Not only did I have to run for my life from a herd of 50 elephants (please see my last post), I had a near brush with death on Air Tanzania.
Normally, the simple act of boarding an
airplane would not be considered adventure travel. But flying, like all forms
of transportation in the developing world, is notoriously dangerous for the
simple reason that there are no rules to follow. If airplane maintenance
schedules do exist, there is no guarantee that they’re adhered to with any sort
of regularity, or at all for that matter. So there is little comfort in taking
a flight with Air Tanzania,
an airline so unreliable and precarious that Tanzanians themselves refer to it
as "Air Labda,"
Swahilit for "Air Maybe."
I was on my way to Dar es Salaam via
Kilimanjaro International Airport with Moyo and Eunice, co-workers from the
African Wildlife Foundation in Arusha, where I was working as a volunteer. The
three of us were securely seat-belted in a row near the rear of the plane as it
rumbled down the runway, gaining speed for take-off.
Suddenly, I heard a loud pop! The pilot
quickly slammed on the brakes triggering an earsplitting noise of grinding
gears and metal parts that sounded as though a pack of rabid hyenas had attacked
the engine and was gnawing it to shreds.
But we kept going; the plane refused to
stop.
I clutched onto my arm rests in a
white-knuckled death-grip preparing for our certain demise when we barreled
through the barbed wire barrier at the end of the runway, took a nosedive into
the bottomless trench beyond and burst into flames.
After what seemed like an impossible
amount of time and a miraculously generous length of runway, we did stop. All
of the passengers looked around at each other in the absolute silence that
usually follows near disaster, where seconds seem like minutes. “Whew, we made
it!” I remember thinking.
But then the cabin filled with the acrid
smell of smoke and I saw flames shooting out from underneath one of the wings.
The engine was on fire! Everyone on board was no doubt gripped by the same
terrifying thought—our plane was nanoseconds away from exploding.
The steward seized the intercom and began
shrieking as if his testicles had unexpectedly been clamped in a vice,
"Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!"
Utter pandemonium erupted.
People crammed into the aisles, pushing
and shoving and climbing over each other to get out. The strap of my purse was
caught on something under the seat. I yanked at it for what seemed like an
eternity until it broke free. But then, as I turned to the aisle, I was faced
with a solid mass of African men and women, who proved more difficult to push
past than wall of granite.
After finally squeezing my way into the
aisle, my near hysteria increased when I saw that I was going to have to slide
down the chute to escape.
Like a disembodied voice in a dream that
sounds very far away, I heard someone shouting, "Shoes! Shoes!” What about
my shoes? Only later did I find out that we were supposed to take off our shoes
before going down the chute. I hopped down. My skirt slid up beyond my waist
and the friction between the rubber and my bare skin scraped my legs and behind
raw. I hit the tarmac and ran like the wind, trying to put as much distance as
possible between myself and the ticking time bomb behind me.
Moyo, Eunice and I met up far out in the
field. The three of us stood there breathing heavily, too stunned to speak. As
I turned back toward the plane, I saw hundreds of papers floating in the breeze
along with shoes, books, purses, briefcases, and hats scattered everywhere on
the runway.
There's nothing like a brush with death to
pull people together. When we arrived back in the waiting room of the airport,
it was a celebration. Families and friends were huddled together wearing
relieved smiles. Sworn enemies were hugging and kissing one other. Well, I’m
not positive about that, but my supervisor Eunice and I, not exactly on warm
and friendly terms before this, were now clasped arm and arm recounting our
getaway down the chute.
“Can you believe, our skirts slid up to
our waists?” said Eunice in a voice all giggly and girlish, a woman normally
about as giggly and girlish as a sumo wrestler.
The passengers who were seated in the
middle of the plane were the ones that had really gotten the raw end of the
deal. They had been forced to de-plane via the wings, by jumping twenty feet
onto the tarmac. Several were injured, including one man who suffered a broken
leg and sprained spine.
One family with a tiny infant and toddler
was having a joyous reunion, extraordinary under the circumstances since the
wife had grabbed the toddler, but the husband had jumped off the plane alone,
leaving the baby behind to die in the explosion or be rescued by a passing good
Samaritan. If I were his wife, I would've been searching for the nearest lawyer
to initiate divorce proceedings, but I suppose some people are more forgiving
than others.
Of course all of this could have been
avoided. Personally, I blame the steward. What happened to that calm, cool demeanor
that airline employees are supposed to maintain under any and all
circumstances? Where was that droning voice that normally puts everyone to
sleep, who could’ve made an announcement like, "Ladies and gentlemen,
we're experiencing a few mechanical problems, so if you would calmly proceed to
the nearest exit …"?
Later that night, safely back in Arusha, I
told my housemates Katie and Stacy about my harrowing experience. Apparently,
I’d failed to adequately express the true terror I’d felt since Stacy's
reaction was, "Wow! You got to slide down the chute! Cool! I've always
wanted to do that."
"Was it fun?" Katie asked.
"Not really. It was actually very
terrified…" I started to explain.
"Good old Air Labda," said Stacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment