In flights of intermittent piquancy

The gut is a prophet

My deepest premonitions, I should trust a bit more, for they forestall frustration, disappointment, resentment, and complaint. You can set your expectations to the level where you are accommodating not so much of incompetence or even a residency in cynicism but in the realism of what can obtain when systems are not perfect because the human beings who designed it with all their best efforts and the those who use the system are just not perfect too.

My flight from Manchester to Paris, or in airport code MAN-CDG was early, something I rarely do to punish myself, it was to take off at 6:05 AM, if I had to be at the airport at least 2 hours before, it meant I had to get a cab there from home round 3:00 AM. That whole setting meant; I did not sleep overnight.

Timing without priming

The flight itself took off at 6:25 AM, 20 minutes late and with a stopover in Paris for my connecting flight being 1h25, I was concerned about me getting on that flight from Paris to Cape Town (CDG-CPT) and then of my baggage making it too. There was no time for shopping or lounging, I was straight to the gate in Paris where boarding had begun.

It was to take off at 10:10 AM, but that was delayed until 10:39 AM, meaning my Paris stopover had extended 24 minutes to 1h49. The captain had announced that the reason for our delay was they were expecting baggage, which seemed to allay my fears that my baggage would not make it, how wrong I was.

A flight in slight

On the MAN-CDG leg, the Airbus 320 had on-board Wi-Fi which I used to communicate with friends and I was expecting that same service on the CDG-CPT leg, which when I bought the flight ticket was supposed to be a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, but we ended up on a Boeing 777-328(ER), the seating configuration completely different from when I booked a seat, it was a 2-3-2 seating plan instead of a 1-2-1, though seats were occupied as if in a 1-2-1 configuration.

There was no Wi-Fi for that 10h40 journey apart from the seating being a bit cramped, yet from my reading of the flight details, it has only been in service for 5 years. Having a spare seat beside you is quite different from having a wider space to occupy, my 6-foot frame I had to pull up as my seat did not fully recline as would have been the case on the originally designated flight and my long feet always scratched the top of the foot compartment. I made myself as comfortable as I could.

To places from above

The most I do out of in-flight entertainment is listen to music, I am more fascinated by the interactive maps that I have in constant view except when it is switched off because I have fallen asleep. I was surprised that we took a southwestern bearing from Paris towards the border with Spain flying over the majestic Pyrenes which are always a wonder to behold especially in the winter.

We left Spain, just by Valencia over the Mediterranean Sea into another beautiful mountain range, the adoring folds of topology are a sight to behold from above. We did not fly over it, Mascara was to the west, it is not etymologically related to cosmetic mascara which has an Italian origin. Then the flight path took into northeast Mali, pinching the southwest of Niger and then northeast of Burkina Faso before flying the length of the Benin Republic and exiting the African landmass into the Gulf of Guinea at Porto Novo.

Flightpath from Paris to Cape Town.

The person of my baggage

The greater length of the flight was over water until South Africa and the approach to land at Cape Town. The aircrew was extremely pleasant and nice with a genial and warm disposition. I caught about 5 hours of sleep combined as it was a daytime flight, after an early lunch, we pulled down the blinds to darken the interior and caught as much kip as we could. I usually change into my pyjamas for these long-haul flights, you shouldn’t be sleeping in a suit, and I always wear compression socks.

On arrival in Cape Town, we filled in passenger tracking forms and showed my Fitness to Travel (PCR test) certificate and made it through passport control to pick up my baggage at carousel 2. That was when we learnt that more than half the baggage that should have been on our flight had been left in Paris. I think I should get an additional set of air miles for the journey of the baggage which I have been able to ascertain took the route CDG-AMS-CPT and might have arrived late on Saturday night for my collection, sometime on Sunday.

Thought Picnic: Plain Clouding My Judgement

Plane clouds

It still remains a mystery much as it is supported by good science how we put mechanical birds in the sky, the way we harness the invisibility of air for fantastic motion faster than transport on land, in water or on water.

Like I noticed years ago, as we reside in the daytime under the gloominess of the weather brought on by clouds, beyond those clouds, the sun glows, albeit unable to penetrate the cloud cover that brings the rain and more.

So, we rose beyond the judder of the lower clouds to be bathed in rays of sunshine, whilst looking out of my window, as I seem to prefer window seats, to the horizon was a sea of levelled tranquillity as if we were on white sands of a desert far from civilisation, but we were just 10 miles up.

All shook up

Then just about 150 miles into our journey, we hit turbulence, quite violent turbulence that the plane shook, rising and falling like we were at rough seas.

