I'm in London, having been here on a vacation, and getting ready to go home. I'm travelling on an "alternative" airline, it's got stewardesses and a regular plane and all but it sure isn't as professional and organized as, say, Pan Am, or any other one I know for that matter. I'm with a group, like a large tour group or charter, though I haven't been with them in England, just the flight. We're just getting on the plane, bustling with luggage and all, the stewardesses are trying to get it all organized, and it's not coming together very well. They have uniforms - dresses - but they sure aren't very attractive, quite dull. And they seem not especially nice - not rude, but detached, a bit frustrated, not sharp at all. We, the passengers, are helping to get the luggage stowed, and some of us are instructed to go up to the top of the plane (outside), where we hand luggage down a ladder - well on the side. It's bright daylight, getting to the tail end of the afternoon. I'm talking to an older woman about my trip, and telling her how extraordinary it was that I had run into 3 - was it 3? - well, 2 at least - people I knew. I started to tell about one of them and then remembered Elizabeth. Oh, yes, I said, it was 3! I forgot Elizabeth Hilbish! And proceeded to describe her situation with the guy she met in Hawaii, but somehow the woman I'm talking to isn't paying attention. She keeps on misunderstanding and I keep saying, no, it was this... There are others up here, and crew on the ground doing things, and there comes a box or something being passed through that the older woman says she won't touch. She's already done that before, and it's just too heavy, and why are we having to do all this anyway? So we're just watching. Eventually, things seem to be complete and the rest of us are waiting for instructions, when there's some sensation of the plane moving, and we suddenly wonder, what if the pilot forgot to check whether we were off the roof and took off? Given the level of competence of the whole crew, it's possible. (By the way, on this roof are large round - shoulder-high - barriers around the edges, we've been leaning against them; they're soft, like hard rubber or something.) Just as we're reassuring ourselves that nothing like that can happen, it does. The plane moves a bit forward and starts to nose upward. We start screaming for help, "No! Stop! We're still up here! You can't take off!" et cetera, and we're joined by people on the street below, mostly kids. This plane is sitting right in the middle of a neighborhood with nice houses and lots of green trees. Somehow it doesn't need to taxi, but just goes straight up to take off, nose first, which apparently bends, because it's going up but we're not. There are all these kids shouting at its nose as though it were an animal, like a horse or cow, and they were trying to get its attention. They're trying to communicate to the pilot, there are people on the roof. It does stop, just in time, and I'm starting to fume. I swear I'll never use this airline again as long as I live. The panic was awful, I was trying to hold on to the rail and knowing there was no way I could hold on in flight - no question about it, I'd be dead. I pictured us just flying off the roof one by one, and this asshole pilot not even caring. Apparently the crew thought it was our own lookout for us to get back inside.