A couple of pilots were playing on their laptops during a flight and missed their destination by 150 miles. According to their employer, "Using laptops or engaging in activity unrelated to the pilots' command of the aircraft during flight is strictly against the airline's flight deck policies and violations of that policy will result in termination".

The airline gave every passenger a $500 voucher as an apology.

While what the pilots did was definetly a /facepalm, I kind of feel bad for them. What if they were playing a flight simulator on their laptops or something? I do agree with Engadget that it's a good thing they didn't have WiFi on the plane or who knows how far off course the plane would have gone while the pilots played World of Warcraft.

About a year ago, I highlighted a traveling misadventure that was pretty epic in its stupidity.  Today, I get to revisit that story, thanks to yet another mixup with the two Sydneys.

Click here for the Reuters article.

Last year's article was the result of ignorance on the part of the traveler. This time around, it seems like the onus is on Air Canada for the mix-up.  It sounds like they booked hotel rooms in the wrong Sydney for the travelers.  I've traveled Air Canada enough in my time to not put it past them to make a mistake like that.  So, congratulations, Air Canada, you get today's /facepalm Award for Geographical Ignorance.  That's not a very prestigious award for anyone to win, but it goes doubly for an airline.

I have seen some pretty bad cases of parents thinking their child is innocent when something goes wrong, but this one tops them all. Apparently, there's some Polish mother that took her family on a trip to Egypt and her 13 year old daughter came back pregnant. Obviously, there has to be some other explaination than the daughter sleeping with someone during the trip so her mom came up with the brilliant idea that her daughter must have gotten pregnant by swimming in a pool at the hotel they were staying at. The pool was "mixed" meaning it allowed men and women to swim in it so that's obviously how it happened.

To take it one step further, the mother is now suing the Egyptian hotel because her daughter got pregnant while swimming in their pool. Seriously? 

I have heard of some pretty crazy lawsuits before...but this? 

I would really like to see how that trial goes. 

/facepalm

According to this news article, an elderly woman who couldn't wait to get her Palm Pre crashed into a Sprint store the day before the release of Palm's new "iPhone killer". I don't think this incident really has anything to do with the Palm Pre. It probably has more to do with an older woman driving a car who shouldn't have a driver's license.

How does something like this happen? Seriously...  /facepalm

A co-worker of mine flew to one of our facilities to take pictures of it to put it on our website. In order to take the pictures he needed, he had to bring a tripod for the camera. When he got to the airport, American Airlines told him he had to check his tripod because it was too big to bring on the plane. On the way there, it was no problem. On the way back, however, his tripod got lost. So of course, he went to American and told them about his lost tripod and they said they would look for it. A few weeks later, we got this letter from American Airlines (click on the image on the right to see it). 

This is nothing new for American or any other airline. Airlines in general have the worst customer service you could think of. I'm not really /facepalming the fact that my co-worker's tripod got lost. The real /facepalm here is the fact that these airline companies still think they are trying to give people good customer service when it is very clear that they aren't even putting forth the effort. To begin the letter, they say "An extensive search has been conducted to locate your missing property." Are you kidding me? I've seen those airline workers. They couldn't care less if they found your missing property. How "extensive" was this "search"? Moving on, the next great sentence in the letter says "Please let me assure you that there is nothing more important to us than the safe transport of our passengers and the items they entrust to our care." Now we all know, that's a bunch of crap. The ONLY thing they care about is money. There's no way they could care less about you or your baggage.  As the letter goes on, they let you know what thier rules are for refunding lost baggage. It turns out that camera equipment is non-refundable, so we're just out of luck."...there is no adjustment that can be made for your loss and your claim has been denied." 

So, just because you made the rule that said your liabilities are limited, you tell us in one sentence that there is nothing more important to you than your customers and their baggage and then you say there is nothing you can do for us even though you lost our tripod. 

The whole airline industry is a big /facepalm in my opinion. Check out a survey graph I found.