Clear Blue Skies Don’t Guarantee a Safe Landing
Parikia, Paros Island, Greece, February 7th, 2020
Salaroche

At this point in my global wanderings, I must have already flown hundreds of thousands of miles. Going to Brazil once, going to China a few times, going to Japan, to South Korea more than once, to Greece four times, to Vietnam three times, to Cambodia twice, to Thailand several times, to Myanmar several times, to Saudi Arabia three times, to Djibouti in East Africa, to Malaysia a couple of times, to France many times, to Spain, to Malta, to Russia a couple of times, to Tajikistan, to Azerbaijan, to Romania, to Costa Rica three times… all those flights plus a few others must certainly have added a sizeable amount of miles to my ongoing trajectory.

But of all those times I have taken off and landed, only twice have I been on flights that had visible difficulties in landing, and both of them were for reasons of bad weather.

The first instance happened a few decades ago as we were flying into San José, the capital of the country of Costa Rica, in Central America. I was on board an airplane owned by TACA, an airline that, at the time, was mostly family-owned by people from the country of El Salvador and now has merged with a larger group called Avianca.

The weather couldn’t have been worse as we were approaching San José airport. To greet us, there were lightnings as part of a heavy rainstorm that kept the plane jumping up and down. The ceiling of visibility was very low and the Captain couldn’t see well into the distance, so we overshot the runway on our first landing attempt and had to abort the effort.

The Captain explained to us over the speakers the bad-weather situation and advised us to stay calm, then circled around the airport and came back to try landing a second time, but we overshot again and had to abort landing once more. At that point the Captain spoke to us again telling us he would have to try an emergency kind of landing, saying we shouldn’t worry because this wouldn’t be the first time he would do such kind of landing.

As you may imagine, inside the airplane cabin there was a complete and total silence. That would be the third time we were trying to land and the weather outside didn’t look reassuring in the least. Through the plane windows we could all see the rain falling heavily outside and the sporadic lightnings flashing in the sky only helped create a spooky feeling in all of us passengers.

So, we circled around the airport once again, but this time we nose-dived close to vertically towards the airport. Then we suddenly and abruptly leveled-up to a horizontal trajectory and a short few seconds later we touched the ground, bouncing a couple of times on the runway before visibly lowering the speed down to a taxying speed.

Everyone inside let out an audible sigh of relief and we all spontaneously applauded loudly. The captain had nose-dived the plane down to an altitude below the thick clouds, so that he could get the clearest possible view of the runway. Then he leveled the plane to a horizontal trajectory and was able to touch down by the beginning of the runway, thereby being able to use the whole length of it.

That was the first time I found myself on a flight that had considerable difficulties landing. The second time happened just some 48 hours ago, as we were flying from the city of Athens, Greece, to the island of Paros, which is part of the Cyclades group of islands, in the Aegean Sea.

I had first flown from Varna, a coastal city in the country of Bulgaria, to Sofia, the capital of that country. Then I had flown from Sofia to Athens via Ryanair, which is an airline I will avoid taking ever again. From there I got on a flight to the island of Paros and it was during that flight that I experienced my second landing problems.

At Venizelos (Athens) airport, on Wednesday, February 5th, at approximately 16:00 hours, a couple of dozens of us boarded an Olympic Air propeller-powered Bombardier Turboprop Dash 8 Q400. The afternoon was clear and blue skies could be seen in all directions, with only a few clouds scattered here and there. Everything looked fine, except for a wind that was blowing a bit hard. I had taken that same flight almost exactly three years ago, so I knew it was a very short one. We were supposed to reach our destination in 30 minutes or so.

Once up in the air the plane was flying in a normal, steady manner, but down below the sea looked a bit troubled, as I could see the white crest of the waves going in different directions. At the airport I had sort-of befriended a few people from France and Belgium who were also going to the island of Paros, so I voiced my observations to Hélène, a young French woman sitting behind me. “There is turbulence below us”, I said, “the waves below are not all going in the same direction, which means the wind is blowing hard, but in random patterns”.

