It began about 40 minutes into the flight just as the coffee was being served. We hit what felt like a modest, but still stomach churning, patch of turbulence. I’ve been through turbulence before – turbulence worse than now. This had created enough negative G-force to be reasonably unpleasant but I took comfort in the fact that it didn’t seem so bad and sat smugly listening to the nervous chuckle that was now rippling down the length of the fuselage.
“That was nothing.” I thought to myself, “Nothing to worry about. The nervous flyers amongst us have jumped to ridiculous conclusions. This has happened before. All that happens now is they will stop serving coffee and the seat-belt sign will be turned on.”
Sure enough, as if to compound my misplaced smugness, the pilot switched on the fasten seat-belt sign and everything seemed normal. The cabin crew urgently, but not frantically, returned their coffee trolleys to back up the aisle.
Then, over the pilot’s intercom came this worrying statement, (CLICK) “Immediate descent” (CLICK). A Darth Vader-style breath rattle had preceded the pilot’s words and long before my evaluation of this sound could lead me to the conclusion that the pilot was already wearing her oxygen mask, the compartment above my head popped open and my oxygen mask dropped down.
SHIT!
What do you expect was the mood in the cabin? Panic? Pandemonium? Screams and fist-fights? Nothing of the sort. The odd modest shriek or perhaps a mild “oh my god!” – yes, but no ear-piercing screams, death-bed confessions or running down the aisles trying to rip open emergency exits at altitude like you might see in a movie. I expect most people were thinking the same as me. There was one thing ringing in my consciousness “Make sure you secure your own oxygen mask first before helping others”. This instruction is obviously supposed to ensure everyone gets their mask on so that they are in a position to help others should it be required. An unexpected side of this is a) how indoctrinated it seemed to be in me so as to be the first thing I think about overriding any panic and b) how I began ranking the rest of the passengers in the order in which I would help them with their masks.
“Once this is on I’ll help Harry. He’s my Brother. I have to help him first. Then I’ll lean forward to the row in front and help Tom. There were 2 kids sat behind me weren’t there? Who will help them? Who is taking care of these kids? Oh the humanity! What if I can’t get round everyone on the plane?”
Once the oxygen mask was on a very quick scan of the rest of the passengers (Harry first, then Tom, etc) exposed the silliness of my concern. Everyone I could see had managed to fit their masks perfectly well on their own. Moments of eye contact with similar souls, themselves scanning the passengers quickly, confirmed that I wasn’t the only one with the words of the pre-flight safety briefing at the forefront of my thoughts.
With the oxygen mask securely fitted all concentration turned to breathing – breathing normally. By the raspy sounds around me it was clear that some of my fellow passengers were hell-bent on hyperventilation. My problem was the opposite. Quite some mental effort was required to remember to breathe at all. Like a newborn babe, shimmering with amniotic fluid and with the red mark of a midwife’s right hand on its arse, I soon got the hang of the required inhailation/exhailation coordination.
Breathing taken care of, new doubts, new worries crept in.
“What does ‘immediate descent’ actually mean’? Do we actually need to land or just lose altitude? Will we crash? Are we above land or sea? The Bay of Biscay must be near. Maybe even getting nearer and nearer as we plummet. Are we plummeting? Or is it a controlled descent? Bordeaux. We could land at Bordeaux. Bordeaux must be close.”
Very quickly my brain managed to cast all these questions aside in favour of convincing itself that none of this is happening. So there I was plunging towards the Bay of Biscay (or Bordeaux or wherever) in a blissful state of denial.
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. There has been some terrible mistake and the oxygen masks dropped accidentally. It was just a spot of turbulence. The Pilot has overreacted or just accidentally pressed the oxygen mask button or something. It’s going to be fine. It really is. It’s funny really. One day we’ll look back at this and laugh. In fact I’m laughing now – giggling. I’m sitting here contentedly falling out of the sky convinced that I’m not and it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me.
One of the stewardesses, now looking like she was on the verge of tears ran by my seat to take up her emergency position. My thoughts were cast back to the pre-flight safety briefing and her disgruntled demonstration of putting on the oxygen mask.
“Her heart wasn’t in it” I had said to Harry when she was wrapping up the demonstration equipment and making her way up the aisle checking the crotches of every passenger for a fastened seatbelt.
Her heart was in her mouth now. Clearly she was a relatively new recruit and this was her first in-flight emergency. A flash of the whites of her eyes were enough to indicate she was beginning to question whether she was cut out for life in the skies.
Staying in my now comfortable calm state of denial I turned to check how my brother was fairing. His shaky hand was now clutching the laminated safety card. He was earnestly studying (and practicing) the ‘brace brace’ position.
“Fair enough!” I thought to myself. “He’s calm and considered and he is wisely preparing for every eventuality. Perhaps I should do the same… Nah – This isn’t really happening is it? Everything is fine.”
The other member of our traveling party, Tom, sitting in the row in front turned round at this point to get our attention. His demeanour was not unlike mine – calm and somewhat smiley. It was clear though that, far from being in a state of active denial, he was in a state of passive ignorance. Being, as he was, an inexperienced flyer he assumed this situation to be a fairly usual occurrence on short-haul European flight and so had no problem at all in smiling from behind his mask and raising his camera-phone to happily take the first holiday snaps of the trip. The resulting photos depict Harry’s wide eyed amazement (and amusement) creeping through the concern and worry on his face, and me showing relief at spotting a fellow ‘plane-crash denier’ with a big grin and a thumbs-up.
