Airline Promises Plane Crash for Paying Execs

Team-building exercise puts groups in simulated nosedives
By Katherine Thompson,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 1, 2009 2:49 PM CST
Airline Promises Plane Crash for Paying Execs
U.S. Airways Flight 1549 sits on top of a barge in Jersey City, N.J. while undergoing inspection. Its landing on the Hudson River made crash simulations soar in popularity.   (AP Photo/Lee Ross)

British Airways is putting customers on a plane guaranteed to plunge 3,000 feet and fill with smoke—and companies are lining up to try it, the Times of London reports. The "crash courses" are staged on a plane simulator at Heathrow Airport to build team spirit. “The adrenaline kicks in and they all bond together because they go through a stressful environment," a BA rep said.

In the simulation, which costs $190, passengers scramble out the exit doors—an experience so intense that riders have cut through a half-inch steel bolt by hand to hoist the escape hatch. “It gets ugly when you know you have to get out of somewhere," one said. About 8,500 bankers, oil executives, and civil servants have signed on so far.
(More plane crash stories.)

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