Coffee? It’ll kill you. Or at least frighten the eyebrows off you.
Here’s the proof (from AP)
TORONTO – A pilot’s spilled coffee accidentally triggered a hijacking alert and caused a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, to make an unscheduled stop in Canada.
A Transport Canada report said United Flight 940 was diverted to Toronto late Monday and landed safely at Pearson International Airport. In a twist reminiscent of the plot of the 1964 Glenn Ford movie ‘Fate Is the Hunter’, the coffee spill caused distress signals to go out, including code 7500, which means hijacking or unlawful interference.
The report says Canada’s defense department was notified, but that with the help of United dispatch staff the flight crew confirmed it to be a communication issue and not a hijacking.
One cup of Joe = 241 pairs of hands gripping their armrests. There’s a fuller version for flighty types like Jethead at the Aviation Herald.
In the film Fate is the Hunter, a pilot is suspected of drinking and causing an airliner crash that kills 53 people. Eventually, a test flight re-creating the actual flight shows that the crash was caused by a series of events — including a cup of coffee spilling and shorting out wiring which falsely indicated an engine fire — and not by pilot negligence. You see? Coffee the culprit once again.
Coffee disasters in flight make this line from Bob Dylan’s song seem pertinent. “One more cup of coffee before I go… to the valley below.” Crunch. Here’s the White Stripes’ version.
Other coffee-related calamities:
US Navy EP-3E ARIES II spy plane - nose bashed off.
1. After a mid-air collision between a US surveillance aircraft and a Chinese Navy fighter jet in 2001, Chinese pilot Lt. Cdr Wang Wei is killed, and the American crew makes an emergency landing on Hainan Island. They try to destroy sensitive kit by pouring freshly-brewed hot coffee into disk drives and motherboards. It reportedly doesn’t work.
Isn’t that typical? But when you do it accidentally…
2. BP’s coffee spill
3. More evidence that drinking coffee just leads to trouble:
4. Even (sometime Belfast resident) Charlie Chaplin knows coffee is more trouble than it’s worth.
5. But the biggest coffee calamity? Adding milk. Why? Why ruin good coffee? If it’s too hot – wait.
Blackwatertown 
BP spill well done and great spoof. EXCEPT I live in Miami, Florida. The western part of Florida got “touched” and it looked like it was coming here and the Gulf Stream would take it north. I thought it was the end of the world. Yes the end of the world. In the area where the well leaked there are over 400 of those rigs!In tyhe one about the domino effect of the coffee spill that women getting run over by the big brown ball looked just like Sarah Palin. Now that would not be tragic at all.
I have no doubt that coffee spilled onto my keyboard would take out everything word I have stored on this computer, plus whatever makes the thing go. Of course, as you say, if it’s an accident…
I had an episode like that a while ago. Luckily it was only beer. And the keyboard. (Not the one I’m using now.) The tale of woe is here https://blackwatertown.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/missing-words/
Do pilots have to drink the same ghastly coffee that the rest of us get? If so, spilling it was probably a cry for help.
Doesn’t matter how many horror stories come to light … I ain’t givin’ up my morning cup o’ Joe.
Coffee should never be made with boiling water, yes, boil the water but let it stand a minute before making the coffee. It tastes better. You could always heat the pot or cup first, just like you do with a teapot.
Meh coffee . . .I can take it or leave it. Did the same to my keyboard last week, spilled wine all over it. No wonder my son refuses to lend me his laptop.