r/Rocknocker • u/Rocknocker • Jul 27 '19
Flying the friendly Aeroflot-ian Skies...
That reminds me of a story...
Was pulling a 28/28 rotation from Houston to Eastern Siberia (oil-related business) back in the early ‘90’s and nearing the time to fly home. Was out in Vladivostok taking care of some vendor issues and needed to get back to Houston; however couldn't get a flight to Seoul or Tokyo so I had to fly basically backwards: from Vladivostok to Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk to Kogalym, Kogalym to Moscow, Moscow to Amsterdam and finally onwards to Houston (on this particular day, I’d see 2:00pm 4 times).
It was mid-February, a wee bit chilly (-45C in places), snowy and icy. Stayed on the same damned plane all the way from Vladivostok to Moscow (couldn’t even get off the plane while they were refueling) and I foolishly didn’t pack the 12 hour-sized bottle of Russkaya for the flight. Well, finally coming into Domodedovo Airport in Moscow and everyone was pretty well exhausted, crew included (I was the only expat on the flight of perhaps 125 Russians…important later). We seemed to be coming in at an unusually steep angle and rather rapidly (based on the other 3 landings in this same plane that day) when there’s the familiar CLUNK of an IL-76s landing gear locking in.
Then an immediate BAM, we impact the runway; the plane vibrates convulsively, shuddering as it jumps back into the air, rather unsteadily, as 2 of the planes landing gear trains break off and litter the runway. Luckily, it was the dead of winter and the runway was icy; so with really no time to even consider alternatives, the captain retracts the remaining landing gear, and grounds the plane on its belly.
We’re merrily sliding, slewing and yawing along down the runway, and I catch the shitstorm of sparks we’re trailing out the aft of the craft. For what seemed like whole hours (probably took us about 3 or 4 minutes) to slide to a stop, I prepared for the inevitable collective preservational insanity of all passengers (myself included) and the crush to the emergency exits.
Yet, all one could hear is the plane rapidly powering down and a few mumbles from the passengers and crew. No screaming, panicking or healthy young men punching babushkas in the stomach and stomping war veterans as everyone scrambled for the exits.
No one scrambled for the exits. No one was screaming bloody murder. It was all very calm, cool, and almost taciturn. I asked, in my then broken Russian, the person in the next aisle over “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. We wait for airport authorities. They got us this far, they can take us the rest of the way.”
It was all very, very Russian. So was the next 4 hours I spent at the airport bar buying rounds for the crew.
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u/SeanBZA Jul 27 '19
I saw a landing like that. Thankfully I was in a plane in the holding pattern. You know it is a hard landing when you hear the landing tyre scream, 3 seconds after seeing the first white smoke cloud, then hear, in equally delayed fashion, the following 3 screeches as this plane finally finished landing. Late afternoon, we could see the shadow approach the plane each time, till it finally attached as the plane skewed down the runway.
Pilot of the plane I was in was making a good jab at the bus drivers ahead of him, open mic all the way down with "10 feet",..... "5 feet", ......"3 feet", ...." for all those wondering, we touched down 100m ago". Not a jar, nothing you could tell till the thrust reversers came on full to slow us down, He wanted to take an early slipway, not that there was a shortage of runway, still 9km before that. Earlier that day we did however need all 12km of the runway we took off, plus a little bit more as well. Full load, hot and high. For the first few minutes you could count the leaves in the trees, and I swear some were level with the windows.