1. Description
Could you land an airplane if you had to? This week, we look at passengers who have tried to do just that after their pilots were incapacitated. Also, what seemingly harmless animals can attack or even kill you? And what does Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh have to do with SeaWorld?
2. Topics
3. Additional Resources
4. Merchandise/Support the Show
5. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
6. Credits
1. Description
Could you land an airplane if you had to? This week, we look at passengers who have tried to do just that after their pilots were incapacitated. Also, what seemingly harmless animals can attack or even kill you? And what does Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh have to do with SeaWorld?
2. Topics
3. Additional Resources
4. Merchandise/Support the Show
5. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
6. Credits
[00:00:00] Jeff: This week, we take a look at passengers having to land an airplane. What seemingly harmless animals are out there that could attack or even kill you. And what does Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh have to do with SeaWorld? Welcome to Subpar Talks.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
[00:00:38] Chris: And I'm Chris.
[00:00:40] Jeff: And this is exciting. This is our first episode. I think I said last week. I don't know if I said it in the recording. We were losing our podcast virginity last week. but, but that episode was only like seven minutes long. So...
[00:00:57] Chris: This is real.
[00:00:57] Jeff: I'm not, yeah, I'm not sure it qualifies last week was just the tip. This week is a full on encounter. It's full on. We're going all the way. In 50 episodes will be full-fledged podcast sluts. There you go. All right. Speaking of that, uh, I'm referring to episode zero, if you have not done so you might wanna scroll back and listen to that. We basically give just a short background on us, basically what this show is gonna be about and what you can expect on a week to week basis. Uh, so you might wanna do that if you have already done that, then I suppose you are ready to go. And Chris and I both felt it was, um, a good idea to give a bit of a disclaimer before we get rolling into this, this is you notice our tagline is conversations about everything. And so there's really nothing off the table. And. We're gonna hit on some touchy subjects, hot button issues, but we are going to inject humor in those. And if you don't think touchy subjects or hot button issues can be accompanied with humor, then perhaps this show is not for you. That's okay. No hard feelings. You can go on about your Merry way. Uh, and there's gonna be profanity. Maybe a lot of it.
[00:02:19] Chris: You can expect that.
[00:02:20] Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, yeah, we're gonna let the expletives fly, uh, on a regular basis. So if none of that sits well with you, then, uh, no hard feelings go on, uh, your Merry way, as I said, and, and the rest of you, we are really glad you're here and let's get into this. So are we ready?
[00:02:40] Chris: Ready! Probably should have had that disclaimer before.
[00:02:44] Jeff: Before the tip comment? Yes, perhaps, but here we are. That's alright. The cat's out of the bag, Whatever.
[00:02:51] Chris: We made it through.
[00:02:53] Jeff: Yeah, we did. We did. OK. So the way, uh, The way Chris's brain works and the way my brain works., and the way we interact a lot is we will point out something on social media or something in the news, and that kind of spurs a conversation on. And then that becomes its own thing. And we'll branch off and talk about something else or whatever.
So I have a news item, uh, actually a couple of news items this week that that caught my eye. But this, both of these things made the rounds on social media and all over the news. And the first one is about a guy named Darren Harrison. You probably don't know his name, but you might know the story. This was the guy who chartered a plane with his family.
I think they were flying from the keys in Florida. They were flying to south Florida and, uh, the pilot passes out and cannot be revived. Do you know this story?
[00:04:00] Chris: I heard a piece of it.
[00:04:02] Jeff: Yeah. So they're making the flight from the keys to Southern Florida and everything's fine, but the pilot passes out he's incapacitated.
He cannot be revived. So this Darren Harrison, very calmly. If you listen to the recording, he contacts, air, traffic control and tells them what's going on. And he says, and oh, by the way, I have no flying experience whatsoever, but it's him like, he's up, you gotta do something. So they, uh, were able to guide him to an airport.
They asked him, uh, what are your coordinates as if he's gonna know what to say, they were looking for like numbers or whatever. And he said, I can see the coast of Florida in front of me. Like thanks a lot for, for clarification.
[00:04:53] Chris: Well, that's, that's a good sign!
[00:04:54] Jeff: Right! I just imagine the air traffic controller hearing that, and then looking at their friends around them, like, oh my God, this guy's dead. But they were able to guide him down and it got me...
[00:05:07] Chris: At least that's a pretty short flight.
[00:05:09] Jeff: True. Yeah. True. Yeah. It wasn't that far at all. Um...
[00:05:13] Chris: You can , it doesn't have to be long to die.
[00:05:16] Jeff: Exactly. Yeah. And it'll go down fast. It got me thinking about the MythBusters episode. If, if you don't know what MythBusters is, it was a show. I don't think they're still making episodes, but it was a show where these two guys would test urban legends and myths and debunk those myths or confirm those myths as might be the case. For example, the one I remember watching one of the first ones I watched was they were testing the myth if you drop a penny off the Empire State Building, would it kill somebody? OK. I always heard that when I was growing up, I think that was a popular myth and it turns out it's total shit. Uh, it wouldn't kill somebody at all.
[00:06:00] Chris: See, that's disappointing right there. I wanna believe that
[00:06:04] Jeff: Isn't it. I know it, I know it, but they got into the science on all these episodes and they talked about terminal velocity and, and all that good stuff.
But anyway, in one of these episodes, they wanted to test whether a person who's, who knows nothing about flying, could actually land a commercial airliner and not crash, not kill people or whatever. So, they put them in the actual flight simulators that the pilots get trained on and had them take over the controls mid-flight and they both crashed.
