09.04.2011 around 15:30 - Our First Emergency Landing Experience….
I was between Mon and Justin… Mon, who naturally has phobia already in flying, was really nervous… I was holding his hands; really cold… he was praying, facial expression not good… Luckily he has no heart problem ‘coz if he has… he would probably die due to heart attack not by air crash…
Justin was OK at first but later turned with cold hands as well. He said, he’s scared as it might get hurt. Well, I said ‘Everything will be OK… beside, we’re all together… so no reason to be scared… I think I’m at the minority… abnormal maybe…as honestly, I don’t really feel nervous at that time… not sure if it’s because I was pretty confident that we can land safely, or maybe not too scared to die being content that whatever happened I know I have lived a good life and we’re all together…
There was a warm applause from the passengers after a safe landing at Chennai. The next few minutes was a bit suffocating without the air con on… Inside the rest room, though with flush still working, had started to become a bit smelly… Maybe the exhaust was turned off. Drinking water from the tap in the hallway started dripping … as if catching the passengers’ attention… “Hey I know it’s getting hot here … Go and have a drink” … Then in a few minutes, all the drinking cups were gone and the dripping stopped eventually as well.
The flight attendants started taking out boxes of instant noodles for the passengers. Initially, it was anticipated to be a two-hour wait for the engineers to fix the problem and for Emirates to get
the documentation cleared… Then, it was announced that the repair is not quite successful for that first hour but they said they had located the problem and would take an hour and a half to fix it. They’re giving the option for passengers to be able to get out from the plane if they want to and they would be escorted by the security. If they do so, they had noted that passengers would have to go through immigration again and may cause a slight delay once the place becomes ready to take off. Hours passed and later realized, we had been waiting inside the plane for 6 hours already.
An announcement was made advising the passengers that Emirates is now arranging for accommodation, service to the airport and required Visa (if needed) for passengers to disembark at Chennai.
We took an ‘aircool’ bus going to the airport in groups, got our clearance from immigration… They had collected our passports to be returned the following day.
On the group I was in, there were 2 or 3 vans outside and a coach… Indians collected our luggage, saying that they’re all to be transported to the same hotel where we were supposed to stay… We just got along. Heard the passengers chatting, imagining where would the driver going to take us… If it’s gonna be in a 4 or 5 star hotel…
In Chennai, on our way to the hotel, there were public transport similar to ‘tuk-tuk’ in Thailand, busy road, defensive drivers (I guess I’m used to th
is scene given where we come from), non-stop sound of horns everywhere (as if everybody was rushing to get to their destination early). What I am a bit surprised was the number of scooters/bikes on the expressway with 2 or 3 passengers, some are with women and young kids, no helmets on… non-stop swerving on the road, trying to overtake and fill up every available space. But I guess, they’re pretty smart drivers… One of the passengers was quite right, you’ll be surprise to hear that possibly, there’s hardly any accident at Chennai. It’s probably true, I thought.
We arrived at Raj P
ark Hotel… not too bad… a clean 2 star hotel maybe, from the look of it... better than sleeping another night in the plane. Indians can be quite hospitable… from the driver who took us to the hotel to the hotel staff who attended us… They always offered help. I just felt sorry as we’re not prepared to stop at Chennai, hence we don’t have any rupees to give them. ‘Had dinner after taking a shower. Then, we went out and had a walk… We were stucked in one intersection… and later decided to go back to the hotel and have a rest as we couldn’t figure out how to cross the road safely without pedestrians/traffic light on a busy road. It’s like figuring out how to cross a road in the middle of Edsa in Manila.
10/04/2011
I was watching Angelina Jolie’s The Tourist, while Mon was sleeping listening to music, and Justin - waiting for a plane attendant to help him fix the ‘frozen Entertainment screen…. when suddenly we heard an announcement from the cabin…
There’s a smoke from the cockpit deck or something and we had to go for an EMERGENCY LANDING… The announcement mentioned something about the propeller… I didn’t pick up, as was busy with watching…
Next thing… we can see some of the plane attendant running around trying to clean up all the trays… the entertainment was cut off… lights went off… and there you go… we felt the plane descending for an emergency landing at Chennai, India.
