Offshore Africa stories

So on this flight when a piece of wing fell off 40 minutes into the flight, it was quite a surprise. They were well over half way through a delightful 20 year old Tormore, when Dave looked out over the wing and surprisingly saw the ground below, thorough a section of the wing, that he was sure was not meant to be transparent, and it was definitely there on takeoff.

Dave didn’t want to cause any unnecessary panic, so he called the steward on the call button overhead.

“Yes sir, anything I can do for you?”

Dave eyed up the bottle of Malt and instantly decided to get a top up before what he imagined would be an interruption on the previous impeccable service …. Once the whiskeys were topped up he beckoned to the steward to look out the window, not easy but there was fair bit more room in between the rows of business class seats.

Dave pointed at the missing section of wing more like a missing panel about 3mx2m inboard of the inside engine on the port side where they were sitting.

“Oh my God, that’s not right, is it?”

“No, Sir, it’s definitely not right, may I suggest you have one of the chaps up front come have a look and then, I guess, we will be landing somewhere soon, I trust?”

The steward moved off at a remarkable pace, “whilst seemingly not going that fast, so years of training not wasted”, Dave thought.

“My bet is we will land at Paris or Toulouse, Dave!”

Moussa was as usual completely unfazed by the situation. Dave surmised he had been through a lot worse than a wee bit of wing falling off mid air during his Odyssey’s in Africa Skies.

“Afternoon, gents, nice day for it ? Do you mind if I have a butcher’s?”

It would seem the crew were in on the “terribly terribly polite upper class buffoonery banter” and the Capt was keeping it going…

Moussa asked, – “Paris or Toulouse?”

The Capt was suddenly abrupt, – “Not going near those buggers, we will be back in Heathrow soon enough, I do apologise for the inconvenience, and thanks for letting us know up the sharp end nothing showed up as amiss up there which is rather good in the scheme of things, don’t ya think?”

“Aye, it sure is, so we will be dumping fuel and going around?”

“Yes, thanks for keeping it all low key, it’s appreciated. I will make the announcements, I believe you are making your way through a nice bottle of Malt, please be assured, you can have anything from the first class menu, it’s on me”, he winked. He moved rapidly “while looking like he wasn’t” up the aisle to deal with the situation. Dave again surmised through his lightly fogged mind. It must be a course they go on?