Like, it wasn't even close. It was a terrible disaster. Everybody would've died. But then when they gave them some training, I don't remember how many hours of training, but when they did that, and then they, they flew in the simulator, they were able to land it. And everybody would've lived. So I thought that was interesting. But then I thought, has that ever happened with a commercial airliner and turns out once it has happened, this was back in 2005.
Helios Airlines, which anytime I hear about an airline that I've never heard of before, it kind of...
[00:07:22] Chris: There's probably a reason, right?
[00:07:25] Jeff: Like it's very suspect. It's not like we're talking American or Delta or anything else. Uh, something called Helios Airlines, which is based out of Greece, but anyway, 2005, there's a flight from somewhere in Greece and they were flying to Prague in the Czech Republic.
And something had happened with the plane when it was in Greece at the airport, and they had to mess with the cabin pressure, the switch. And evidently there's a switch is either auto or manual and whoever it was working on, whatever they were working on, they switched it to manual. Well I'm assuming pilots are supposed to check that stuff before they ever take off.
But I guess if you work for Helios Airlines, that's not part of the of the training because
[00:08:16] Chris: Yeah., not anymore.
[00:08:18] Jeff: Right? So, uh, they get, you know, they start ascending and, uh, the oxygen masks for the passengers dropped at 18,000 feet and the pilots were feeling the effects of it, but nobody knows exactly why they never switched it to auto.
Like, why not correct the problem. Nobody knows. One of the pilots was able to radio in and say they were having an issue, but he passed out his co-pilot passed out. The other guy was able to switch on autopilot before he passed out. But for two hours, get this for two hours. Uh, the flight crew was trying to bang down the door to get into the cockpit and they finally did it, but by the time they did it, one of the, uh, engines was already, well, I don't know if it failed.
I think it was just outta fuel and the plane started going down and it killed all 121 people on board.
[00:09:19] Chris: Wow!
[00:09:20] Jeff: Yeah. So beware of Helios Airlines.
[00:09:25] Chris: Well, You know how they tell you put on your mask before someone else's.
[00:09:32] Jeff: Yes.
[00:09:32] Chris: Maybe you should put on your mask before you radio for help.
[00:09:36] Jeff: Oh, there you go. That's a good idea. And maybe if you're a pilot check, the whole pressure pressurization thing, like, I don't know.
[00:09:42] Chris: Yeah. That's why they havechecklists.
[00:09:44] Jeff: Yes.
[00:09:45] Chris: You gotta go through your checklist.
[00:09:47] Jeff: So that is the only time that's happened with a commercial airline and the reason why. Is because there are all sorts of regulations, less with Helios Airlines, I guess, but there are always regulations on, you gotta have at least two pilots flying a commercial airliner.
And I found this stat. I'll give you the website where I got this information in a second, but the Australian Transport Safety Board sounds like they know what they're talking about, but I don't know. But they said cases of pilots being unable to continue their flying duties is 1 in 34,000. When I saw that, I thought that seems kind of high, where they can't continuously perform their duties, but get this speaking of duties, half of those cases are where a pilot had diarrhea.
[00:10:43] Chris: Oh, whoa.
[00:10:45] Jeff: So if you can't continuously perform your duties, they have to report that, but that's nothing more than the pilot's about to shit his pants. So he's gotta go into the, to the restroom and take care of that. And then he can resume the controls hopefully after he's washed his hands.
[00:11:03] Chris: Depending on why that's happening in the first place. Maybe what he saw out the cockpit window is what's sending him to the bathroom.
[00:11:11] Jeff: It wasn't bad fish. It was holy shit. Look what we're about to hit! Yeah, it could be. Do you know the name Rowan Atkinson?
[00:11:24] Chris: I do not.
[00:11:26] Jeff: Do you know who Mr. Bean is? The character Mr. Bean.
[00:11:29] Chris: Yes, I know that.
[00:11:30] Jeff: OK. That's him. That's the, the actors, uh, that's the actor's name?
The guy who played Mr. Bean is Rowan Atkinson. The only reason I'm bringing that up is because he and his family were on a private plane in Kenya flying somewhere else. I don't know. And their pilot became incapacitated. And Mr. Bean had to slap the pilot several times before he woke up and resume control. If you don't know who Mr. Bean is, it's this British character. I remember it was popular back in the nineties and I don't know how long they made the episodes, but Mr. Bean would he never spoke. I don't think he just got himself into these awkward situations. And he would, I mean, he was really good at physical comedy and his facial expressions and all that.
And I don't have any more information on that story. It was like everybody was kind of mum about what happened but, I find it funny that Mr. Bean had to slap somebody to wake him up. Yeah.
[00:12:33] Chris: I tell you, that would just be horrifying to be in that situation. And I say that, so, I mean, I've been up in private planes, a handful of times, uh, a couple of times with friends, a couple of other times, at least when I was doing these like test flights, just to, just to do it for a recreation thing, you could go up.
It's an amazing feeling. It's so awesome to be up there and especially to get to take the controls, but you're taking the controls when you know that you've got somebody right there with you, who's perfectly capable of doing that. And, and they're even letting you take the controls in a safe and controlled situation, you know?
[00:13:17] Jeff: Yes.
[00:13:18] Chris: I, I was even able to, to help take off. I don't think I landed the plane, but I had done a lot of things on a flight simulator on the computer with those types of small private planes. Yes. Well, then one time I went, um, into a flight simulator at the airport and I think it was for American Airlines.
It was this experience thing you could do and actually get in the commercial flight simulators. And we were doing like a 737-800. It's the kind that like Southwest flies and, and things like that. Even after going through the kind of training stuff that they tell you to do and having done some of that on my own computer, I crashed the plane like three times, just trying to land the simulator.
[00:14:08] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Chris: I mean, I don't know. I just, and that's without pressure. I mean, I was sitting there to have fun.
