WRONG CITY
not all my flight end up with emergency landings.
one i noticed that there was some liquid coming out of the wings and i asked the air hostess. we were already about 4 hours into our flight. yes, she says calmly. we are just dumping all the fuel before we land.
so fast to europe. the pilot announces that we are doing an emergency landing in jhb because our lading gear had stuck. we hadn't left jhb.
i'd hate to be the person that lit a match as a drop of fuel landed on his match.
we had to secure everything, nothing near us; handbags, tins, cups and familiarize our selves with the emergency landing cards and reminded where the exists were.
seriously? i was going to end up dead instead of skiing in Austria?
a round of applause and everybody scrambles for their things to get out. i was trying to take photos of the ambulances and firetrucks waiting for us. how cool. to find out once i got out that there were as many on the other side of the plane. i guess they expected a big fire.
we waited in a lounge of goodies to gorge on and boarded a plane. i so hoped that flying during the day would allow me to see the Sahara. i was exhausted and had some nausea tablets which knocked me out. to my horror i woke up to find out i had missed the whole session of some mile highers. i had noticed some girls taking turns for the toilet.
i hadn't seen guys walking around. all i can say is, the poor guy. he took off more than he could do. LOL.
while the rest of the group was drinking at some exorbitant amount, they were clearly earning more than me, i was escaping the drinking parties. i could drink for cheaper in SA and the slopes were calling. i was not doing it with a hang-over but we did get out dutch courage on the station bars down the slope. that kind of drinking was a necessity. what else would put my hand up for a black slope?
some girls froze. personally, i think it was to get the ski instructors closer than usually acceptable with a snowplow between his legs. bloody hell. why could i freeze. oh yes. i had a couple of drinks under my belt. i went down conscious enough to wale, scream, swear, cry, shout and a general move out of the way i cant ski.
after a couple of days i was making way for the squealers and the warning "AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"s.
what amateurs.
my next emergency landing i call the trip from hell.
we were trying to land in jhb and got a side wind. i have always been totally happy in a plane but hadnt felt the uneveness before the landing. as the engines were closing and the pavement closing i saw the plane was at an angle. our wing had dipped and i'd say a 45 degree angle. oh crap. we are going to crash. well, perhaps we will just spin around once the wing clips the ground.
with the unholy roar of engines we took off. i thought we were going to take out our tail. we were at about 80 degrees and those engines screamed while passengers joined in like a Christmas carol choir. the man next to me was asleep and remained there till we eventually touched down. at one point i wondered if i should prod him to check he was awake. his head was being flung, bodied swayed and no reaction. no. i think he is dead.
we made it up, got over the storm and tried another landing. by this time a passenger pilot had joined in with the crew. we hit the storm and had to abort again. they said they were trying the other direction and by this time i wanted to slap the woman screaming all kinds of prayers to god. seriously, i'm sure he heard her the first time through winding engines and thunder and general shudder and crunching of things that wanted to take flight of their own. two hours of this? we aborted a third time and flew above the storm for a while.
i thought about what people would do if i died. who would be really upset. i came to the conclusion that nobody would drop dead of a broken heart. i had told my mom before that if anything happened to me, unbeknownst to Di in flat 4 that she must take care of Tigerbalm, my cat.
then as i was hearing things scratching around in the overheads, i thought, boy, i'm going to be really pissed off if my laptop is broken. i haven't backed up.
eventually we were running out of fuel and flew to lanseria. i know that the runway is short and thought, oh great, we are going to run out of runway. the woman was still praying, too loudly.
we landed and i saw the air-hostesses walking around with brown bags and thought great, i wonder what we are getting. LOL there were a hell of a lot of air sick bags.
we eventually left and landed in jhb after the storm. after the applause and they praying woman finally shutting up, we got out things and i pissed myself laughing when somebody said to the hostess, well you must be used to this kind of thing.
her popping eyes staring at me gave me the idea she had not been through a gust.
the man next to me woke up and i said. we are running a bit late.
that was the second time i had to phone my friends in early hours of the morning saying, guess what, i'm still in jhb.
the next time was a little different. i landed in the wrong city.
