Taking off from Heathrow in the morning light of a winter's day, looking out of the window to watch other planes queuing up to leave a cold England.
And then two weeks later on the return flight, circling over Twickenham Stadium before coming into land – the tan already fading as the cabin crew announce the late January weather conditions.
There was a time, decades ago, that I experienced a handful of years were I was riddled with an unexplainable fear of flying. I would sit, tightly buckled in, white knuckles gripping the arm rests, convinced each sound was a ticking towards disaster.
Strangely, the fear stopped after a very troubled flight between Jakarta and Singapore on my way back from one of my stays in N.Z.
It was a stormy night and every seat on the flight was taken, yet there was an eerie silence, with only the hum of laboured engines and thuds of turbulence making noise. There was a sense that something wasn't right, this time everyone felt it...it wasn't just me being unrealistically certain of an imminent crash.
On the approach to Singapore, the pilot announced with a stressed tone in his voice the decision to return to Jakarta. It was a Garuda flight – the national airline of Indonesia – so returning to the capital's airport made financial sense, in terms of the cost for the aeroplane's mooring and the mechanics needed to investigate the plane's malfunction. Financial sense, yes. Safety sense, no.
After a couple of attempts the flight succeeded in landing back in Indonesia's capital, and the tyres were now safely back on tarmac. Heartbeats started to settle, but full recovery was halted because no one was allowed off the plane. Dismay cloaked us all. Passengers clambered and squeezed around the windows and anxiously looked out, hoping to find an idea of what was happening – the portholes misting up as breathing got heavier with increasing fear.
Tropical rain lashed down and bounced off and around the plane's wings. Through the bad light, silhouettes of men in overalls could be seen scrambling about with tools on the wings, ladders and ground. A fleet of vehicles with flashing lights gathered around the plane. This went on for 4 hours before the uncomfortable news that Garuda were going to continue the journey.
The tension in the cabin of the plane was extreme as we rolled to the end of the runway before take-off. The deathly silence was only invaded by the scream of engines being pushed to full throttle. The whole plane rattled at high speed and the wheels left the concrete and hurtled us away from safety.
It became increasingly evident that something was wrong, but still we flew on over the Java Sea towards Singapore. Dread leapt from seat to seat and audible sounds of distress could be heard. We just wanted to land somewhere safely...alive.
Now the pilot made the nervous announcement that we were turning back to Jakarta. Several of the cabin crew started openly praying, families huddled and crying was spreading to every corner. Altitude was noticeably being lost and the jets roared and then fell silent, roared, then fell silent. Falling further toward the sea with each silence. We were so low that faces could be clearly seen on the boats we passed over, their expressions telling the story of this jetliner being in trouble.
Again, landing was not straight forward. Several attempts were needed, each one filled with horror and open wailing as the engines strained to slow us, before screeching with acceleration to abort another try.
Our final landing was with a loud bang as the undercarriage slammed onto the tarmac, overhead storage flew open and luggage fell, screams were drowned by the jets howling as we pelted down the runway, the entire aircraft juddering and thankfully slowing to a final stop.
After this experience I became a bit blasé when it came to flying. I never want it to be repeated, but there was something quite thrilling about it.
