A chap was a fitter in the RAF years ago; also years ago there used to be a plane called a Javelin, whose twin jets were mounted internally and started by auxiliary power units (little gas turbines about the size of a bucket). These APUs ran off a type of aviation fuel called Avpin, so fearsome that its exhaust fumes are flammable.

This chap watched a gung-ho WWII veteran "been-there-done-that-got-the-t-shirt" type wing commander climb into the Javelin with his young, idealistic navigator and set to firing the old crate up. Unbeknownst to the aviators, the cast iron exhaust tube from the port APU fractured on start-up, allowing highly flammable Avpin exhaust gases to flood the airframe underneath the skin. They then started up the starboard engine, whose APU exhaust duct started to glow cherry red, thus igniting the fumes filling the body. Boom. All the fitters looked round to see the remains of a Javelin standing on the strip, the only bits of the bodywork remaining being the horizontal stringers that the skin had been riveted to. All they could hear was a cascade of noise as rivets and bits of aluminium rattled to the ground.

The navigator was a bit shaken (unsurprising as the reinforced tub surrounding the cockpit had been blown in so hard by the blast that it had broken his arm), climbed over the side of the cockpit, and forgetting that the steps had been removed, stepped over the side and into unconsciousness as he fell about ten feet onto his face.

The wingco calmly pulled out his logbook and wrote down the following entry "Started port engine. All systems go. Started starboard engine. Plane exploded. Flight aborted". He then put his logbook away, climbed down the remaining stringers, stepped over his bleeding colleague with the words "Somebody pick that up" and walked off to the mess.

Style, pure style.