We were going to say he was flying low but then again, he didn’t have any trousers on at all…
Here in Ireland, because of the influence our German overlords counterparts have over us from a fiscal point of view, we often think of them as role models in how they go about their business but government officials are currently dealing with the embarrassing fallout from a story that even if it happened over here it would be considered too comical to be true.
German newspaper Der Spiegel are today carrying the story of Volkan T, a bodybuilder of Turkish descent who managed to make his way onto a government jet used by Chancellor Angela Merkel amongst others while it was parked up at Cologne Airport late last month.
The fact that somebody could so easily access an official government plane would be embarrassing enough but it gets better. Much better in fact.
For not only was Volkan on the plane, he was wearing only a pair of underpants, he was carrying a bag full of marijuana and ecstasy, he sprayed champagne all over the interior, managed to get into the cockpit and press a load of buttons and best of all, he had a dance for himself on the wing of the plane while he was at it.
According to Der Spiegel, reports suggest that the man in question stripped down to his underpants, sprayed fire extinguisher foam around the interior, apparently decorated elegantly in beige and cream colours, pushed buttons in the cockpit, released an inflatable emergency slide and danced on the wing of the plane, an Airbus 319.
As you might expect, it’s quite a long story and you can read the entire story on the Der Spiegel website, but what makes it worse from the government’s point of view is that Volkan wasn’t arrested until four hours after he had triggered an alarm while fiddling around with the buttons in the cockpit, while it has also been revealed that he caused €100,000 worth of damage.
It’s obviously more than a little embarrassing for the German government, but from the outside looking in, it’s easily the funniest thing we’ve seen or heard relating to an airplane since…
Hat-tip to Colin Maclean for the heads up on this one
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