'The plane is on fire... '
Sunday 29th Mar
We were moving again. At least I was. Perhaps not... At this point I was desperately trying to fall asleep. Sleep deprivation was starting to hit home but I was still not falling asleep!
We finally cleared everything and we were on our way. I watched the aircraft in front us as it reached the top of the runway. It turned and lined up to take off. I was a little alarmed, as it didn't look like the plane was pointed at the runway. It parked then started its engines, quickly winding them up to 80% thrust. Releasing the brakes simultaneously, the plane surged down the runway. I looked down the length in time to see the aeroplane launch up into the air in front of a hangar!
The plane didn't crash... it trampolined! Jumping up off the first plane... then down on the second trampoline... then up off the third and launched into the air, on It's way to some exotic venue.
And our plane quickly followed!
At this point I think I was so tired I was able to fall asleep again. I remembered seeing the lights at various intervals. First, Middle-East - Bahrain, Riyad. We flew north, keeping to a flightpath. Up the middle between Iran and Iraq, then curving past Türkiye, before reaching Romanian airspace. Romania was dark - almost black! It must have been mesmeric, because the next thing I knew we were flying over Serbia. Another catnap and we were passing through Croatia.
We passed through Europe, then around into Ireland. As we approached Dublin, we were suddenly switched to Farnborough: a military airbase... in Scotland?! We were all returned to our seats. All the cabin crew were asked to come to the cockpit. While waiting, I happened to glance out the window and saw some moderately thick smoke and flame from our side of the plane. Momentarily, a member of the cockpit crew breezed past us out into the cargo hold. What ever he did, it worked and the fine and smoke dissipated.
After that, the crew kept things cool and calm. We landed safely and were greeted by the Farnborough fire department - a very professional crew. They directed us to a parking spot while they assessed the information given to them.
About 10 minutes later the fire was out. Our plane joined the queue and we were soon connected to a sky-bridge. At this point I was becoming a little panicked. First in last out... and I'm nearly at the back. I can't go down the ladder because I have problems with balance and slippery ground. After some pushing and shoving I was getting closer to the front... and leaving behind me a rather angry and upset trail of passengers. One of the crew came across to see what was going on. He quickly sent us on way.
At that point we were suddenly surprised by a corporal from the Royal Marines Commandos with a wheelchair. Before he could even ask his Sergeant what were his orders, Anne-Marie and Ruaidhri had me and my backpack loaded up. Ruaidhri was all ready to get moving, thinking that they were just delivering the wheelchair for us to use.
The corporal asked to see our passports and boarding passes. Spotting the entry that covered my use of a wheelchair, he handed our documents back and said "Right. Where do you want to go?" Before we could even answer another soldier came out of a gap in the queue. "They need to go through customs. We need to get the special needs offloaded so they don't block the aisles. Take whatever seems to be the quickest route to customs."
The corporal looked at the soldier, who gave him the thumbs up. The soldier took the lead to start with, while the corporal seem content to look around. We took a corner right into the entry point for check in. "The far end is where the special needs passengers are getting their documents processed." "Fair enough" said the corporal "You go and wait there. I'm going to take mine straight through here." With that, we joined the queue for first class.
When we reached check-in, the crew member was about to query our documents, the member-in-charge hurried over and explained in no uncertain terms were ANY of the RMC troops to be held up by niceties. "That applies to all special needs from now on" said the corporal.
Documents fully processed, the corporal lead us through a maze-like collection of corridors leading us to a large room where lots of queues were already setting up a whole lot more queues, this time for luggage collection.
"Um... I have to go" I told the corporal. "OK" said the corporal, looking the least calm I'd seen him in the admittedly short time that I had known him. "Let's go over there." He pointed to a door. He took me across and sure enough, it was. "So how do we do this?" He asked me as he looked around. "I can't figure out how to get the wheel-chair into the cubical along with the two of us." I laughed in surprise. "I'm special needs, not someone who is completely incapacitated. Look at my boarding pass." I gave him the chair while I went in and did my business.
Once we were back in the hall, we managed to catch up with Anne-Marie and Ruaidhri fairly quickly. The RMC were exceptionally helpful, packing our backpacks on the frame of the wheelchair, leaving us hands-free to present our documents at the different stages of check-out.
Making it through, we were escorted to the bottom level of this shopping centre. It was suggested that we get something to eat and take our time to look at the various modes of transport we had available. We went exploring among the various offerings. Nothing greatly interested us, but we eventually chose a spot at a cafe that Anne-Marie thought looked best. While we had been waiting I noticed a few shady types. They would select a target then circle around them, checking them out before coming back to compare notes. They had been there before we arrived
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