Whilst my mother was alive, she called me Lucky Eddie. She realised that from a very early age I seemed to have a habit of making my own luck and I had escaped relatively unscathed from some quite precarious situations.
I went to school in Edinburgh, Scotland and during my early teens my family moved to the Orkney islands whilst I stayed at school in Edinburgh and went home in the holidays.
This was all fine, and it meant that I flew from Edinburgh to Kirkwall the main town with an airport in Orkney.
However during one Christmas holiday period the weather was pretty terrible to put it mildly and the regular scheduled flights were cancelled for a few days.
My father worked at the Oil Terminal there, and they had managed to hire a plane and I was given a seat on a flight from Flotta the oil terminal to Wick in the North of Scotland.
All very good, but the plane was tiny, I think it had only eight seats.
On to the plane I boarded, and it took off, boy was it a rough flight. Several times I thought we were plummeting out of the sky into the rough sea below.
The flight was to be short as it was only going across the water to the mainland of Northern Scotland.
As we neared touchdown the wind changed direction and whipped the plane sideways and almost catapulted it. Luckily one wing scraped the grass at the edge of the runway and helped slow us down. The undercarriage was a bit mangled and the plane ended up on the grass at an angle. The adults were quite shook up, I was more concerned about how I was meant to get to Edinburgh so as not to get into trouble from matron at school!
During my career, I have had the pleasure to work for many years in the Oil and Gas Industry in a variety of countries.
On one occasion I was working in Gabon in West Africa. We were building new facilities up in the jungle. It meant there were no roads from the main Terminal to our new failities yet. You flew in, either via chopper or small plane. I was responible for managing some early production facilities and a small runway had been cleared in the jungle the previous week. I would be onboard the maiden flight in a smallish plane.
We took off with two crew and five passengers and the flight was meant to be twenty minutes. We hit headwinds and the flight had already been thirty minutes when thunder and lightning lit up the sky. We could see the lit up airstrip between the jungle canopy. Down we went towards the runway only for the runway lights to suddenly go out. Lightning illuminated the sky once more, however it also hit our starboard wing, and made an almighty racket. Luckily we were not that far off the ground and the plane seemed to drop the last few feet like a stone, and smack down onto the ground. The plane careered off the end of the runway and stopped in a combination of a sandbank and some trees that had been made. Thankfully it was pitch black and I could not see what was happening on the descent but I was covered in cuts from broken glass, luckily they all healed with time.
What I do remember is the copilot running from the cockpit into the jungle. Seriously, I have no idea why!
My two plane crashes, luckily not that serious but they could have been much much worse.
This is my entry to Blog of the Week: Tuesday 16 November 2021 Truth is stranger than fiction in the Silver Bloggers Community
The photograph is a winter shot from Scotland, nowhere near as rough as the Christmas flight!
You could not be telling these anecdotes. Good thing you are among the storytellers.
Hi @tengolotodo, Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content. For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
NIce One, Lucky Eddie! 😎
ah thank you, I survived :)
Oh my gosh, that may explain your madness.😂 And you really were thinking of not getting into trouble at school, lol
If ever fate makes us meet sometime in person, I'll make sure I never get on a plane with you. ;)
hehe Eli, now you know why I am not a fan of planes, and how do I edit a post?
Hehe, I'll tell you on Twitter how to edit ;)
You are really lucky to survive the crashes.
I am lucky :) Thanks Jane
"Truth is stranger than fiction in the Silver Bloggers Community" <--- I agree to this line :)
What a scare, I have never flown in an airplane and I assure you I never will. I suffer from phobias and couldn't do it.
You were very lucky dear Ed 😌.
Your mom may have seen it in you, being so 'lucky' even in the midst of danger. I wouldn't wanna be on a plane with you, lol!
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STOPNow please don't make this a third time unlucky!
These experiences sound like what movies are made of
Very, very lucky indeed even if you make it sound like they are small ;D
Reading your post is like reading a nice story and and regarding about the situations you encountered you are definitely showing the meaning of being Lucky, by the way thanks for following and looking forward to your future posts ^_^