A pilot at the controls of a Canada-based Porter Airlines flight out of Halifax lost consciousness during the weekend flight, and the co-pilot took charge and turned back.

Good thing he/she was there.

Anyway, nobody knows what was going on with the pilot, but mercifully, no one seems to think he had this pilot’s problem.

Goodness gracious, weren’t we just talking about the Snoopster and his penchant for airport hijinks?

Well, it’s happened again – at Beirut International. Seems, rapper Snoop Dogg was there, heading out after a concert in Lebanon, when he was stopped by security.

Mr. Dogg was wearing a necklace of old bullet casings – no, no, it’s not what you think – this is the latest thing from a company called Bullets 4 Peace, which sells artistic ammo pieces (like the one at left – price: $275). Some of the money is said to go to charity but I don’t know how much or to what charities (though the site does feature a logo for one of Madonna’s pet causes).

Anyway, hard to believe, but bullets are still no laughing matter in Lebanon, so there was a bit of an “issue” and the Doggalator’s necklace was confiscated.

Wonder why a guy with his airport history doesn’t just break down and get a private plane?

Whoa.

A Boston TV stations is reporting that the FBI has questioned two flight attendants (and maybe more) who were on an American Airlines flight yesterday – the flight where ?a “bomb threat” note was found in one of the aircraft’s lavatories.

Here’s the kicker: again, per Boston’s 7News, those same flight attendants (a man and a woman) were also questioned about a similar incident that occurred two weeks ago.

In both cases, nothing was found – but the incidents resulted in tedious delays for the passengers.

I’m kind of hoping it’s not the crew. I mean, if it is, well…how creepy is that?

On Oct. 15,1955, a Lockheed T-33 jet trainer, with two Air Force pilots onboard, went missing.

The plane was presumed “lost at sea” all these years – and it was – but not very far. According to CNN, members of an aviation wreckage search group called UB88.org, found it in the bottom of the Santa Monica Bay, just west of Los Angeles.

The searchers did not say if the pilots were still in this wreckage, but apparently their families have been notified, so at least they know – cold comfort that that may be.

Actually, the divers were looking for a different aircraft altogether – a WWII plane that went down in 1944.

But apparently it’s not surprising that they bumped into another missing plane; officials say there are about 2,500 aviation crash sites in and around California – many of them still waiting to be discovered.

It is, after all, a big state.

You would think a 60 year old fellow from England would know better.

The gentleman in question decided his Delta flight was idling on the tarmac at JFK just a wee bit too long and he was getting anxious to depart for Las Vegas, so – he decided to open one of the emergency exit doors.

The flight attendants however, felt this was a bad idea and stopped him.

The interesting question in my mind is, what did he think he would accomplish? Perhaps he thought if he jumped out and ran around to the front of the plane, he could signal the pilots to get a move on? But then – how to get back on the plane? I don’t think he thought this one out very carefully.

Anyway, at last report, he never did make it to Vegas – the cops arrested him and he is facing charges of reckless endangerment. He should have taken lessons from this guy – who did get the door open – and took off.

Always wanted to use “fracas” in a sentence…

The scene: Saturday night – Southwest flight 1402 from Phoenix to Detroit.

The situation: A witness said a 60-somethingish female passenger was waiting in line to use the lavatory when a man “apparently bumped into her”. Doesn’t sound like much, but it was enough to unravel this woman. As a Detroit TV station reported, “She accused him of trying to touch her and she just started slapping him in the face, going crazy on him.” Apparently she also fought with the crew – who decided to make an emergency landing.

The resolution: Lavatory lady was dropped off in Denver, where presumably she continued on to another restroom. That is, if the cops allowed it.

Oddly enough, there is no mention of alcohol in any of the scoops about this dust-up.

Michael J. Totten is a journalist who’s seen it all -bombings, battles, and bloodshed of all kinds. And then there was this adventure: coming face-to-face with The Worst Airline in The World:

Alitalia.

Well, that’s what he calls Italian carrier.

Anyway, it all started in Rome – with a two hour layover – that lasted more than a week. There was a baggage strike – there were cursing Alitalia employees (and plenty of cursing passengers) – there were liars and cheats everywhere. And one dead cat.

You have to read it. Then we need a movie version. Hey, Spielberg, you listening?

It’s Wednesday morning in Cleveland, and boy are you jazzed – you’re leaving the miserable cold and Clevelandness behind and heading to Orlando! Yee-haw!

Only it takes you 12 hours to get there. Because you spend about 10 of those hours – in the AirTran plane – TRAPPED ON THE TARMAC. The plane froze! And they couldn’t de-ice it!

So – how was it, sitting on a frozen plane for hours? Not too good, according to the passengers:

“It was horrible, the worst experience ever.”

“We had no water, no air, they couldn’t turn the engine on.”

“They announced the deicing process is $7 a gallon. I don’t care what it costs.”

“It was quite pleasant really as it finally gave me time to finish up Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’.”

Okay, I made that last one up. But there is a silver lining – they did eventually get to the land of Mickey, and, AirTran is sending all the passengers a written apology, plus, a free roundtrip ticket.

Hey, they were only trapped on the tarmac – it’s not like they landed on the Hudson or anything.

Sleepless? Heck, yeah! All those people waiting for flights to take off — that weren’t taking off — had to sit/lie on the floor. The seats were long since taken.