The plane continued its “immediate descent”. Our ears popped all the way down. Harry nudged me and said something I couldn’t make out from behind his mask. The onset of a smoky smell had everyone with a window seat scanning the wings and engines for signs of fire. This led me to the conclusion that Harry’s words must have been something along the lines of “Fuck! Smoke!”
At this point I had to consider that this episode could end badly. This wasn’t a plane-crash yet but we were quickly ticking of things on the list of ‘stuff that happens during a plane crash’. Cracks in my denial began to show.
“Seat-belts – check. Oxygen masks – check. Panic – check. Weeping cabin crew – check. Plummeting in a downward direction – check. What seems like smoke, and therefore fire – check and check. We’re all going to die!”
Involuntarily I began making a list of things I have any control over in this scenario. I realize the list is actually very short. I have zero control over the fate of this plane. And so the calm returns along with a sense of hope that the pilot is aware of, and taking care of her presumably long list of things she can control in the fate of this plane.
The smell of smoke, as you might imagine, had caused a small ripple of interest by this point. A quick survey of the passengers provided an insight into the human condition when in a state of panic. The man next to me across the aisle was breathing deeply enough to inflate the bag with every exhalation. His knuckles on one hand white with gripping his armrest, the other hand shaking as he held his oxygen mask in position. Behind me a women silently wept while her husband tried to reassure their children. All around hail Marys were being uttered and… well, erm… hailed. Dotted down the plane were couples, family members, perhaps even strangers, holding hands across the aisle. And somewhere amongst all that there were 3 lads taking pictures and giggling – us.
The less panicky of the 2 stewardesses came on the tannoy to reassure us that the smell of smoke was a “normal consequence of the main cabin oxygen supply failing. It seemed that we were all surprisingly happy with that explanation. The universal panic diminished and relief swept through the cabin - relief, which seemed to indicate a universal ignorance of our continuing rapid loss of altitude.
“We’re still going to plunge head first into the Northeast Atlantic and die, but at least the plane isn’t on fire”, seemed to be the consensus.
A few more ear-popping moments later, the pilot came on the tannoy again. Her Darth-Vader had been kept to a one time only act and her voice was now as clear as it had been when, before we took off, she’d told us what the weather would be like in Lisbon.
“Sorry”, she understated, “Sorry about that. We had a sudden loss of cabin pressure for some reason. We don’t know why. I’ve taken us down to an altitude of 10000 feet, which should be low enough for you, all to breathe the ambient air, so in a moment you’ll be able to take your oxygen masks off and breathe normally. Obviously there is a fault with the plane so I’ll turn us around to get it checked out back at Luton. I’ll keep us at this altitude all the way back over the channel islands, turning right at Southampton and arriving at Luton in about 40 minutes. The weather in Luton, as you’ll remember, is about 30 degrees with clear sunny skies. Sit back and relax and we’ll get you back as soon as we can.”
And that was it. With the click of the tannoy we were heading back to Blighty again enduring as we went, the heat of a warming fuselage now that the air-conditioning was turned off.
The Blitz-spirit kicked in. Strangers chatted, water was passed around and comfort was offered to those who were now in shock. One or two more heart-stopping moments followed however. The boy in the window seat behind us took to yelling things like, “Oh my god! Look at that! Everybody look out of the window!”
“What could it be? “, was my reaction, “Shit, the wings are on fire now! We’re crashing again! Oh no. Everything is fine.” It was just the little brat pointing out the isle Saint-Michel and other things made visible by our new low altitude vantage point.
The landing at Luton was predictably greeted with a small round of applause among the passengers. Before we had finished taxiing the photographic evidence of our adventure had been posted on Facebook care of Tom. And there was laughter when the first person off the plane dropped to his knees and kissed the tarmac in a mock Papal homage.
Within a couple of hours we were on are placement plane retracing our steps to the scene of the crime and beyond to Lisbon. By now we were slightly faint from hunger having stuck too rigorously to the not so generous budget of the £3 free meal vouchers the airline had given us to make up for our ordeal. Tom took out his phone again, not to take photos this time, but to show us something he had done to cope with his stress-levels.
When he turned round to take our picture he had been confronted the panicked faces of half the plane’s passengers. It had dawned on him that this predicament wasn’t quite as regular an occurrence as he thought. Suddenly worried about his well being and evaluating the sum of his life’s achievements he switched his phone from camera mode to list mode and began making a bucket list. A bucket-list is a list you make of things you want to do before you die – before you kick the bucket. The title of Tom’s bucket list was. ‘Things to do if I don’t die on this plane”, and it went like this:
Learn to swim.
Get to grade 5 or above piano.
Get a girlfriend.
Never get on a plane again.
Party twice as hard.
Give up beer and cider.
Learn to swim well.
Stay out of Luton.
Find out why we nearly crashed and burned.
Find out why I’m still paying my TV license.
Be nice to everyone.
Love everyone 5% more.
OH MY GOD WE”RE GOING DOWN!!!!!!
X
Already chuckling as Harry and I read this, we positively guffawed when Tom confessed that for the duration of the ordeal he had been listening to something on his ipod. He’d been coincidentally listening to the soundtrack to the plane-crash TV drama, ‘Lost’.
We sat there, the 3 of us, hungry, tired, amused and relieved, our fraternal bonds strengthened. We were glad to still have each other. But most importantly we were glad it had happened on the way out rather than the way home because we agreed all needed a holiday now – which was just as well.
Great read, Jack. And reassuring to know that moments of adversity can and will bring out the Bruce Willis in some of us. Look forward to having you on a long-haul flight later this week!
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