Mind The Gorge
I've been a little under the weather for the past couple of days.
I woke up the other morning with my head about to explode. I'll spare you the gory details and leave it at a case of an over night head cold. I don't get sick often but when I do ... well, lets just say I can be cranky.
So, last nights show in Hamburg wasn't a stellar performance for me by any means as I was trying to shake the congestion with a combination of Vitamins and over the counter cold remedies. I was out of sorts the whole evening so I apologize to anyone who noticed I was off my game ...
Sounds like the end to the story right? Guess again Batman ...
We left Hamburg this afternoon, got in our twin engine turbo prop with Captain John at the controls and took off for a two hour flight back to Manchester.
Everything about the flight was routine except, just after landing the plane started pitching and yawing to the left and right. Much more than normal. Enough to - in a split second - start raising eyebrows throughout the cabin.
Something was definitly wrong.
The plane continued swerving left and right for another five or so seconds and then made an abrupt turn to the left. It was akin to driving and realizing just a little too late that you should have made a turn, but you make it anyway.
The next thing we knew, the plane was off the runway and on the grass. We all knew this was bad but no one was screaming or yelling, we were all just stunned at what was happening.
From my seat twords the rear of the plane I could see the turf flying up as we barreled some 100 or so yards in the direction of a retaining fence.
We finally came to a halt about 75 feet from what I would later learn was a 500 foot drop into a river gorge.
My friends, I was scared. I was very very scared. What scared me even more was the pilots face after we stopped to check on us. The poor man was white.
At this point, we can see Fire Trucks and Police cars speeding their way to us in the distance and with the engines on the plane still running, we in the band were looking at eachother with the most helpless expressions you can imagine.
Once the Fire Trucks arrived and the engines shut down, we sat on the plane with the smell of burning rubber permeating the cabin. The Emergency Crews told us to disembark and leave everything on the plane. The enitre Manchester Int. Airport was shut down by now.
We were shuttled back to the main terminal and were met by Airport Security, given numbers and asked questions to complete "Survivor/Evacuee" reports.
There was even a Priest there to talk to anyone in need of guidance after an ordeal such as this.
I'm pretty sure what happened was, after landing, the hydrolics used to steer the plane failed rendering it impossible to keep the plane going straight. The aircraft basically went in whatever direction it wanted to ... all the Captain could do was apply as much brake as he could, feather the propellers in the opposite direction to slow us down and hope for the best.
Another 75 feet and it could have been a real disaster.
It's only now, eight hours after the event that I'm aware of just how close we came.
The good news, the BEST news is, Meats OK, Patti's OK, Pauls OK, Marks OK, CC's OK, John's OK, Bill and Cheryl are OK (I'm obviously OK, duh) and we'll be talking about this for a good many months to come.
I woke up the other morning with my head about to explode. I'll spare you the gory details and leave it at a case of an over night head cold. I don't get sick often but when I do ... well, lets just say I can be cranky.
So, last nights show in Hamburg wasn't a stellar performance for me by any means as I was trying to shake the congestion with a combination of Vitamins and over the counter cold remedies. I was out of sorts the whole evening so I apologize to anyone who noticed I was off my game ...
Sounds like the end to the story right? Guess again Batman ...
We left Hamburg this afternoon, got in our twin engine turbo prop with Captain John at the controls and took off for a two hour flight back to Manchester.
Everything about the flight was routine except, just after landing the plane started pitching and yawing to the left and right. Much more than normal. Enough to - in a split second - start raising eyebrows throughout the cabin.
Something was definitly wrong.
The plane continued swerving left and right for another five or so seconds and then made an abrupt turn to the left. It was akin to driving and realizing just a little too late that you should have made a turn, but you make it anyway.
The next thing we knew, the plane was off the runway and on the grass. We all knew this was bad but no one was screaming or yelling, we were all just stunned at what was happening.
From my seat twords the rear of the plane I could see the turf flying up as we barreled some 100 or so yards in the direction of a retaining fence.
We finally came to a halt about 75 feet from what I would later learn was a 500 foot drop into a river gorge.
My friends, I was scared. I was very very scared. What scared me even more was the pilots face after we stopped to check on us. The poor man was white.
At this point, we can see Fire Trucks and Police cars speeding their way to us in the distance and with the engines on the plane still running, we in the band were looking at eachother with the most helpless expressions you can imagine.
Once the Fire Trucks arrived and the engines shut down, we sat on the plane with the smell of burning rubber permeating the cabin. The Emergency Crews told us to disembark and leave everything on the plane. The enitre Manchester Int. Airport was shut down by now.
We were shuttled back to the main terminal and were met by Airport Security, given numbers and asked questions to complete "Survivor/Evacuee" reports.
There was even a Priest there to talk to anyone in need of guidance after an ordeal such as this.
I'm pretty sure what happened was, after landing, the hydrolics used to steer the plane failed rendering it impossible to keep the plane going straight. The aircraft basically went in whatever direction it wanted to ... all the Captain could do was apply as much brake as he could, feather the propellers in the opposite direction to slow us down and hope for the best.
Another 75 feet and it could have been a real disaster.
It's only now, eight hours after the event that I'm aware of just how close we came.
The good news, the BEST news is, Meats OK, Patti's OK, Pauls OK, Marks OK, CC's OK, John's OK, Bill and Cheryl are OK (I'm obviously OK, duh) and we'll be talking about this for a good many months to come.
posted by Kasim Sulton at 3:45 AM
29 comments