No seats — and no food! According to this roundup report of the nasty weekend from KATU TV, concessionaires were having trouble getting deliveries because some roads were closed.

No seats, no food, no roads. Okay, some people said, that’s it — we’re outta here! So they left — make that, tried to leave — but as we know, some roads were closed, and, Amtrak service and a lot of bus routes were cancelled.

To my stuck-in-Seattle friends: I know it doesn’t help but I feel a little of your pain — my own spawn was due in LA Saturday evening, but didn’t arrive til 4:30am on Sunday.

One of Gadling’s talented writers blogged about his recent (last weekend) on-the-tarmac delay at Boston’s Logan.

It was all due to a free-range poodle – who’d slipped the surly bonds of whoever was supposed to be looking after him, to go on the lam.

Eventually, poodle was found, plane took off, and all was well.

Win-win — for me, too, since I got to use another cute dog picture, and yes, I am well aware that the picture I chose to use is not a poodle – I simply do not care for poodles.

Some poor guy in Brooklyn made arrangements to ship the body of his wife to their native Ecuador for burial.

To Guayaquil, Ecuador, to be precise (airport code GYE).

Unfortunately, American sent her to Guatemala (airport code GUA). That’s 1,400 miles away. Heck of a typo, wouldn’t you say?

Then, according to the grieving widower, after the airline finally delivered the body, it wanted to charge him another $321. Perhaps for all those extra awards-miles the corpse accrued (the fee was ultimately waived).

Lawsuit, you ask? Of course.

Isn’t that a great headline? You can thank WCBS TV. Stressful flight. Here we go…

It seems an attorney from New York is suing Delta for $5 million because the airline’s alleged incompetence and indifference left him stranded last October because of an airport workers strike. So…it was the airport at fault? Well, no, says Mr. Lawyer — Delta’s at fault because apparently passengers couldn’t rebook flights over the phone; they had to go to the “chaotic” airport. He eventually flew home via American — and Delta didn’t reimburse him.

I’d like to hear the other side — unfortunately, Delta’s people have that “Pending-Litigation-Must-Not-Comment” thing going.

But, here’s the kicker — know where the guy was “stranded”?

He was “stranded” — in Paris. For four long days. Poor baby!

Alright, alright…nobody likes being “stranded” anywhere, I get it. But if everyone sued because of “stressful” flights — we’d never have to worry about flying ever again because we’d all own huge and numerous private jets with Batman as our personal pilot because we’d all be RICH.

Can’t imagine how I missed this. An Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight attendant was arriving for work at dawn for a Des Moines to Atlanta flight when she spotted a stowaway.

Eek! A mouse!

So naturally that led to a 5-hour delay. Workers had to see if he gnawed through anything important, like the “this-cable-flies-the-plane” cable.

So what happened next?

Our clever boss has done it again — in his latest column for ABCNews.com, Mr. FareCompare tells us what to do if we’re trapped in an airport because of delays or cancellations.

But even better, Mr. FC (that’s Rick Seaney to you) has his own post about this, COMPLETE WITH VITAL LINKS.

CHECK THEM OUT. YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID. I PROMISE.

Done shouting now.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has spoken, and it looks like Chicago O’Hare has the worst on-time departure percentage once again.

For the second straight year, the Second City’s mammoth airport has let more than a few travelers down when it comes to getting them to where they need to go on-time. Passenger traffic and weather of course affect O’Hare’s ability to keep on-time departure percentages up, but other “bad weather” and busy airports faired considerably better.

Congratulations are in order for Salt Lake City. With on-time departures at 84.94%, SLC ranked #1 among major airports.

Check out rickseaney.com for the complete rankings.

So there you are, sitting on your United flight out of D.C. on Thanksgiving Day, congratulating yourself for cleverly avoiding the crowds the day before. You figure, heck, I’ll still get to Grandma’s in Sacramento in plenty of time for turkey, but NOOOO.

It seems one of your fellow passengers just had to make like a bull and charge the cockpit. So the captain declares an emergency. And you land in…Fargo. As in North Dakota.

Nobody was hurt. Oh, except Grandma. Cuz you were late.

Oh, that Matt. What, you’re Stephen King now? Always trying to get us riled up with something (and it works; we read drudgereport.com religiously).

And, yes, he’s right, the weather for Thanksgiving travel is not looking so hot in certain parts of the country but them’s the breaks.

If you had done everything my boss over at FareCompare has been telling you to do for the past 6-months, you wouldn’t have any worries. Well, you wouldn’t have so many. Besides, Mr. Drudge…turkey doesn’t spoil that quickly.

Folks show up late, a day, couple days, big deal. Leftovers. Mmmm.

Was looking up a friend’s flight on Southwest Airlines, checking to see if there were any delays, and saw these Words ‘O Wisdom from the management (and I quote):

“A flight currently shown as delayed may, depending on the circumstances, depart on-time. Therefore, we strongly advise you to check in for the flight one hour prior to its originally scheduled departure time.”

It is a wee bit Alice-in-Wonderland, but the point is, just because a website SEZ your flight’s delayed, dont start dawdling.

Our CEO took this question on a few months ago from a reader and had some pretty darn good advice.

If they get the problem fixed before they thought they could, the plane WILL take off…with you, or without you.

And I suspect this is true for ALL airlines. What do they say, better safe than sorry? Or is it, a stitch in time save nine? Just obey all cliches.