IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson, who is also a licensed commercial pilot, was asked during a recent question-and-answer session in Utrecht, Netherlands what happens with a plane if all the engines stop working in mid-air. He responded (see video below): "Well… It depends. Do you want to know what happens if they continue to stop working? Because then I can tell you… That's the nice thing. When all the engines stop, then you realize that there are only two or three options. One of [the engines] is going to restart, or not. And if the answer is 'not,' then the next question is, 'Where are you going to land?' 'Cause that bit is a certainty. So, generally, if you have multiple engine failures on a two-engine airplane, the odds of it happening are near impossibility. But it has happened, and surprisingly, quite often, the outcome is pretty good, because as long as you control the airplane and you can land if somewhere sensible, then the outcome is pretty good. But the good news is that the chances of not restarting an engine, in the unlikely event of both of them failing, is very, very small as well. So, really, it's an almost-impossible event. It's so impossible that on the one or two occasions when it's happened, then it's been so well publicized, 'cause it's such an incredible story. The good thing is on the occasions that it has happened, most people who tell the story are people who walked away from the airplane that had that incident happen. In other words, they got a good outcome out of it. So, you're way, way, way better off sitting in an airliner than you are driving around in traffic — trust me. You're much safer, in my opinion." An avid aviator, Dickinson worked as a pilot for the now-defunct Icelandic airline Astraeus. Bruce told Wales Online in an interview that he still gets a thrill out of flying, but that it's a totally different sensation to playing live. "The satisfaction flying airplanes is getting the job done, but the satisfaction with playing live is external, looking out at all the people looking at you," he said. "With an airliner, it's all internal. If you've got passengers, nobody goes, 'Wow! Wasn't that great?' They're thinking about the rest of their day. Your job as an airline pilot is to deliver them safely and be invisible. That's quite nice for me because it's completely the opposite to what I do when I sing." Dickinson flew his band around the world in their plane dubbed Ed Force One, named after IRON MAIDEN's iconic mascot Eddie. He gained a commercial pilot's license after learning to fly in the 1990s. In 2012 he set up Cardiff Aviation, an aircraft maintenance company.
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