As we were approaching Paros, the Captain warned us that the wind was high around the airport and that we might have some problems landing. We began to descend to the point where I could clearly see the windows of some newly-built apartments facing the sea from the coastal hills of the island. From my window, I could also see the plane’s landing gear already deployed.

Suddenly, the plane’s engines accelerated, the plane began to climb up again and the landing gear was retracted back into the airplane. “We just failed to land”, I said to Hélène, “and we’re climbing back up”.

A short moment later we heard the Captain’s voice over the speakers, first in Greek, then in English, saying the wind was too high around the airport, but we would try landing once again. However, he said that if our second attempt failed, we would have to fly back to Athens.

In my perception, the second attempt was less successful than the first, as we didn’t even get to fly as low as we did the first time. As a result, we flew back to Athens where we had to spend the night. The small Paros airport is not equipped to allow for night flights to land, so there was no chance of trying to fly back to the island the same day.

At this point I have to say I don’t have anything but praise for Olympic Air. The people in charge gave us very clear and concise instructions as to where to look for information once we got back to Athens and at the information counter at the airport, they again gave us very clear information pertaining to our rescheduled flight for the following day and our lodging for that night.

The airline took charge of our accommodations at a nearby Holyday Inn, including transportation to and from the hotel, as well as dinner and breakfast, at no cost at all to the passengers. The rooms they gave us looked like four-stars class too.

The following day, Thursday, February 6th, at around 10:00 am, we boarded again the same kind of aircraft and we flew down to Paros island under very clear, sunny skies. This time, however, I could clearly see from my window that the sea down below was calm, as there were no white-foam crests riding on top of the waves.

The landing at Paros airport was very well done, although certainly not as impressive as the landing we did when flying from Varna to Sofia, where the moment the plane wheels touched the ground was totally imperceptible, to the point that, when exiting the plane, I asked one of the cabin crew guys to please give the Captain my congratulations. I had experienced such kind of perfect landing only once before in my life, during one of the many times I’ve landed at Bangkok airport in Thailand, coming from Yangon, Myanmar. That time, the landing was perfectly unnoticeable.

Once on the ground in Paros, as I was walking out the exit gates of the small airport, I immediately recognized Katherina, a Greek lady who owns a small car-rental company in Parikia, the capital of the island. I rented a car from her a couple of times the first time I came to Paros three years ago. During my stay, I would sometimes stop by her office just to say hello to her or to get some information about matters pertaining to the island. She usually goes to the airport every time there’s a flight coming in and stands by the exit gates holding a sign advertising her rental cars.

So, when I saw her standing there by the gate, I just walked towards her and slowly placed myself in front of her. She just looked at me for a couple of seconds and said “George!”, to which I said “Hello!”. Then she said “what are you doing here in Paros?” to which I replied, “well, I just missed you too much and I had to see you again”, and we both laughed a bit. I asked about her son and she said he’s doing OK, so I told her I would come talk to her at her office sometime soon, and we said goodbye.

My French friend Hélène introduced me to Michael, her Greek-Uzbek boyfriend, and they were kind enough to give me a ride down to Parikia, where they dropped me right at the door of my small apartment complex. Michael has interest in the music-recording business, so we agreed to get together sometime soon to exchange our experiences in that field. As I may have mentioned in the past, I still carry a small 8-track recording machine in my suitcase and I still have some professional recording software installed in my computer, which is evidence enough to show that recording music is still an endeavor up my alley.

And so I come to the end of this short story, which only comes to corroborate once more that, as good ol’ Bill Shakespeare used to say, “all’s well that ends well”. From now on, however, I will know for sure that flying under clear blue skies doesn’t always guarantee a safe landing when reaching our destination, particularly when flying on propeller-powered aircraft.

Welcome to Parikia, Paros island, Greece.

Salaroche