[00:14:15] Jeff: Yeah, right.
[00:14:16] Chris: I can't imagine going through that. Under that kind of stress.
[00:14:21] Jeff: Well, there are actually several cases. This website outlined different ones, and I don't think it was an exhaustive list, but they listed several instances where somebody, a pilot was incapacitated and it's always a private plane or a chartered plane where somebody passes out.
There's only one pilot, so somebody's gotta take over and it's always air traffic control that is telling them exactly what they need to do, what they need to watch out for what they need to do at this moment, that moment, whatever. And they're able to do it. I'm sure it hasn't been successful every single time, but it does kind of give me hope that yeah, it's possible.
Although I will say. I'll never be on a private plane and most likely not even a chartered flight that takes money.
[00:15:09] Chris: Just for that reason?
[00:15:10] Jeff: Right. Well, OK. That's a good point. Yeah. Uh, I'm gonna demand there be at least two pilots. Yeah. So this was interesting and, and you might know more about this because you know more, way way more about planes than I do, but they said a big obstacle initially, like if that were to happen, when somebody goes to the cockpit, is knowing even how to use the radio to contact air traffic control.
[00:15:35] Chris: That's the very first thing I thought when you said that he got on the radio and said he needed help. I mean, first of all, you don't just talk, you gotta know that you're pushing this button to do it.
You gotta tune in to the right frequency to contact the correct air traffic control. In the region that you're in. And when you are going from one traffic control area to another, they're telling you which one to switch to. Well, depending on when that pilot passed out, if they were between anything, I mean, they could have, I guess they probably could have contacted someone.
It might not have been the right people. Maybe they could direct them then where they needed to.
[00:16:20] Jeff: Right.
[00:16:20] Chris: You know, which frequency to change to. But, that was the very first thing I thought is someone that's stepping in there has absolutely no idea what to do. Even radioing for help would be a task in itself.
[00:16:34] Jeff: See that surprised me. I thought it would be like the same on every single flight, but they said on, on some airplanes, it's on the. I don't even know what the fuck it's called. It's not the steering wheel, whatever it's called.
[00:16:47] Chris: The yoke.
[00:16:47] Jeff: There you go. Yeah. you could tell just from that comment, that, that my plane would go down. There's no hope.
[00:17:00] Chris: Speaking of that, do you know that when, a plane is taxing on the runway, you steer it with your feet? You're not even using the yoke to turn it to steer.
[00:17:14] Jeff: Are you kidding me?
[00:17:15] Chris: No. You're so you're the foot pedals, uh, control the rudder on the back of the plane.
[00:17:21] Jeff: OK.
[00:17:22] Chris: Which is controlling, whether it turns left turns right in the air but you actually use those foot pedals for that too. Because then as the plane's going forward and you use the foot pedals, it will turn the plane left and right. You don't have to touch the yoke at all. That just shocked the shit out of me. The first time I heard that.
[00:17:42] Jeff: I had no idea. So here's something else I didn't know. Uh, most commercial airliners now have an auto landing feature, but it said pilots use, them only in about 1% of the landings, just because I don't know, they like to have control of it, or I don't know why, but that's kind of comforting.
[00:18:04] Chris: Yeah.
[00:18:05] Jeff: If you have two pilots incapacitated with diarrhea, just put the auto landing feature on.
[00:18:12] Chris: Yeah, I guess you'd have to know that ahead of time. I don't know, like, oh, I'm about to pass out. Let me turn that on.
[00:18:20] Jeff: Right. Yeah.
[00:18:22] Chris: Well, so I heard this years ago, which was also shocking is that pilots are only manually in control. for about the first three minutes or so of a flight and the last three minutes or so of a flight. The rest of the time they're already on autopilot, which means they've already put in, like programmed in, you know, we're going to this altitude at this heading, at this, climbing at this speed, etc, etc. And the same thing coming into land, like they can set it.
You're descending at this rate. At this heading and I've. So I pay just because I have this fascination with aviation and flying, I'll pay really close attention. When I've been flying that as you're coming in to land, you can tell that it's all really smooth until it's not. And I mean the best pilots that are doing a really good job, you can still tell the difference between whether the plane is either tilting left or right a little bit or dipping forward, back, whatever.
[00:19:35] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:19:35] Chris: And, and so you can tell that second when the pilots have taken over, but I still find it just amazing that all of that can be so automatic for the majority of the flight.
[00:19:50] Jeff: That's crazy. I didn't know. I don't know whether that gives me...
[00:19:53] Chris: That's a good thing.
[00:19:54] Jeff: I don't know if that makes me comfortable or, or, uh, or worried. I don't know.
[00:20:01] Chris: Probably both.
[00:20:03] Jeff: Yeah. Um, so I've never, I've only flown on commercial airlines. You've been in private planes. The thought kind of freaks me out of being in a private plane. And, and the reason is I imagine you feel every single thing.
Like, I kind of think of it, like what you're gonna feel with the ocean on a cruise ship versus what you feel on just a, you know, a small boat.
[00:20:28] Chris: Absolutely.
[00:20:28] Jeff: Like it would be that same kind of thing. Yeah.
[00:20:31] Chris: Totally different. And I, I do not, like generally speaking, going on a, a commercial jet, I really don't have a general fear of flying at all.
I personally love it. I love that power the lift, you know, the power of the engines, the lift coming off the ground, going in to land, all of that. But when you are doing that in a small plane, yes, you can feel every little bump. And, and, and when I say bump, I mean, just coming off the ground, the little bit of turbulence, whatever.
