Oh God! He must have seen his reflection! He's not supposed to see his reflection! He doesn't know he's a priest!
Ted, Dougal and Jack are flying home from a pilgrimage with several other priests when it is discovered that the plane is about to crash (possibly connected to a visit Dougal made to the cockpit) and there are only two parachutes on board. Whilst everybody else is arguing as to why they should have a parachute, Jack leaps out of the plane with one 'chute for himself and the other for the drinks trolley. There is, however, one way to avert the crash and it is down to Ted, using one of the cheap souvenirs he bought at the pilgrimage, to put it into action and save the plane.
Tropes featured in the episode
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Subverted. When he appears inevitable that their plane is about to crash, one of the young priests admits to his lifelong best friend that he is in love with him and urges Father Ted to let him use the remaining parachute instead. The Stinger shows the priest and his friend/love interest being the only ones not celebrating when the plane lands safely, now just awkwardly sitting next to each other.
- Artistic License – Physics: For some reason, the plane doesn't immediately depressurise when Father Jack opens one of the emergency doors to parachute out. There is also no mention of Father Ted being exposed to a slipstream when he has to make repairs on the wing while the plane is still thousands of feet in the air.
- Bait-and-Switch: Double Subverted. Ted's clearly worried about something going horribly wrong when Dougal gets invited to the cockpit, but it's actually Father Fay who freaks out and attacks the pilot. However, this leads to what really puts the plane in jeopardy, when Dougal "accidentally" hits the button to dump the plane's fuel rather than the emergency button.
- Big Red Button: Two of them, one labeled EMERGENCY and the other DO NOT PRESS. Apparently, the latter empties one of the fuel tanks.
- Chekhov's Gun: The tape dispenser Dougal bought at the shrine is used to fix the fuel line.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Instead of writing why he should get a parachute, one priest draws a picture of himself naked with a dog. He didn't hear Ted's instructions but even so, one wonders what he was thinking.
- Creator Cameo: Graham Linehan as Father Gallagher.
- Delayed Reaction: The shock of hanging onto the undercarriage of a passenger jet mid-flight takes a little while to hit Ted.Ted: AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH! WHAT AM I DOING ON THE FECKING WHEEL?!
- This is explained in-story as Ted's natural reaction to how likely it is for the worst thing that could happen to actually, well, happen. When it looks like he's doomed, he has nothing left to worry about, and suddenly has Nerves of Steel. When the emergency is over, he completely loses his cool.
- Episode on a Plane: This is the Father Ted one.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Jack is reduced to this when he crashes into a tree following his escape from the plane and the drinks trolley dangles from a branch just inches out of reach.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: Father Fay's speech leaves everyone stunned — despite it being absolute gibberish.
- Just Plane Wrong: A lot! Nearly all done for Rule of Funny.
- The plane is a BAe 146 viewed from the outside, but the interior is of a much larger wide-body aircraft. Of course, the interior of a BAe 146 isn't nearly big enough for a soundstage.
- While many types of plane actually do have systems for dumping their fuel mid-air in the event that they need to make an emergency landing, the process usually takes around 15 minutes and can be stopped at any time, precisely to prevent scenarios such as what Dougal causes in this episode. Additionally, such systems are not controlled via a Big Red Button that anyone can press.
- Who keeps parachutes on passenger aircraft? You can't evacuate a plane in mid-air.
- The doors on a passenger plane cannot possibly open in mid-air like they did in this episode; they aren't designed to do that. Therefore, there is no way that Jack could have gotten out with the drinks tray. This also means the scene where Ted climbs on the outside of the plane in mid-air is implausible.
- Ted climbs down directly from the passenger compartment to one of the wheels, meaning that the plane apparently doesn't have a cargo hold.
- Large Ham: DRIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNK!
- Noodle Incident: When he's invited to the cockpit, Ted warns Dougal against a repeat of "the Sealink Incident". Later, Dougal starts mentioning to the pilot that he once did something involving the controls of a Sealink ferry, but Noel shuts him up before he can elaborate.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: With the plane about to crash, Jack promptly swipes the only two parachutes on board (one for himself, one for the drinks trolley) and escapes.
- Shout-Out: Ted says he feels "fearless, like Jeff Bridges in that movie". Ted says that might be bad reference but the movie in question is real and indeed called Fearless.
