Pakistani Airline Sacrifices A Goat To Keep Their Airplanes Safe

DAWN.com – In an effort to seek divine intervention to keep a flight safe and secure, staff of the Pakistan International Airlines sacrificed a black goat for ‘sadqa’ near an ATR-42 aircraft after it was given clearance for take-off from the Benazir Bhutto International Airport on Sunday.

Later the plane left for Multan, making it the first ATR-42 aircraft to be pressed into service since the start of shakedown tests on all such aircraft in the wake of an air crash near Havelian on Dec 7.

According to a spokesman for the national flag carrier, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had decided to ground the ATR-42 fleet until all its aircraft had been subjected to the shakedown tests and cleared for flight operations.

The article I clipped above went on about three times as long as what I included here, and NONE of the article talks about the goat after the first paragraph. As if sacrificing the goat couldn’t have been a more normal thing for them to do. As if, as long as planes have been flying, Pakistanis have been slaughtering goats to ensure their safe travel. That it’s a completely normal practice. In fact, if I hadn’t seen the picture included, I wouldn’t have believed it. But sure enough, there’s a goat, slaughtered as shit, making a slip-and-slide of blood all over the runway.

And yes, this will require a warning, because that goat is very, very dead.

My biggest takeaway from the story is that it worked. The plane got there safe an sound, so in the long run, I’m ok with it. I definitely like safe air travel more than goats. My mind has been made up. If some goats have to die just so I can get from point A to point B, so be it. Smear the blood over the door of the cockpit and let’s have lamb chops. Because if that plane goes down and we didn’t slaughter that goat, my last thoughts as the plane crashes are going to be ‘Fuck, we should have slit that thing’s throat.’

Ask any Cubs fan. If they had merked that damn Billy Goat when they had a chance, they wouldn’t have had to wait an entire life time for a World Series.