Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Space-A Warrior Woman reporting yet again, and boy is she ever tired! It's 5:40 a.m. here in Dover, where we just checked into the guest quarters for the "night." Long story short, we caught our C5 out of Kelly this afternoon, and it was fine. The kids thought the C5 was their dream come true, offering a combination of civilian airline seats (OK, so they face backwards and there are no windows, but still!) with tons of leg room and the famous military box lunches.
We spent a few hours on the ground in Dover and then loaded back up to head for Ramstein. We had gotten about an hour away and the kids were each sacked out across a whole row of seats when one of the crew members announced that we were returning to Dover. It seemed fairly low-key at first but then once we got on the ground in Dover, we were treated to a full-scale emergency evacuation. We had to climb down a very long ladder into the cargo hold, race the entire length of the aircraft between piles of cargo, and zip down the stairs at the other end. When we emerged into the cold night air, we were greeted with a fire truck and men in fire protection suits. One of the ground crew said "Wow, 15 years of flying, and I've never seen this before!" (I'm still not sure what "this" he was referring to.) They herded us off to the bus, verified that we were all there (all 15 or so of us), and took us back to the terminal.
We've been there for the past few hours waiting for them to bring our luggage and personal items off the plane. Now, like I said, we're in the guest house on base and will be trying to get on yet another flight tomorrow night. Our original flight has been delayed until Wednesday night, so we hope to get on one of two that are going over tomorrow. Personally, I'd be just as happy not getting on that particular airplane again anyway.
Wish us luck for tomorrow! Nighty-night!!
We spent a few hours on the ground in Dover and then loaded back up to head for Ramstein. We had gotten about an hour away and the kids were each sacked out across a whole row of seats when one of the crew members announced that we were returning to Dover. It seemed fairly low-key at first but then once we got on the ground in Dover, we were treated to a full-scale emergency evacuation. We had to climb down a very long ladder into the cargo hold, race the entire length of the aircraft between piles of cargo, and zip down the stairs at the other end. When we emerged into the cold night air, we were greeted with a fire truck and men in fire protection suits. One of the ground crew said "Wow, 15 years of flying, and I've never seen this before!" (I'm still not sure what "this" he was referring to.) They herded us off to the bus, verified that we were all there (all 15 or so of us), and took us back to the terminal.
We've been there for the past few hours waiting for them to bring our luggage and personal items off the plane. Now, like I said, we're in the guest house on base and will be trying to get on yet another flight tomorrow night. Our original flight has been delayed until Wednesday night, so we hope to get on one of two that are going over tomorrow. Personally, I'd be just as happy not getting on that particular airplane again anyway.
Wish us luck for tomorrow! Nighty-night!!
Comments:
Post a Comment
