Chapter 6 of 10 · 2'31"
With the crew unconscious, stewardess Elaine calls Chicago for help, and air controller McCroskey discovers that fog has closed every field east of the Rockies. His response to the crisis is a deadpan complaint: "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking."
Elaine's Distress Call
McCroskey Picks the Wrong Week
Captain Oveur is out cold and the copilot and navigator are down too, so the stewardess Elaine Dickinson radios Chicago Air Control. Steve McCroskey takes over, halts all takeoffs, learns that fog has shut every landing field east of the Rockies, and realizes the plane must limp all the way to Chicago.
The scene plays a genuine emergency through Airplane!'s deadpan machine. Elaine's call is all business — 'We're in terrible trouble. Over.' — and the tower responds with procedure: hold takeoffs, notify dispatchers, gather weather. Then the film quietly turns the crisis into a joke about appetite and nerve. McCroskey suspends 'all meal service' as if that were the emergency, and when he asks for a man who won't 'crack under pressure,' his own aside gives him away: 'Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.' That is the film's whole method — catastrophe delivered in the flat voice of routine, with the characters' private habits leaking through. The deflating automatic pilot later turns the danger into slapstick, but the tone here stays perfectly even.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.”
Under a full emergency he only mourns the timing of quitting smoking, and the mismatch is the joke.
Informal
“Put out a general bulletin to suspend all meal service on flights out of Los Angeles.”
In a real emergency he bans in-flight meals, and that deadpan bureaucratic priority lands the gag.
Formal
“A man who knows that plane inside and out and won't crack under pressure.”
It sets the bar in one breath: total mastery of the plane plus nerves that hold.
Neutral
“It's gonna be a long night.”
It forecasts a hard stretch without complaining, which makes it land harder.
Informal
Up next · 07get a hold of yourselfThe scene: Passenger Panics on the PlaneCaptain Oveur has passed out, and the copilot and navigator are down as well, leaving the stewardess Elaine Dickinson to radio Chicago for help.
Fog has come down to the ground at every field east of the Rockies, so no airport can take it. The plane has to press on to Chicago.
It means to break down or fail when things get stressful. McCroskey wants a man who knows the plane inside and out and won't crack under pressure.
It is his running joke: each escalating crisis makes him say he picked the wrong week to give up smoking, then drinking, and so on. It shows the strain while keeping the tone flat.
He asks for Rex Kramer, the best available man — someone who knows the plane inside and out and won't crack under pressure.
