Pilot and Co-Pilot Snooze Through Flight

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ALISON STEWART, host:

Hey. Welcome back to the Bryant Park Project from NPR News, online all the time at npr.org/bryantpark. I'm Alison Stewart. Going solo today, but I need somebody to hold my hand as I Ramble on through some of the day's other news. I see here we have Paris Hilton and German brothels. I'm not going into this alone. Tricia McKinney?

PATRICIA MCKINNEY: Yes?

STEWART: I need you. Let's hold hands and Ramble.

MCKINNEY: Yes.

(Soundbite of music)

STEWART: I'm going to let you go first, because you're the guest today.

MCKINNEY: Hooray! OK, so you know the book "The Little Prince"?

STEWART: Yes.

MCKINNEY: So...

STEWART: Get closer to your mike, Tricia.

MCKINNEY: Oh. Sorry.

STEWART: There you go.

MCKINNEY: OK, the book "The Little Prince," written by a French guy named Antoine de Saint Exupery. He was also a fighter pilot and he died in mysterious circumstances in 1944. He was on a reconnaissance mission, and his plane went down. His body was never found. Well, that mystery may have been solved and there's a German pilot named Horst Rippert who says he shot him down.

And apparently, what happened is a diver found the wreckage of Saint Exupery's plane in 2000 and worked with a German historian to figure out who might have been flying in that area at the time. And the search led to this other German pilot, Horst Rippert, and they've now written a book together, the diver and the pilot, and the pilot is quoted as saying, "It was I who shot down Exupery," and he feels terrible about it, if it was him, because he's a big fan.

STEWART: I was about to say, so what's the title of the book? "I Shot Down 'Little Prince's' Dad"? Like, what...

(Soundbite of laughter)

STEWART: I'm not really sure about that one.

MCKINNEY: The title is "Saint Exupery: The Final Secret."

STEWART: Ah.

MCKINNEY: So...

STEWART: I have another story about a pilot, a very different kind of pilot, sleepy pilots, apparently. There's an airline called GO!-exclamation. And a GO! Airline's pilot and co-pilot, they allegedly both feel asleep at the controls. They were literally on auto-pilot. There were 40 people on the plane. They were doing one of those Hawaiian island hops, you know?

MCKINNEY: Right.

STEWART: From the Big Island to Oahu to Maui...

MCKINNEY: That's not really enough time to fall asleep...

STEWART: Apparently, they were just very, very tired. They did land safely eventually. They overshot the Big Island's airport, where they were supposed to land. They - supposedly, 11 calls from air traffic controllers. Once they woke up...

MCKINNEY: Were any of the calls "This is Oceanic Flight 815"?

(Soundbite of laughter)

MCKINNEY: "This is Oceanic Flight 815."

STEWART: This is my favorite. Once they woke up, the captain responded to calls saying, nuh-uh, no emergency. No emergency here. Not a problem. And they have both been grounded, pending further investigation.

MCKINNEY: You know, I hate to condemn - I hate to convict people, but that sounds like a good idea.

(Soundbite of laughter)

STEWART: I think that's a fine idea.

MCKINNEY: OK, Alison. I have bad news.

STEWART: Yes?

MCKINNEY: Malibu? Cracking down on celebrity parties. So I don't know about your weekend plans...

STEWART: Oh, boy...

MCKINNEY: Oh, wait! Wait! They're cutting down on B-list celebrity parties...

STEWART: Ah!

MCKINNEY: So you and I are OK.

(Soundbite of laughter)

MCKINNEY: So, you know, apparently, parts of Malibu are called - it's called Billionaire Beach...

STEWART: Yeah, I've heard of it.

MCKINNEY: Everybody who lives there's rich, rich, rich. So, you know, people who want to get in on some of that action, attract some paparazzi, have been renting beach houses. So apparently now there's a new ordinance in Malibu City Council that passed recently restricting the use of beach homes for promotional events.

STEWART: Because they're rich, rich, rich people there who are not famous, famous, famous, and want to be left alone, alone, alone...

MCKINNEY: They want to sleep, sleep, sleep...

STEWART: Yes.

MCKINNEY: Without any celebutantes, celebutante - that's hard to say three times, so I just will do it twice.

(Soundbite of laughter)

STEWART: OK.

MCKINNEY: So anyway, after April 24, no B-list celebrities and paparazzi on Billionaire Beach.

STEWART: Hard times in Hamburg. The oldest brothel in the German town is closing its doors. Why? They say lack of business.

MCKINNEY: What? I was just there!

(Soundbite of laughter)

MCKINNEY: No! Kidding! I'm kidding.

STEWART: Is the world's oldest profession on hard times? You know the economy's bad then...

MCKINNEY: Yeah, really. That's a sign.

STEWART: OK. The madam in charge of the family-run Hotel Luxor says - well, she says, the Internet, call-girl services, noisy discos on the same street as her bordello are to blame for the decline. She says, "You can't make any big money selling sex in St. Pauli anymore." St. Pauli is the area of Hamburg that includes the Red Light District. Now this place? This bordello? Hotel Luxor? Been around for 60 years. Obviously, the heyday was the '70s. They were open seven days a week with 12 working girls working.

(Soundbite of laughter)

STEWART: Now they're down to four, and it's only open Tuesday through Friday. It's tough when those little mom-and-pop businesses go out of...

MCKINNEY: I was going to say, 60 years? That doesn't sound like the world's oldest profession to me, but...

STEWART: Ah...

MCKINNEY: Maybe there's an older one somewhere.

STEWART: You know, they've been there. They had a clientele...

MCKINNEY: Maybe.

STEWART: Once upon a time.

MCKINNEY: So sorry, Hotel Luxor.

STEWART: Tricia McKinney, thank you.

MCKINNEY: You're welcome.

STEWART: That's it for the Ramble. These stories and more on our website, npr.org/bryantpark.

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