[00:21:08] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:21:08] Chris: Um, I have actually started to feel a little nauseated sitting there in the cockpit. And it's just because of all of that, I mean, you're experiencing just what you can see out of the cockpit so differently than what you see, you know, laterally out of the plane window.
[00:21:29] Jeff: Right, right.
[00:21:29] Chris: As a passenger, so different.
[00:21:32] Jeff: I think that would freak me out.
[00:21:34] Chris: That, and it's really exciting.
[00:21:37] Jeff: True. Have you been in a helicopter?
[00:21:41] Chris: I have a couple of times.
[00:21:43] Jeff: I never have. I think that would freak me out even more.
[00:21:47] Chris: Well, once I was a kid and it absolutely freaked me out, like I, I, I was feeling every little dip and I, we were going over hills, so, um, it could have been more currents at the time.
[00:22:02] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:22:02] Chris: Um, but just a bunch of, of hills. Anyway, the, the helicopter just felt like it was bobbing up and down. And I remember every time I felt like, you know, just the floor is falling out from under you. And I did not like it at all.
[00:22:17] Jeff: The thing that freaks me out about that is with a plane because of its design, there's gonna be at least a little bit of gliding and there's, there's a small sliver of hope that you're not gonna die in a fiery death. With a helicopter, there's no hope at all.
[00:22:34] Chris: No, it's it's pure luck if you survive a helicopter crash.
[00:22:39] Jeff: Yeah. Cuz you're sinking like a stone.
[00:22:40] Chris: It's just a yeah. As your drop. It's a rock. Yeah. It, it is a, it's a big hunk of metal that falls straight down.
[00:22:48] Jeff: Yep. That's scary.
[00:22:50] Chris: Yeah. That's great about the plane, at least you, I mean, that's just the thing. If you can, at least, you know, control the, the fall. You know the.
[00:23:01] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:23:02] Chris: To, to keep the wings level or whatever. Yeah. At least you can glide that down.
[00:23:08] Jeff: So I think our, our takeaway from this is you would probably be able to land the plane and I would shit my pants and panic.
[00:23:16] Chris: You'd be in the bathroom. See, there's at least there's another pilot.
[00:23:22] Jeff: And I would hope that the auto landing feature had already been turned on.
[00:23:26] Chris: Yeah
[00:23:27] Jeff: Cause I'm certainly not doing it.
OK. I have another topic. And this, this also involves, it was a news story, made the rounds on social media, that kind of stuff. But you sent me, this has been, I don't know, a couple of months ago you sent me a video and it had an article with it of a golden eagle picking up a fox. A fox! OK. Now I had no idea what a golden eagle was before I read this and saw the video.
I know there are different types of eagles, but the bald eagle was pretty much my extent of, of the different types of eagles. But this thing is massive. Absolutely massive.
[00:24:14] Chris: Well, picking up a fox gives you a pretty good idea.
[00:24:17] Jeff: Exactly. So, yeah, it's not like it's picking up a mouse. I mean, obviously it could do that, but it is carrying a fox in its talons away to its nest to do God knows what with it.
So that same article had a link to a video in Kyrgyzstan. Could you locate Kyrgyzstan on a map?
[00:24:37] Chris: Never heard of it. So no. It's around the other Stans. I know kind of where they are.
[00:24:46] Jeff: Yes. Uh, but I couldn't locate it on a map. I mean, I know it's in Asia, but I couldn't tell you exactly where. But anyway, there's a video of this girl just minding her own business, walking around and this golden eagle flies down on her, grabs her in its talons, and starts pecking her head.
And it's terrifying. Yeah. So...
[00:25:09] Chris: Little girl can't just be out walking, minding her own business, without getting attacked?
[00:25:14] Jeff: Well, yeah. So I read about it and it turns out, OK, we're gonna have a problem with the parents, but the parents let her go into a restricted area where these people were showing off different types of birds of prey.
So she wasn't supposed to be in there. And they said the golden eagle wasn't trying to pick her up or even kill her. They said, if he had been trying to do that, he would've done it. He would've killed her because their talons are like razor blades. And that would've been, been the end of that. He was just pissed that she was there.
And so that was like his thing, get away from me or whatever, but I think she had to have stitches. She's all right. But it got me thinking. What other animals out there you wouldn't think were dangerous, but can actually harm you or kill you. And there are actually quite a few that you wouldn't think.
[00:26:15] Chris: Not around here?
[00:26:17] Jeff: Well, I don't know. I have to go down my list. But yeah, I mean it. We expect animals like bears or mountain lions or alligators or sharks or whatever. Like you expect that those are gonna attack humans from time to time and it's gonna kill humans. And those are interesting in and of themselves, but animals that you just don't expect to, to harm people.
The first thing I thought of was the whole, uh, Steve Irwin and the stingray.
[00:26:46] Chris: Oh yeah.
[00:26:47] Jeff: You know. Yeah, so. Steve Erwin, the, the beloved alligator or no, what was he called? The Crocodile Hunter.
[00:26:55] Chris: Crocodile Hunter.
[00:26:56] Jeff: Yeah. Same thing. Um, I didn't even know stingrays could do that. Did you? Like stab somebody in the chest?
[00:27:03] Chris: I did not. No.
[00:27:05] Jeff: Holy hell.
[00:27:07] Chris: I had no idea. Well, well, and even they have a venom in them too, right?
[00:27:14] Jeff: Yes, I think so.
[00:27:15] Chris: So. I mean one it's one thing to get stabbed, then they have a venom. And I don't remember if it was just the stabbing or the venom that actually killed him. But I mean, it got him in the heart. So I would think you wouldn't have much chance.
[00:27:32] Jeff: Right. You know, they were filming a documentary when that happened.
[00:27:38] Chris: Yeah.
