The Least Successful Attempt to Go to the Toilet Desperate to relieve himself shortly after take-off on a flight to Hanover in January 1993, Johann Peter Grzeganek, a German tourist, could wait no longer despite the insistence of the cabin crew that he stay seated while the seatbelt sign was on. It was far too late for this so Mr Grzeganek jumped up from his seat and, giving a top-drawer performance, shouted in German: ‘I have to go urgently to the lavatory; otherwise I will go through the roof. I am exploding.’ Hearing the words ‘Ich explodiere ’, the cabin crew, who spoke no German, assumed he was a suicide bomber and alerted the pilot, who dumped all his fuel, turned round and made an emergency landing back at Fort Lauderdale airport, where Mr Grzeganek was arrested and imprisoned for ten months to await trial. When his case eventually came to court the judge dismissed it as ridiculous and apologised to him, but even then Mr Grzeganek went the extra mile. Rearrested outside the courtroom because his tourist visa had run out, he was sent back to prison in Miami to await deportation. In the hands of a real artist even the simplest everyday event can be transformed into a surreal drama of many acts.
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The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures by Stephen Pile © Stephen Pile, 2011 Published by Faber and Faber, £12.99, out now in hardback and ebook. @FaberBooks Faber.co.uk