An Uncertain Landing

Everything went relatively smoothly yesterday. I spent the day exploring Dar es Salaam with Godfrey and made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I was only concerned my bags would be too heavy, but they ended up being within the limit.

We boarded the plane a little bit later than the scheduled time, but it wasn’t too much of an issue. When I got on the plane I immediately asked for a glass of water so I could take some Benadryl. On my flight here I ignored the advice to do so and found myself unable to sleep in these uncomfortable seats. The flight attendant totally blew me off and made some snappy comment about finding my seat before making requests. I just went to the next flight attendant who was standing closer to my assigned seat closer to my seat and she was happy to help me.

I struggled to get the pills out of their packaging while the same cranky flight attendant told the passengers to close their own overhead compartments since the flight attendants are tired of doing it every day. It sounded like we were ready to go, so I popped the pills, turned on my iPod shuffle, and closed my eyes.

Not 45 seconds after I had shut my eyes did the pilot come online and start jibber jabbering in Dutch. I thought it was a regular announcement, so by the time he got to translating his announcement into English and saying words like “brakes” and “delay” I wanted to kick myself for not paying more attention. We had to wait an incredibly long time for who knows what, with the Benadryl making my eyelids heavier with every minute that passed. Somewhere in the wait I heard something about, “The engineers trying to fix it, but if they can’t we’ll have to take all the bags off the plane, which will take a long time.” Of course, they couldn’t fix it (whatever it was), so we had to wait another 45 minutes to unload all of the cargo.

We finally took off at God knows what time and began our journey to Amsterdam. Unfortunately the Benadryl wore off around 3:30 am, which may or may not have been a long way into the flight. Out of curiosity, I decided to ask my neighbors what had happened. What I heard was so ridiculous I couldn’t help but laugh...

Apparently the fuel line was broken. They tried to replace the pipe, and couldn’t, so they had to take all of our baggage off the plane. When I asked my neighbor what this had to do with fixing the fuel pipe, he seemed adamant that taking off the bags was a sufficient solution to a leaking fuel pipe. I didn’t believe the explanation at all, but was more preoccupied figuring out what was in my checked baggage and how and when I would be able to get it back. I mean, clearly we wouldn’t be flying with a broken fuel line, right?

Well a few more hours into our journey I got up to go to the bathroom. I got talking with this guy who had been climbing Mt. Kilimamjaro. He seemed thoroughly exhausted and defeated. I kept asking him questions and we finally got the part of the story where the volcano in Iceland had delayed his travels by a full week. Even worse, this flight to Amsterdam was now so late that he would be missing his connection to Wales and have to spend another day waiting for a plane to take him home. I felt really bad for the guy, but figured I’d just go ahead and ask him what was going on with the plane since he seemed to speak English with an accent I could at least understand.

The real story, or at least the one he told me, is that when they were doing a final check of the airplane at the airport, they noticed the hydraulic brake line was leaking. They were unsuccessful in fixing it, but decided that if they took of 4 tons of cargo they would be able to fly safely. The passangers’ bags were first, so they had to take time to get them all off before removing the cargo. We probably weren’t separated from our baggage, but our brakes are still broken. I’m actually writing this blog from the plane, very interested in what this landing is going to feel like. I guess landing with no brakes is safe. They didn’t ask the passengers to take a vote on it or anything so, so I guess they feel confident enough to take our lives in their hands with no breaks.

In any case, the battery is running low and the food is on the way. I’ve been catching up on a bunch of movies and TV shows on the plane while trying to ignore the oversized nun sitting behind me who keeps asking me very loudly to keep my seat in its full upright position and avoid any reclining since her legs don’t’ have enough room. I listen for about 5 minutes before putting it back again, at which point she likes to jam her knee into the back of my seat, completely ruining any potential for rest that I have.

I can’t be too upset though; my six hour layover has given me enough of a buffer that this 3 hour delay shouldn’t leave me stranded in Amsterdam. Fingers crossed!