[00:27:38] Jeff: And so there is video of it. But, I don't suppose we'll ever it'll ever be released. Would you watch it? If it was released?
[00:27:46] Chris: I would watch it.
[00:27:48] Jeff: I would. And then I'd regret that I did.
[00:27:50] Chris: Yeah, probably.
[00:27:51] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:27:51] Chris: I've seen a lot of things that are in that...
[00:27:55] Jeff: That you regret.
[00:27:56] Chris: Yes,
[00:28:00] Jeff: Same. So it's funny when I first started thinking about this and I was watching the video of the girl being attacked by the eagle. This came across my news feed on whatever I was on, but you know what a sailfish is?
[00:28:18] Chris: I've heard of it, but I can't picture it.
[00:28:20] Jeff: I couldn't either, but it looks like a swordfish.
Um, it's got the long thing on the end of the, you know, the snout or whatever this woman is in Florida. And she's like deep sea fishing and she's reeling in a sailfish. And it jumps out of the water and stabs her in the groin.
Which that had to be a shock.
[00:28:46] Chris: But some people probably do that for fun. Not in that case.
[00:28:54] Jeff: Honey. Get the sailfish out tonight. Yeah. So I found that funny. I think she lived like she had to have, I don't know if she had to have surgery or whatever, but she was alright. I also read about a catfish in the Colley river.
Have you heard of the Kali River?
[00:29:12] Chris: No.
[00:29:13] Jeff: Neither had I. It's between India and Nepal.
[00:29:17] Chris: OK.
[00:29:17] Jeff: So we're talking about a river in between India and Nepal. You know nothing good is in that river.
[00:29:23] Chris: That's right at the Himalayas.
[00:29:25] Jeff: Right. Yeah.
[00:29:27] Chris: Mt. Everest.
[00:29:28] Jeff: There's something called the goonch catfish. And I saw this thing. It is a big fucking catfish.
It's well over a hundred pounds. And there have been cases where it has dragged people under and they never found them again. Like never found them again. But get this. The Kali River is popular for dumping human remains after after cremation. I, I thought with cremation, you burn the whole body. I don't know what's going on in India or Nepal, but evidently they're dumping a bunch of shit after people die.
[00:30:11] Chris: Wait, just ashes?
[00:30:12] Jeff: I don't know. I maybe I have no idea, but they're dumping it in the river. And they said, the theory is this goonch catfish has developed a taste for human flesh because it's really, really aggressive.
[00:30:25] Chris: Wow.
[00:30:26] Jeff: I know.
[00:30:27] Chris: OK,. So, that that reminds me, you know, with all of the deaths from COVID and how it hit India so hard in 2020, you know, there were news stories all over the place about all of the the bodies that they were having to burn. They were cremating them, but they were cremating them in these like fire pits.
[00:30:51] Jeff: Yes.
[00:30:51] Chris: You know, in the US, and I don't know how different countries do it, but I mean, in the US, when you've got the, what do you call it?
[00:31:02] Jeff: Incinerator?
[00:31:04] Chris: Yeah. I guess. I think it's got a name for cremating, but yeah. I mean, when you put a body in there, it is at insane temperatures. . I mean, and the amount of energy gas, all of that, that it takes to incinerate a body is crazy and it actually just like vaporizes.
All of the tissue and everything. Where the only thing, the only thing that is left are bones.
[00:31:34] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:31:34] Chris: The bones don't go away.
[00:31:36] Jeff: Right.
[00:31:36] Chris: But like when someone is cremated, the, it is the, the bones and the ashes of those bones that you really get back.
[00:31:47] Jeff: OK..
[00:31:47] Chris: There is, there is no tissue.
[00:31:49] Jeff: Nothing else left. Yeah.
[00:31:51] Chris: Right. So that made me wonder then when they're doing this in India, If they are not doing it in some type of machine like that, then they can't be getting rid of everything.
[00:32:08] Jeff: Yeah. So they've gotta dump it in the river. OK.. That makes sense. I'm glad you said that because now I'm, I'm remembering that from the COVID stuff, they were just burning people literally in pits.
[00:32:18] Chris: Wherever they could .
[00:32:19] Jeff: Just digging a hole in the ground. Yeah. Wow. So. Maybe that wasn't the best idea? To dump...
[00:32:24] Chris: No, probably not!
[00:32:25] Jeff: Human flesh in a river with a massive big ass catfish. I don't know.
[00:32:30] Chris: Some, uh, evolution going on right there.
[00:32:33] Jeff: Yeah, no kidding. So staying in India, uh, the deputy, the deputy mayor of Deli was minding his own business, standing on a balcony and a, I don't know what they're called: a flock, a group, a congregation? I don't know what it is, of rhesus monkeys attacked him and he was trying to fight them off and he fell off the balcony and died.
[00:32:59] Chris: Oh no.
[00:33:00] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:33:02] Chris: It's like the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. .
[00:33:04] Jeff: It is, that's kind of what I picture. But they, uh, yeah, they travel in these, I don't know what you call 'them, these band of monkeys.
They all travel together and I don't know if they were hungry or, he just looked at them wrong, or I have no idea what happened, but they attacked him and he fell off and hit his head and, and died.
[00:33:25] Chris: Like a gang.
[00:33:26] Jeff: Yes. A gang of monkeys,
[00:33:27] Chris: Gang of monkeys.
[00:33:28] Jeff: Now we will talk about religion. We're not gonna get into religion on this episode, but in India, a lot of people are Hindu and Hindu religion says you don't kill anything because they believe in reincarnation. Right? So, if you're gonna kill a monkey, you better be careful, because that could be your ancestor. Right? You don't wanna do that. And I think this is true depending on how good you are in this life. That determines what you're gonna come back as when you die.
