• China Southern Airlines warned passengers on social media not to throw coins at planes.
  • A Wednesday flight was delayed four hours after such an incident.
  • In a video, a flight attendant tells confused passengers someone threw “three to five coins” into the engine.
  • dysprosium@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    Why in the shitfuck would anyone feel the urge to throw coins at a fking plane? Ashame this was not highlighted in the summary

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Superstitious dumbfucks. Same energy as buying rhino horn for erectile dysfunction

      • StaticFalconar@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Not saying they aren’t superstitious, but i have never heard of the act of throwing coins into a jet engine as part of any superstition.

        • T156@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          It’s not that they’re specifically throwing coins at the engine, but that the superstition is to chuck some coins at a thing to try and get some luck on your side. Like a mix of wishing well and good luck charm.

          The engine is probably because it’s accessible, and they’re unlikely to miss when hitting it. You also just don’t hear stories from people who do chuck a coin at the wing, or into the cabin, because it doesn’t cause any problems, so doesn’t make news.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      This isn’t the first time a passenger has thrown coins into a plane’s engine.

      CNN reported that it happened on another Chinese Southern Airlines flight in 2017, when an elderly passenger said it was “a prayer for a safe flight.”

      Every time you think you know how dumb people can be, they find a new way to surprise you.

      • dysprosium@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        I might ask a dumb question as well… But how does a passenger even accomplish that? From inside the plane? Just before boarding? On a high tower throwing coins downward on a low flying plane? Wutttt

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Having had a dirt poor illiterate farmer grandmother, I can totally see how some people with the best of intentions might make presumptions about things which sound really stupid for most people.

        I mean, at some point when I was a kid and she was staying with us, my grandmother got really confused when she saw the same actor in multiple soap operas because she thought soap operas were real and we had to explain to her the concept of theatre acting.

        Ultimatelly it boils down to that person having or not the kind of personality which recognizes their own ignorance on a subject and refrains from acting on such presumptions, and clearly in this case somebody ignorantly presumed it would be a good thing and went ahead and did it.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s for luck. Like throwing coins into a well or on train tracks. No one said it was a good idea. But it makes some folks feel more calm about their journey, despite wrecking havoc on a turbofan.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’ve been on planes with groups of people who obviously have never flown before and were getting up and walking around during take off. This does not surprise me at all.