Justin was OK at first but later turned with cold hands as well. He said, he’s scared as it might get hurt. Well, I said ‘Everything will be OK… beside, we’re all together… so no reason to be scared… I think I’m at the minority… abnormal maybe…as honestly, I don’t really feel nervous at that time… not sure if it’s because I was pretty confident that we can land safely, or maybe not too scared to die being content that whatever happened I know I have lived a good life and we’re all together…
There was a warm applause from the passengers after a safe landing at Chennai. The next few minutes was a bit suffocating without the air con on… Inside the rest room, though with flush still working, had started to become a bit smelly… Maybe the exhaust was turned off. Drinking water from the tap in the hallway started dripping … as if catching the passengers’ attention… “Hey I know it’s getting hot here … Go and have a drink” … Then in a few minutes, all the drinking cups were gone and the dripping stopped eventually as well.
The flight attendants started taking out boxes of instant noodles for the passengers. Initially, it was anticipated to be a two-hour wait for the engineers to fix the problem and for Emirates to get
the documentation cleared… Then, it was announced that the repair is not quite successful for that first hour but they said they had located the problem and would take an hour and a half to fix it. They’re giving the option for passengers to be able to get out from the plane if they want to and they would be escorted by the security. If they do so, they had noted that passengers would have to go through immigration again and may cause a slight delay once the place becomes ready to take off. Hours passed and later realized, we had been waiting inside the plane for 6 hours already. An announcement was made advising the passengers that Emirates is now arranging for accommodation, service to the airport and required Visa (if needed) for passengers to disembark at Chennai.
Chennai Experience…
09/04/2011
We took an ‘aircool’ bus going to the airport in groups, got our clearance from immigration… They had collected our passports to be returned the following day.
In Chennai, on our way to the hotel, there were public transport similar to ‘tuk-tuk’ in Thailand, busy road, defensive drivers (I guess I’m used to th
is scene given where we come from), non-stop sound of horns everywhere (as if everybody was rushing to get to their destination early). What I am a bit surprised was the number of scooters/bikes on the expressway with 2 or 3 passengers, some are with women and young kids, no helmets on… non-stop swerving on the road, trying to overtake and fill up every available space. But I guess, they’re pretty smart drivers… One of the passengers was quite right, you’ll be surprise to hear that possibly, there’s hardly any accident at Chennai. It’s probably true, I thought. We arrived at Raj P
ark Hotel… not too bad… a clean 2 star hotel maybe, from the look of it... better than sleeping another night in the plane. Indians can be quite hospitable… from the driver who took us to the hotel to the hotel staff who attended us… They always offered help. I just felt sorry as we’re not prepared to stop at Chennai, hence we don’t have any rupees to give them. ‘Had dinner after taking a shower. Then, we went out and had a walk… We were stucked in one intersection… and later decided to go back to the hotel and have a rest as we couldn’t figure out how to cross the road safely without pedestrians/traffic light on a busy road. It’s like figuring out how to cross a road in the middle of Edsa in Manila. 10/04/2011
Wake up call at 4:00 am at the hotel, no traffic means no horn going to the airport… but nearly had an accident (at least for a moment) seeing left side of our van 4 to 5 inches away from a truck. Justin said, ‘We’re like in a roller coaster, Mum’. At the time of writin
g this, we’re now at the Chennai airport waiting for the gate to be announced for Flight EK 8409 from Chennai to Dubai. I remember what Mon told me yesterday… “If we have 9 lives, we already used up 2, we got 7 more left. First was in New Zealand when our car skidded in a freeway turning on the other side of the road nearly crashed beside the mountain… Second was yesterday, I could say, with smoke from the cockpit and confirmed problem somewhere at left wing… you would think, you’re only a few steps away to air crash… Got to go now… heard another warm applause from all the passengers after the announcement advising us to get ready for boarding...
http://www.emirates247.com/business/corporate/emirates-plane-in-emergency-landing-2011-04-10-1.379263
eL.
it's quite an adventure, mumz!
ReplyDeleteYeah True... With happy ending of course :)
ReplyDelete