So if you're a, an asshole, you might come back as a dung beetle or whatever. Like, you know what I mean? Like you gotta, you gotta be careful. So the point is they don't kill anything. So you have these wild bands of monkeys and cows and whatever else just roaming around doesn't seem very sanitary.
[00:34:18] Chris: Well, there's one other thing we can infer from that. Those monkeys were not Hindu.
[00:34:24] Jeff: That's true.
[00:34:27] Chris: They don't share the same beliefs.
[00:34:29] Jeff: No. They're of a different religion.
[00:34:32] Chris: Probably more like Christian.
[00:34:34] Jeff: Exactly.
[00:34:35] Chris: We'll just take out the people that have invaded our space.
[00:34:40] Jeff: Yes. He doesn't look like us. Let's kill him.
Yeah. Have you ever heard of Travis the Chimp?
[00:34:51] Chris: No.
[00:34:52] Jeff: You might know the story. So Travis was a male chimpanzee born in private captivity. He was adopted by a, a couple in Connecticut named Sandra and Jerome Harold when he was only three days old. So they got him really, really young. I picture a little tiny chimp. They probably put a diaper on him. He grew up as a local celebrity.
He would ride in their tow truck. He would dress himself. He would eat dinner with them. He would watch baseball with them on TV. He, uh, learned how to use the computer. This is like Coco, the, the monkey.
[00:35:35] Chris: Coco, the monkey.
[00:35:35] Jeff: Pretty sophisticated. He even...
[00:35:38] Chris: That is really awesome though.
[00:35:40] Jeff: Yeah. He even learned to drive a car.
Well, hold on to the awesome part, cause this is about to take a left turn.
[00:35:45] Chris: Yeah, I'm concerned already.
[00:35:48] Jeff: So why did the Heralds do this? Uh, their only child, a daughter, had died in a car accident. So they pampered the chimp in her place because obviously, what takes the place of a human child? A chimp.
[00:36:02] Chris: A monkey.
[00:36:04] Jeff: So it says Travis usually got along well with his neighbors, but in 2003, he jumped out of a car and chased a man who threw something at him.
So some asshole threw something at this chimp and the chimp bailed outta the car and started chasing him. So evidently this made the rounds in Connecticut and Connecticut passed a law that said you cannot have a primate, uh, an innocent primate, that's over, uh, 200 pounds. Um, but it was like, it was grandfathered in. Or no, I'm sorry. Over 50 pounds. Travis was over 200 pounds, but it was grandfathered in. So they allowed Travis to, to hang around this house.
[00:36:44] Chris: The chimpanzee was over 200 pounds?
[00:36:47] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:48] Chris: Wow.
[00:36:48] Jeff: At least Travis was. So...
[00:36:51] Chris: This an obese chimpanzee.
[00:36:53] Jeff: Might be, um, an American chimp..
[00:36:57] Chris: Yeah.
[00:36:58] Jeff: On February 16th, 2009, Travis stole Sandra's keys and he left the house.
He's like a pissed off teenager. Yeah, fuck you. I'm getting outta here.
[00:37:14] Chris: Probably going after the dude that threw something.
[00:37:16] Jeff: Yep. Revenge. Uh, so he stole her keys, left the house. Sandra called her friend Charla Nash to try to coax Travis back inside. But when Charla arrived, Travis attacked her. Sandra hit Travis with a shovel and she stabbed him.
But the attack continued. Sandra went to a car and called the police who arrived and then they killed Travis. This is the story of the woman who basically got her face ripped off. Do you remember this from...
[00:37:51] Chris: That I remember.
[00:37:52] Jeff: OK.. I always thought it was the owner, but it's not, it was the owner's friend who, who, uh, was attacked.
[00:38:01] Chris: I did remember it was a friend, but I thought that they had done something to it, like in a cage. So this chimpanzee was still out.
[00:38:11] Jeff: Yes. And they were trying to coax it back inside and she showed up and he went nuts. So she survived. Uh, she lost both her hands, so he tore/ slash/ bit her hands off. She lost both her hands.
She lost most of her face. She had a significant brain injury. Several years later, and this is when I remember the media kind of revisiting this whole story, she had, uh, a face transplant, an experimental face transplant. Yeah,
[00:38:39] Chris: I did do remember hearing that.
[00:38:41] Jeff: I remember seeing her and it was, it was painful slash awkward to look at her, but I mean, considering her condition before that, it's, it's amazing that they were able to do it.
So this is interesting. It said Travis knew the woman. He knew Charla, but Charla had just gotten a new haircut. And so they think maybe that, that threw him off. He didn't quite recognize her and they think he may have become enraged because she was holding his favorite toy, which was a Tickle Me Elmo.
Uh, he was not happy about that. But get this. They did an autopsy on big Travis and they determined that he had Xanax in him and he had been given it, uh, shortly before the incident. And Xanax has a possible side effect in humans of rage and paranoia.
[00:39:39] Chris: Well, I didn't know that.
[00:39:40] Jeff: I didn't neither. Um, but I imagine Travis had been going nuts and they were trying to calm him down.
[00:39:48] Chris: And he probably got a high dose then.
[00:39:50] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. So don't give your chimps Xanax. And don't take their toy.
[00:39:58] Chris: That's the moral of the story.
[00:39:59] Jeff: That is the moral of the story.
[00:40:01] Chris: You know, another moral of the story can be, um, what else can you take? Maybe don't have a chimp as a pet.
[00:40:09] Jeff: That's that's my starting point. Why? Yeah.
[00:40:14] Chris: I don't know. I mean, OK.
