I had my second-most terrifying mid-air emergency experience on one of these in December 1989, returning from what had been my second trip to Central America.
Shortly after take-off there occurred what the captain described as a “full hydraulics failure”, which means that all the bits meant to move on the exterior of the plane, flaps and so on, weren’t really moving.
We were over the Atlantic, quite deep into darkness. We spent maybe forty minutes dumping fuel. All the while the air-frame groaned and our passage was anything but smooth. It was not an especially full flight, but everyone I could see around me was kind of frozen in their thoughts.
Coming back into Miami it became clear that the pilot could not tell if his landing gear was down, so we made two low passes beside the control tower, so that the personnel inside could determine if a safe landing would be possible.
It was.
We were then deposited by the same gate and told to await further updates, which we did, for hours, into the early hours in fact. The consistent message was that the status of our DC-10 was being reviewed, but of course absolutely nobody desired to get back on it.
Just when it seemed that we would be spending the entire night there, a threshold was passed, that of the hours any crew might be permitted to operate, and so at last we were collected and deposited into fairly awful ‘hotels’ close to the airport.
The next morning the plane remained doggedly un-fly-able. I was duly transferred onto a Pan Am flight to London, which would turn out to be the last time I was a passenger on that illustrious airline.
One year earlier I had missed the Lockerbie flight by one day. The rest of the Syracuse University contingent had been on my flight.
Much sex was had in the rear toilets.
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