It can happen to any of us but when the crew of a United States airliner made a wrong turn during taxiing and came nose to nose with another aircraft, the furious ground controller screamed: “(call sign) where are you going? I told you to turn right on ‘Charlie’ taxiway; you turned right on ‘Delta’. Stop right there."
Continuing her verbal lashing of the embarrassed crew, she shouted:
"You’ve screwed everything up. It’ll take forever to sort this out. You stay right there and don’t move until I tell you to. You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you and how I tell you. You got that?"
Naturally the frequency went very quiet until an unknown male pilot broke the silence and asked: "Wasn’t I married to you once?"
Patrick Flannigan says
That's hilarious. You know, I was flying into Knoxville, TN this month and there was a Seneca messing everything up. He missed two calls, turned down the wrong taxi way and wound up completely lost on the field. I felt so bad for the guy (and the controller!)