Look, we can talk about all kinds of animals that are adorable when they're small and young and yes. I can't think of a whole lot of small animals and I mean, baby animals of whatever, that are truly gonna do you a lot of harm.
[00:40:35] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:40:35] Chris: When they're truly babies. But...
[00:40:38] Jeff: yeah.
[00:40:38] Chris: I think what so many people just don't get and you can see this in video after video is that animals can barely do anything that makes a human look like a rag doll. They have so much power.
[00:40:55] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:40:55] Chris: And, and, uh, you know, you think about, uh, people that, that get, you know, tiger cubs and they grow up. But I mean that tiger can just barely reach out and swat at you and do all kinds of damage. Nevermind. Thinking about chimpanzees. First of all, this is another thing people don't realize about them, is their teeth.
[00:41:17] Jeff: Yes.
[00:41:18] Chris: They have massive teeth and all kinds of power there.
[00:41:22] Jeff: Yeah. Well, and I think that's how she lost her hands. I think he just bit 'them clean off, which is...
[00:41:27] Chris: probably
[00:41:28] Jeff: That's just crazy. Yeah.
[00:41:30] Chris: Well, and that just reminded me, talking about losing a hand. I don't know if he actually lost it, but this was just in the news a few months ago, at the most, some idiot zookeeper was taunting a lion through the cage.
[00:41:46] Jeff: I saw that..
[00:41:47] Chris: And he was like swatting at it in the cage, but then drawing his hand back and then he'd do it again.
[00:41:54] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:41:54] Chris: Well, I don't know how many times it was, but the lion had enough of that and he got his hand in there and that lion just chomped down on it and was holding him. He couldn't get back.
[00:42:06] Jeff: I don't blame the lion a bit there.
[00:42:08] Chris: No, absolutely not.
[00:42:12] Jeff: Have you ever been to SeaWorld?
[00:42:14] Chris: I have.
[00:42:16] Jeff: What was that experience like?
[00:42:18] Chris: I mean, OK. So I can say this, my experience of anything like that was totally different as a kid, than as an adult. . As a kid going to the zoo, going to Sea World, whatever like that. And you're seeing animals. It's really neat.
I mean, you, you're getting to see things that you just wouldn't otherwise see as a kid, you're certainly not gonna sit yourself in front and, you know, down in front of National Geographic and watch that stuff on TV. That's boring to a kid. It it's cool and exciting, but I remember so actually as an adult, remember going to the circus one time and I just, I just started feeling sorry for the animals.
[00:43:06] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:43:06] Chris: Because you know that there's absolutely nothing going on there that's natural to them. And, and I felt like you could just see this fear, like they are so contained, so controlled because of the way they obviously have to have been treated.
[00:43:29] Jeff: Yes.
[00:43:29] Chris: And so, like back to your question, I, I would say the same thing about Sea World.
I remember thinking it was cool to see some of those things at Sea World. It's the same. Like, I just, it's neat for us to be able to see that, but I would say, you know, at best, and obviously not everybody can do this, but go on a safari. I mean, go do something like that, where you're actually seeing them in their natural habitat habitat and we don't have to cage them up.
And that Sea World, I mean, there was a lady years ago that got eaten by the... well, I don't know, dragged down. She was killed.
[00:44:08] Jeff: OK.
[00:44:09] Chris: By the orca.
[00:44:10] Jeff: That's the, that's the story. Yeah. That's and that's the reason I was asking, cuz yeah, it happened at Sea World. I, I went with my wife and, and two kids to Sea World several years ago and it was, I would rather somebody just tie me up and whip me. It was in San Antonio, about 150 degrees.
You park two miles or whatever it is from the entrance. There's lines everywhere. Everything costs three prices. It was a miserable time. But yes. So the woman you're speaking of Dawn Brancheau, I guess is how you say her name. I might be mispronouncing that, but she was a trainer at one of these orca shows, right?
Where the whale, you know, does this and does that. And everybody claps and it splashes the audience and, and whatever. Well, on, uh, February 24th, 2010, she was performing a show with, uh, this orca. and it was the largest at the park. At the end of the show, this article, I got this from says it grabbed her by either her ponytail or her arm.
I'm assuming they mean it used its mouth. Cuz how else is it gonna grab her? But it dragged her under, kept her underwater for 45 minutes. They were finally able to coax it into a small tank so they could reach the woman. Her scalp had been pulled off, her elbow and knee dislocated. Her spinal cord had been severed.
A bunch of bones had been broken. Uh, she died from a combination of drowning and blunt force trauma. So either one would've killed her.
[00:45:45] Chris: Man. That's just crazy.
[00:45:47] Jeff: Isn't it? This was the third time that this orca had killed a human. It happened to a 21 year old trainer. And then a dumb ass guest at Sea World had hung around the park and hidden when they closed.
And then he thought he was gonna go have a grand time with the orca and the orca killed him. I feel much sorrier for those two trainers than I do that guy.
[00:46:17] Chris: Yeah. That guy just deserved it.
[00:46:19] Jeff: Just stupid. So this is interesting. They restricted trainers of these orcas at Sea World from going into the water.
OK. And then OSHA got involved. If you don't know what OSHA is, OSHA is the Occupational and Safety Health Administration or Agency. I don't remember what the A stands for, but they're in charge in the United States of workplace safety stuff. So they set down a rule that said, you cannot have the trainers go into the pool with the orca. SeaWorld appealed that decision. Um, and, and they said, you know, we want our trainers to be able to, to go in there. It's a better show and blah, blah, blah. Um, the judge ruled against Sea World and for OSHA. So then Sea World appealed to the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals and Sea World lost. So OSHA won.
So the trainers could not go into the pool with the orcas. The only judge to rule in favor of Sea World, current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ruled in favor of Sea World.
