may call it that way is still there. A very minor “glitch” I must say.
Please, do not worry, there is an emergency procedure in such a case. Totally harmless. I’m sure most of you have a computer. Just think of this plane as one giant flying computer with wings and engines.
Before I go on, you will notice that the fasten seat belt has been turned on. Please return to your seat and make sure your seat belt is duly fastened. Flight attendants, after you’ve made sure every passenger is seated and with their safety belt on, please go to your seats and harness yourselves.
What I am going to do is just what you sometimes have to do on your own computer. I will reboot the system. Or restart it completely if you will. A reboot is not a reset. A reset is to “go back to factory settings. We shall not do that. (Yet). All I’ll do is reboot, that is shut off and re-start.
Obviously, this means that for a very short while, all the plane systems will be turned off. That includes the air-flow, but again, don’t worry, there’s enough air in the cabin to last us a while. That is not a major concern, just breathe slowly.
Another minor issue, is that the engines and the entire plane flight control systems will also be shut down momentarily. The latter includes direction: up, down, left, right, etc. The good news is that at the current speed I mentioned earlier, the plane should maintain its course for the few seconds necessary to finalize the reboot. And fully restart the plane.
All clear on the procedure? I am now starting the reboot. The lights and mike should work on batteries for a little while. No cause for concern at all. The procedure will only take a few seconds.
Seconds…
Seconds……
Seconds………
Equinoxio 
May I have seconds, please…? 😆
Just wait a sec. Reboot didn’t work. I’m resetting.
Aw naw, we’re lost… in space. June Day, June Day! (May is so… yesterday 😛 )
😬
Will pass on that flight ✈️😊
😉
🛶🛩️
👍🏻
Having it put like this, I might not to be to worried, before realizing the true impact of the message. ‘He will know what he is doing, wouldn’t he?’ I close my eyes, it’s getting light in my head, let me sleep for a second…. Goedenacht Brian. 🙂
That is THE question: does he know what he’s doing?
Goedenacht Peter
I thought this was your fancy way of saying you were leaving on vacation!!
😉
Haha!. Ben non. Ça va bientôt arriver avec les voitures… Alors les avions? 😉
😉 Toot! Toot! Oui, oui..
🤣
😁
Ha, ha, every person’s worst flying nightmare!
It is, is it not?
Another example: we have a “Tag”, a device on the windshield to pay tolls automatically. You recharge it on-line on the computer with a credit card. Last time my wife wanted to put money on it, she couldn’t: the system is now asking for a 5 digit “token” which can only be obtained on the mobile app, which cannot be downloaded due to a system error… Even after rebooting. 😉
The technology merry-go-round!
Indeed. You in the UK now, I think?
Yes, and volunteering at the Glastonbury Festival from the 21st for 4 days (camping). Then Italy on the 4th of July. 😉
I thought you might volunteer for that.
Ed de volta a l’Italia. Bravíssimo!
Sì, non vedo l’ora di arrivare in Italia per incontrare gli amici, la famiglia e mangiare un sacco di cibo delizioso! 😉
L’ora arivara…
(Aveva dimenticato cosa c’é “cibo”. 🍽 (That emoji just poped up when I wrote “cibo”. Wow)
That’s spooky but clever!
My Mac – and all Macs – most probably sends anything I write to Apple… Spooky indeed.
Big Brother is watching. 😉
Totally. I already know for a fact that Google “reads” my mails. I get ads tied with some stuff I have written in a mail or the other… And all the politicos are just trying to make them pay more taxes, but that? They don’t care. (Most of them -politicos- probably don’t even know how to turn a computer on anyway… 🙄
Finalement, je vais prendre le prochain vol 😀
C’est une bonne idée. Maintenant ils font le reboot au sol, avant de décoller. C’est mieux.
Une annonce comme ça : c’est flippant 😀
Tout-à-fait…
Factory settings? Oh no!
Haha! Rings a bell?
What? What? What’s happening (metaphorically speaking)?
Just close your eyes…
🙂
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! A glitch in the Matrix. Good story.
Thanks Gigi. I thought you might like it. Fortunately there were no cats on the flight. (Too smart. The cats)
Definitely. Great story.
Thank you Gigi. Never really done “flash fiction” before. Quite a challenge. But fun. Hope all is well with you?
Yikes. But I read somewhere that something like this happened, or an update to a computer that controlled an airplane…
It may have already happened. Now to… breathe a little I understand that all, or almost all plane systems are at least doubled. So i you have to reboot the main computer, there would be a backup computer?
But what if they both get the same Windows update that takes forever? 😉
That could be an issue. Which is why when my PC’s motherboard fried ten years ago, I switched to Mac. (And retrieved the PC’s hard disk. Fun)
Sounds like a LOT of fun for sure. I prefer my MacBook too. At work, I still have to deal with all those Office programs etc…
Well, I installed the new Mac in… less than 2 hours…
Must be difficult to change systems all the time. I had to do a quick thing on a PC the other day, I had to drum up old memories.
Nah, you get used to it. But I really hate MS Office tools 😂😂 I’d just work in content management systems all day if I could
One gets used to a lot of things. 😉
When the first PC’s (IBM’s PS2) came out (no hard drive, you had to insert a floppy, the only programme available was the ancestor of spredasheets: Visicalc. Absolutely fab…
(What do you call ‘content mandagement systems’?) (Remember I started with pinch cards…)
WordPress is a content management system. I like the aspect of arranging titles, text and images visually directly into the publishing software. There are still companies that make you draft in Word, and the u need to copypaste thru a notepad not to get fonts mixed up etc………
Ok. Got it. Power point would be another. I know my daughters use other, newer systems for presentations.
Thinking about Corporate policy, I had a policy a long time ago for questionnaires. Word. But that was questionnaires and a long time ago. I think I would suggest several options now, for presentations and reports for example…
Stop the plane and let me off
We are actually stopping the plane Sir. But we might be a bit high to let you off?
Ah 🙂
La suite dans Madrapour, Robert Merle.
Belle journée, Brieuc.
Roberty Merle… Hmmm. Un auteur favori de mon père. Mais je n’en ai pas bcp lu.
De même Gilles.
La bibliothèque de mon lycée devait en être bien fournie !
Merci, Brieuc, et une belle journée à toi.
📚
PS. Vu le résumé. Intéressant. Peut-être le trouverai-je sur les quais un jour? Merci du tuyau…
Peu de livre me laisse des souvenirs. Celui-ci en fait partie. J’en ai un vieil exemplaire dans ma bibliothèque.
Merci, Brieuc, et une belle journée à toi.
Les bibliothèques sont pleines de trésors…
A+.
I’m sitting here imagining how I’d be feeling on that flight. Do I trust the pilot to know what he’s doing and feel only a tiny bit anxious? Or do I suspect that there is much more wrong than he is telling us and feel a sense of panic????
I guess all frequent air passengers must feel the same…
Me? I don’t know. I just write the story…
Mankind is flying to the moon but cannot make an escalator work … that is exactly why I hate flying … (being terrified emoji)
True. I’ve seen the same escalator in a Paris Metro station stopped for maintenance for over a year…
I can understand, but I’m fine with planes. My father was an Air France man, and I did first flight at 6 months on a DC3! LOL
🙂
Easy death though.
Eeek! You have just described in great detail my biggest fears about flying. A great story.
Thank you. Flying remains one safest means of transportation. But the reboot thing is increasingly common. Too many computers everywhere with badly written software… 😉
Have a nice week-end.