Under Control?

The airline business has always had a rich sense of humor, and one purportedly true story doing the rounds at the moment upholds the tradition. It concerns a stormy flight aboard a Boeing aircraft; an off-duty airline stewardess is sitting next to a man in the grip of serious white-knuckle fever as he watches, through his porthole, the aircraft's wing bending and bouncing in the tempest.

The stewardess tries to reassure him; she works in the industry and flies all the time, she tells him. There is nothing to worry about; "the pilots have everything under control."

"Madam," he replies, "I am a Boeing engineer and we did not design this aircraft to do what it is doing."