The left wing was both rigid and flexible, it almost flapped to my sight that I had to calm myself, with great difficulty. The captain then announced that below us were severe thunderstorms, none of which we could see apart from knowing that the wind in which we flew churned that the pilot’s grip on the joystick was probably firmer than usual.

One piece of advice he gave was apart from keeping our seat belts on, we should keep our seats upright and face forwards because this will reduce the psychological effects of flying through turbulence, it worked for as long as I kept my eyes away from the window.

Suddenly and there

No sooner had he said that, we hit an air-pocket and the sudden dip of the plane had a few drinks hit the luggage compartment above – I was half expecting it, it was probably just 200 metres, like one had just taken a bungee jump – scary stuff.

After a good 30 minutes of this rollicking ride, things calmed down, clouds cleared up, the descent began and all that was left was the applause that came from a few as we landed. We were in sunny Berlin.

The empires of the clouds

Veering due to light

We are flying due south veering a bit to the right and through the castles in the sky, the monuments of aerated vaporification that would put architectures of renown to shame, the lights barge in flooding our sights to blindness from the left, ample proof that the sun does rise in the East.

Looking through the windows to the West these edifices of life forms we are yet to communicate with are as we look beyond them to some distant interstellar sister of our earth, their waste is rained upon us the sewers whilst we think our sewerage is the only exhaust for the unwanted on earth.

The empires war with each other and as they clash, we see lightning, new kingdoms are formed and rulers hailed with roars of adulation but we hear thunder.

Whether it is weather

Their Greco-Roman wrestling, the sport of gods – the stamping and rolling around on the ground are tornadoes with the maddest of our species chasing after them a thrill that might breed tragedy if a foot fell out of the circle.

The season of banquets rarely occur on land for there are no halls large enough for the feasts, in the East and the West, our Pacific which is rarely at peace and our Atlantic in which is buried that Utopian city, their tables are so laden with food and we see depressions.

The party starts small and it grows into a frenzy of wanton debauchery and reckless abandon, drink being guzzled faster than a whale fish could fill its mouth, we cannot call them to order, they are rotten neighbours that the council dare not threaten, at their mercy we give them names and one party called Katrina was probably the Golden Jubilee but our sewers and drainage failed for woefully.

Our place and places

We are junior partners on this landscape and yet our birds of fuel can cut through them we feeling turbulence and they probably grabbing on the clothes we just pulled off the clothes line in their gardens. Thankfully, their pegs are so inferior to ours but every once in while the story plays back about the maid that was in the garden hanging up the clothes and whose black bird pecked off her nose?

Clouds, a wonder, vapours we never fully appreciate and no, I do not have a window seat, I have been bettered, the lady in my three-seater aisle bought off the middle seat for space and that was not because she had girth, from all points of observation, I am probably bigger.

Changing pictures of news

More analysis than fact

Developments from yesterday’s news stories about Nigeria have been myriad. When the last dispatch came through, the crash site was in another location with the possibility of over half of the passengers being survivors.

By which time, credit was being paid to the kind of pilot skill that allows for there to be survivors from a plane crash.

At the same time, on hearing the news of the death of the president’s wife in Spain from the complications of an undisclosed surgery, speculation became rife about why it was in Spain and for what ‘ailment’ in particular.

Crashing close seeking further

Looking at the facts of both events, if the plane was lost from radar 3 minutes after take-off and the Boeing 737 has a cruising speed that ranges from an economical 796km/h to a maximum cruising speed of 943km/h then the plane would have been between 39 to 47km away from Lagos as the crow flies, putting it some 100 km or more South of the initially suggested crash site.

Where the idea of survivors came from one cannot tell, but it appears that it was hope against adversity to help fill the gap between actual event and getting the real facts – a rather cynical ploy of rumour mongering for nobody’s benefit than the responsible agencies that should have shown more competence.

Now, it appears the plane crashed at speed creating a deep crater and leaving no survivors. We await evidence from the flight recorders if they are ever found to reveal the truth of those circumstances.

Heart Surgery is not a Marbellan speciality

On the case of the death of the “First Lady”, the puzzle with all deference to Spanish medicine and their health care system is why any rich Nigerian would go for surgery in the coastal resort of Marbella.

Germany, the United States or the United Kingdom seem to be the usual choices.

A simple search on Google with the words Marbella and Surgery can be rather revealing. If the death certificate reads, “Death by misadventure”, well, many things do carry the risk of death.

The speculation however gathers around augmentation rather than therapeutic – a new YOU in death really does not make good reading.

I suppose the reasons for surgery would remain undisclosed.

References

Airliners.net: Boeing 737-100/200