An easy escape from Beijing and a
5:48 flight over the Himalayas saw us arrive in Delhi early on day 12 the bikes
were quickly off and received a blessing and garland of flowers before leaving
to find the petrol station, the primary aircraft arrived and it was a race to
get everyone off get the aircraft closed up and get to the Hotel,
we arrived
just before 10:00 and managed to see the relay depart on the day’s activities
before heading off to bed where I slept soundly until the alarm went off at
16:00. We left the hotel at 18:00 just as the relay staff members were arriving
after at the end of the day we arrived at the airport by 19:00 and everything
was looking good until about 90 minutes before departure we received a message
saying that we had no valid overflight permission for Saudi Arabia. We knew
that we did have a permit so we asked if we could visit the ATC unit t discuss
it with them. We arrived in the ATC unit about 10 minutes later and we were
advised that the flight plan had been rejected by the Saudi Arabian authorities
as they did not accept our permit number as being valid. The experienced rep
from the airline suggested that we should set off anyway and that it should be
resolved once we were in the air, after all we had a valid permit number. I
asked the Delhi ATC unit if they would let us leave as most units would not,
they agreed we could set off so with everyone on board and totally unaware of
the issue we departed on time.
I spent most of the flight on the flight deck
trying, and failing, to make the satellite phone work. The flight crew were
communicating with their own operations trying to see if the issue had been
resolved. As we started to fly down the Gulf and were transferred to Omani ATC
we received our first request for our Saudi overflight permit number, we told
them to standby, this continued as we were transferred to Bahrain ATC. The
first couple of requests we played the standby trick before a final request
from Bahrain telling us that we would be denied entry into Saudi Airspace and
would have to divert if we did not provide a valid permit number, at this point
we gave our “invalid” permit number, the Air Traffic controller asked us to
standby and a few moments later cleared us to enter Saudi Airspace... when we
were transferred to the Saudi controller he asked us if we were carrying the
Olympic flame to which we replied that we were the support aircraft and the
flame carrier was a couple of hours behind us. I remained in the flight deck
for the rest of the flight and occupied myself by looking at the Jepperson
arrival plates and to my horror they were showing Cairo as having a different
local time than our documents. This would have been a critical issue as it
would have meant the primary plane would be arriving an hour early and well
before the arrival party, as we were transferred to Cairo ATC our first call
was “what’s the time” and our second call was “where are the pyramids” (the
passengers were hoping for a view of them on approach) I leaned across to the
captain and said “tourist!!!”
On arrival everything went OK
apart from the fact that we were parked in a totally different place than had
been agreed. The main aircraft landed and after everyone had left the crew n
the other aircraft told us the part of the over flight permit story that we
were unaware of. Our over flight permit
number was issued for both transits of Saudi Arabia, the westbound from Athens
to Colombo to Australia and the eastbound from Delhi to Cairo. It appears that
the permit had been cancelled as used after the first transit and therefore not
in the system for the second, I was told that they had continued to work behind
the scenes to resolve this after we had departed. The Saudi Arabian authorities
and confirmed they planned to deny us entry so the ambassador of the flame
called the Greek Ambassador in Saudi Arabia who in turn called the Saudi
Foreign ministry who in turn called the Saudi Aviation minister. They were told
there was nothing that could be done. I understand a message was sent back down
this channel to the effect of “if this plane gets diverted then the Saudi
Arabian team will have to walk to the Olympics as they won’t get a permit to
fly to Athens” this seemed to do the trick and all of the sudden our permit was
OK again.... just as we were approaching Saudi airspace, this was the closest
we came to the arrangements failing on the entire event. The layover in Cairo was only going to be 12
hours long and, this being the first location since Korea where a visa was not
required for entry, there were a number of technical teams on hand to service
the aircraft including repairs to the decals. As a result we decided to stay
with the aircraft for the day and not go to a hotel. To make sure that we did not
have a delay we refuelled the aircraft for the leg to Cape Town this was later
to prove an issue. By 15:00 we were, given the humidity, very sweaty and
looking to get a shower five of us decided to go to the hotel on the airport
and see if we could get a room. The immigration staff just waived us through
