By: John Collins
This is my favorite Air Canada story of all time..the day Ron Clark lost his pants.. “C” gate was a amazing piece of equipment,you could load/offload a 747 freighter straight into the building …To allow the the noes to open, the bridge had to be lowered down to its lower limits..So on this day the C cycle freighter crew were tasked to park the inbound 747…One of the guys on the crew was Bob Hill..Bob could do chin ups on anything horizontal..That day it was a extremely cold late winters day,so to stay warm the crew would stand just inside the building under the lowered bridge…So Bob started to do his chin ups..not to be outdone Ron who was a bit of a”husky lad” grabs on a shaft a started to hang upside down like on a jungle jim…. what he had his legs around was a drive shaft for the bridge..one of the crew on the top of the bridge started the maachine the crew downstairs hears a “ oh oh oh ” they look over at Ron,now on this hands and knees…when he stands up, all that is left of his pants is the belt,the loops and the pockets…whats of his pants is left spinning on the shaft..Just that second the 47 comes around the corner..Ron being the lead runs out on the centre line,..he raises his hands..up comes the parka …money blowing across the ramp ..pockets flailing in the wind..and to quote one of the crew ”what almost killed us was his little acorn poking into the cold through his peach colored bikini undies ”..The pilot of the 47 nails the breaks because what do thay see 4 stories down ..is some guy with no pants waving his arms trying to park his plane… 100% true…ya can’t make this stuff up ..
