Tragedy

After a great Thanksgiving with family, in-laws, and friends it was time to catch the Saturday flight to Dubai. Just to remind everyone that when you depart on Saturday evening, you don’t actually arrive till Sunday night. No way around losing a full day!

I did mention the Dubai Airshow in the last blog. We have all been to many military airshows that usually last for one to two days, have a formation flying exhibition, and can walk around the airplanes.

However, I certainly was not prepared for my first Commercial Airshow. First off, they took over the entire new Executive Terminal at the Dubai International Airport.

Second, there must have been 150-200 planes of all descriptions that you could enter and get information on. The exception was the US Air Force's AWAC’s and the US Navy's E2 that were there. The Norwegians even had an AWAC aircraft that the dome rises from the middle of the fuselage during flight and retracts for landing! There was a flight team demonstration each hour on the hour from differing countries. The only country not represented was the US. UK, Canada, Jordan, Egypt… It was interesting since I’d never seen some of them, but if you’ve seen the Blue Angels – “that says it all!”

The third difference from military airshows were the vendors. If it is made for or anticipated for any type of aircraft the item was there to be seen. To see the envisioning of the future of all facets of aviation was terrific. We even signed up a British Maintenance firm and a security firm just for Kabul. I will say it wasn’t Blackwater, although they are one of the best.

Safi Airways also had a booth at the Airshow. It was interesting that they had the opening ceremonies already on large poster sheets around the booth. It was strange to see some of the same pictures of myself on four foot by ten foot blow ups. I never realized I was so good looking!

We have been flying a three day/week schedule to Kabul and are about to increase to four. Load factors are much higher than I would have expected to this point. But as everyone knows in aviation, “things happen!”

Yesterday was one of those days. Arriving into the Kabul approach control area we had our runway changed twice after the initial call. This obviously requires computer inputs but most important is keeping real world situational awareness going as it relates to mountains. The rest I’ll leave to your imaginations and for late nights at the lake.

After taxiing to the Kabul Terminal Ramp, the engines shutdown, seeing the stairs being positioned at the front door, I decided I could finish my paperwork before doing the normal PR work with the airport authorities. Just looking for a quiet four to five minutes to get things together! At that point I heard three timid knocks on the door. It was A, one of the mechanics that travels with us. You must understand, he is about 6 foot nine with perfect posture. But here was this mechanic looking at the floor, shoulders bent inward, and almost whispering... “they blew the slide!”

All our flight attendants are new and undergoing training with the flight attendant onboard each flight. However, Purser #1’s hands moved faster than anyone could react to and there it went. The stairs are powered by a truck body similar to the States. They were about ten feet from the side of the aircraft when the slide blew. As all the aviation buffs know, slides have power, so you shouldn’t be surprised to know the slide blew inward the windshield of the truck. Luckily no one was injured!

The slide was bad, but not the worst. I was awoken the next morning at 7:00AM to go to the police station to help pick up a very good friend. She had not gotten home till about 8:00PM the night before to her new condo to find some new furniture had just arrived. She and her husband celebrated till about 1:00AM when she had to go to bed as she had been up for almost twenty four hours. She was awakened by the doorbell at 5:00AM only to find the police and security at the door. They asked for her husband and she looked frantically throughout the condo for him. The police then said he had had an accident and she found out he had fallen off their third floor balcony by the pool. Everyone here is just devastated!