[00:47:34] Chris: All right. Well, there you go.
[00:47:36] Jeff: He likes his beer, and he likes watching, uh, magnificent animals in captivity. That's his thing. If you hate the orca because it's a serial killer, you might be happy at this.
It died in 2011, or excuse me, 2017 of some bacterial infection. But anyway, I got that information from our good friends at List Verse, Top 10 Unexpected Deadly Animal Attacks, which is wild. Oh, I got one more. Do we have time for one more? This one's short.
[00:48:10] Chris: Sure. Let's go.
[00:48:11] Jeff: OK. So we're back in Kenya. Could you locate Kenya on a map?
[00:48:17] Chris: I could find Kenya. Yeah, that one I know.
[00:48:19] Jeff: I think I could. I mean, I could nail the continent and then I could fumble my way around and eventually...
[00:48:24] Chris: Well you're ahead of a lot of people right there.
[00:48:26] Jeff: True. So this is about a guy named Ben Nyaumbe. I'm probably butchering that last name, but he was a worker on a farm and a python sidled up to him and wrapped its body around him and dragged him up a tree.
[00:48:46] Chris: Oh, hell no.
[00:48:47] Jeff: Dragged him up a tree. He's freaking out. He bites the snake. He bit it, this is hardcore. He bit the snake and the snake loosens, it loosened its grip on him a little bit. And the guy was able to get his cell phone and call his boss and his boss called the police.
By that time the snake had released its grip and somehow got away. I don't know how they let it get away, but there you go.
[00:49:18] Chris: That's insane.
[00:49:19] Jeff: It, I, I mean, I know that pythons are gonna wrap their prey up like that, but to, to carry a human up a tree, just that blows my mind.
[00:49:32] Chris: I didn't even think they would have an interest in a human like that.
I mean, I know they're massive. Yeah. But still.
[00:49:40] Jeff: I don't know.
[00:49:40] Chris: Man. Those things, they can be huge.
[00:49:44] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:49:44] Chris: And I mean, obviously extremely long, I mean, what they can get to 20, 25 feet.
[00:49:52] Jeff: I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:49:53] Chris: But I mean, they can be so big around. Yes. And, and there again, you talk about the, the strength of a snake.
So I used to have a pet snake. It was, a ball python, but they're, you know, this is like, I don't know, three feet long, something like that. And I would have it, you know, and let it wrap itself around my arm. Something like that. And a few times when I, you know, if it's wrapped around my arm and I would move my arm, kind of make a sudden movement and I could feel it constricting on my arm. Like it's just nervous, you know?
[00:50:33] Jeff: Yes.
[00:50:33] Chris: It's scared of that movement. It is crazy how you know, that it is not anywhere near using its full force. Right? And is tight.
[00:50:45] Jeff: That's freaky.
[00:50:46] Chris: Now you think about a snake so many times bigger than that.
[00:50:49] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:50:51] Chris: Not only carrying you up a tree but, going to, I mean, it's going to eat you!
[00:50:59] Jeff: Africa's a fascinating place. I don't have any desire to go there because there's too much shit that could kill you or drag you up a tree in this instance. But yeah, we're talking about a place where you could be dragged up a tree by a snake, but you can also get your cell phone out to call somebody.
Like, talk about a contrast.
[00:51:20] Chris: Well, at least they have cell service.
[00:51:22] Jeff: If that had happened here, somebody would've taken a selfie with the snake and then called.
[00:51:26] Chris: Yes.
[00:51:27] Jeff: Wow.
[00:51:27] Chris: Well that would've been the last picture you saw too. . Just like the people that take the selfies right near the Grand Canyon.
And that was the last thing that's on their phone.
[00:51:36] Jeff: Oh, we're gonna get into that in a later episode. Yes. Yeah, that's a good one. All right. So there you go. That is passengers landing planes and unexpected animal attacks. We did. We had our encounter.
[00:51:50] Chris: All right. Full on.
[00:51:53] Jeff: Full on. We went all the way.
[00:51:55] Chris: Well, I feel satisfied.
[00:51:57] Jeff: I do too. I am satisfied. If I smoked I'd light up a cigarette right now.
[00:52:02] Chris: Right?
[00:52:07] Jeff: Alright, if you enjoyed that, then you are our kind of people. We would be really happy if you would go to our website, that is subpartalks.com. You can, uh, email us there. You can even leave us a voicemail. You can follow us on social media. On Twitter, we are @subpartalks. On Facebook, we are subpartalks. If you wanna follow me on Twitter, I am @independentjeff
[00:52:33] Chris: .And I am @chrisbradfordtx.
[00:52:37] Jeff: And you can find other social media links on our website.
Whatever you are listening on right now, please subscribe and follow us. You will get new episodes delivered to you automatically. You don't even have to do anything. They will just fall right in your lap. Um, so go ahead and subscribe and, and follow us there. We would absolutely love it if you like this kind of stuff to rate us, give us five stars, review us, leave a comment.
We're gonna read all those comments. It doesn't matter what you say. You can, uh, say anything. We're gonna read it. We love hearing from our listeners. And finally, please get the word out about Subpar Talks. Share this on social media. Talk to your friends about. Stop somebody on the street and yell at them or whatever.
We don't care. Just get the word out. The more listeners we have, the better it is for us, because that's gonna enable us to more easily bring you content week in and week out. And I think that's it. Chris, any parting words?
[00:53:39] Chris: Thanks everyone for listening this week. And we hope to have you back next week.
[00:53:44] Jeff: Definitely. Um, I hope you've enjoyed this episode wherever you're listening from, and we will be back next week with episode two. Until then so long.