and when we go to the hotel we asked for a room for an hour, given that we were
five males with no baggage we received an odd look and were directed to the
concierge desk. The man behind the desk there gave us a knowing look and told
us what the price would be; “it must be in cash” we were told. We agreed this so long as we could have some
extra towels, “I will arrange it” he said giving us a room key for which it was
quite apparent there would be no bill ever issued. On arrival the room turned
out to be a smallish double and getting the five of us into it was a bit of a
squeeze, when the towels arrived one of us had already showered the second
person was just coming out of the shower and the third was just getting ready
to go in. I have no idea what the porter thought about so many half naked men
in the room but he did not linger for a tip! When we arrived back at the
airport I had my first blow up of the trip and totally lost my cool with the
immigration men, they demanded to see our passports and made it clear they were
looking for a financial inducement to allow us back out to the aircraft, I was
not going to give in on this. I told them they could not refuse to let us out
because technically they had not let us in, at this point the other four people
I was with sat down to observe as it was going to take a long time to fix, the
resultant row lasted about 30 minutes and included me ringing the major general
demanding that his officials let us out of the country, it was not pretty. In
the end we were thrown out of the air conditioned immigration hall onto the
ramp and the door was locked behind us. With the passengers and crew back to
the airport we were ready for the departure and as part of the pre departure
checks the flight engineer opened the fuel overflow valves at which point we
realised that the fuel had expanded during the heat of the day. In the end 5
tonnes of fuel was discharged through the overflow valves onto the apron and
the aircraft and passengers and me were sitting in a lake of aviation fuel,
this was a big issue and the airport operations and fire brigade were all in
attendance, there was lots of arm waiving going on when one of the passengers
came up to me and asked if it would be OK to smoke during the delay, I felt it
was best to decline. In the end we departed 90 minutes late and only 30 minutes
in front of the primary aircraft, I was glad Cairo was behind me. The leg to
from Cairo to Cape Town was seven and a half hours long and I did not get much
sleep as I was wired from the day, my the time we touched down in Cape Town I
had not seen a bed for 40 hours and had had about 4 hours sleep, I was a little
tired. Cape Town was another quick stop this time it was planned for 12 hours.
We managed to get everyone away from the airport thanks to the efficiencies of
the airport authorities and handlers. We had just put the aircraft to bed and
were in a taxi on the way to the hotel for some much needed rest when my phone
rang I answered it be greeted to one of the most memorable lines I have ever
had..... Do you want to meet Nelson Mandela? Did I ever!!!! I was told to be at
the Robben Island ferry terminal in 20 minutes with full ID and relay uniform.
Having
checked into the hotel and run to the ferry terminal in record time we made it
by 2 minutes, it was quite obvious that we were interlopers as everyone else
had a number of cameras and huge lenses, we had substantially smaller ones.
After about 20 minutes we arrived on the island and a bus transported us to the
prison yard where we joined the press pool.
After about 15 minutes he walked
into the yard to be presented with the torch, it was clear that he was having
difficulties walking but also, as he spoke, that his mind was a sharp as ever.
The other thing that I noticed, for the first and only time in my life, I felt
the charisma of an individual. There was a noticeable presence around Nelson
Mandela that I cannot explain but speaking to others later they all felt the
same. After the presentation several people posed for pictures with him but
conscious that I was not supposed to be there I stood back. 30 minutes later we
had to be back at the docks for the boat back and there I saw something for the
first time that is now common place. One of the photographers had downloaded
the pictures from his camera to the laptop cut the picture and e-mailed it to
his picture editor, by the time I had got back to the hotel 15 minutes later
the picture was on the BBC website. It seems less amazing now but at the time I
could not believe what I was seeing, it seemed extraordinary. Once back in the
Hotel I only had 3 hours until I needed to be back at the airport for the
departure and having not seen a bed for the best part of 40 hours I passed out
on the bed. I awoke later to a scream and opened my eyes to see a woman in my
room my sleepy response was also to shout at which point she ran away. As far
as I can make out she was the “turn down” woman and thought she had found a
dead body which then proceeded to shout at her, anyway the room was not turned
down for the rest of my stay.
No comments:
Post a Comment