V 1 N. 19 A Memorable Plane Ride

 

A Memorable Plane Ride

 

By George Brose

 

 

On August 13, 1985 my family were preparing to go home at the end of our teaching contract in  Zimbabwe.  We settled into our seats on the KLM Dutch plane in Harare.  Why KLM?  Because they offered a nice ‘missionary’ discount to foreign nationals working in the developing world.  They didn’t know I was a hard-core agnostic at best in those days.   All seemed to be going well until the steward distributed newspapers to the passengers.  It was always nice to get fresh papers from Europe in those days, because the local papers though timely and occasionally covering major international events were often filled with local news that only the locals could manage to find interesting such as the current price for tobacco at the tobacco auction in Harare or the latest rantings from Robert Mugabe and whatever dignitary might be visiting the country. 

            Tragically the day before our flight a Japanese air plane (Japan Airlines Flt. 123) had crashed near Mt. Takamagahara  and all had perished. Actually four people survived of the 524 on board, making it the most deadly plane crash of all time.   These were the headlines on the paper that was passed to me from our well intentioned servant of the airways.   He must have known what was there and probably should have withheld distributing those papers.  Not just about the event but some of the gory details.   According to the story in the paper, the aircraft had had some kind of mechanical failure but instead of heading directly back to Haneda , it had had struggled to regain control, an impossibiltiy because a loss of hydraulics that controlled the aircraft.  It struggled for more than thirty minutes, but ultimately had gone down near the mountain.     The story noted that several of the passengers had had time to write letters of farewell to their families before the crash and some of those letters had been recovered and were transcribed in the story.  So with that unsettling news, I buckled the seat belt a bit tighter than usual and hid the paper from the rest of my family.     

            The plane went on its way and I white knuckled the flight north and finally felt that all was well as we were crossing southern Europe and began our descent toward the landing  at Schipol airport near Amsterdam.   Looking out I could see rather foul weather and  almost without warning there was a tremendous bang on the aircraft, the lighting went out,  and it buckled and took a few twists and then righted itself.  The captain came on quickly to try to calm the passengers in English which was clearly not his mother tongue and said,  “We’ve just been hit by a . ………..long pause…..  hit by a aaa a  a .    Me, I’m thinking SAM missile (surface to air).   After all there were terrorist acts going on in those days.   And then he came back with the word  ‘blitz’.    I was relieved. I remembered my basic German.  Dutch was close in some ways, and that was one of the ways.   'Blitz' meant ‘lightning’, as in the familiar WWII term 'Blitzkrieg'  'Lightning War', but the pilot couldn’t think of the English term.   Eventually someone helped him with the translation and he did say ‘lightning’ and I’m sure many bladders were relieved to hear that news.  We landed without further incident. 

From UPI Archives  Aug. 18, 1985

TOKYO -- A terrified passenger aboard Japan Air Lines Flight 123 scribbled a note saying, 'I don't want to fly anymore. God, please save me,' as the jumbo jet tumbled through the sky before crashing into a mountainside, his family said Sunday.

Rescue workers combing the wreckage of the Boeing 747 said they found two emotional 'last wills' written by passengers before the plane plunged into a mountain in central Japan last Monday, killing 520 people. Four passengers survived in what was the worst single-plane accident in aviation history.

"We’ve just been hit by a . ………..long pause…..  hit by a aaa a  a "   

That had me sweating just sitting in my recliner.   Re the crash that killed 520 but had four survivors, any mention of their religion?   I don't travel much but an ounce of prevention, etc.   Roy,  Ukiah, CA

The actual cause was determined to have been an incomplete repair job done be Boeing technicians.  Nevertheless the plane had made over 12,000 flights after the repair.  Picky Picky Picky.   

Comment from Grace Butcher:

Hi George. 

I was heading home from a visit with poet friend Ann Menebroker (now deceased) in Sacramento many years ago. I forget if my return flight went to LA first, then Denver, but on the way from Denver to Cleveland, we had lunch (it must have been many years ago!) and  then were just droning along, passengers settling in for a boring few hours.  I decided to use the restroom before trying for a nap, and made my way back towards the back of the plane, locked myself in, pulled down my pants.

At that moment, without the usual warning, the plane hit sudden turbulence. I was thrown up against the mirrored door ( I wonder what my expression might have looked like), then slammed down on the seat, then back up against the door again, back down on the seat. While I was flailing around, my pants seemed totally out of reach, as did the door latch, and I had a brief image of my body being discovered in the smoldering ruins thirty thousand feet below with my pants still down around my feet.

Finally I got the door open and lurched out, my pants sort of pulled up. "Sit in the nearest seat!" the flight attendant commanded. But determined to die with my possessions, I kept going, However, by the time I got back to my seat, the other passengers were all just sitting there reading or dozing. My brief glimpse of my mortality was over and would quickly fade along with the bruises on my butt.

Cheers, Grace