Fact Check

Airplanes in Suds-Filled Hangar

Photograph shows airline hangar flooded with soap suds.

Published Feb. 22, 2001

Claim:

Claim:   Photograph shows airline hangar flooded with soap suds.


Status:   False.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, 2001]




READ THIS BEFORE LOOKING AT THE PICTURE!

You are the chief airplane washer at the company hangar and you:

(1) Hook high pressure hose up to the soap suds machine.

(2) Turn the machine "on".

(3) Receive an important call and have to leave work to go home.

(4) As you depart for home, you yell to Don, your assistant, "Don, turn it off."

(5) Assistant Don thinks he hears, "Don't turn it off." He shrugs, and leaves the area right after you.

(6) Refer to picture for the results.

As with any occupation, make sure personnel have a clear understanding of what you are communicating!

Actually happened! Now see the picture of the consequences.

Are we there yet?




Origins:   Those jokesters left out the obvious final gag (purloined from an old Bob Hope movie):



Airport fire chief: "Why did you pull the fire alarm? There's no fire."

Assistant airplane washer: "Because if I yelled 'soap,' nobody would have come!"


The photograph may indeed be genuine, but the explanation of its origins is not. This is a picture likely taken after the triggering of a fire-suppression system released foam into the hangar.

Last updated:   20 September 2006


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

Article Tags