Home By Marquel Cleared for Takeoff?

Cleared for Takeoff?

[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqtNxNRCcGg[/embedyt]Marquel, TPVs NYTimes Impossible Odds Section correspondent, was watching airplanes land at JFK waiting for his personal jet to take off for Kuala Lampur, when he read 2014 Proves a Grim Year in Malaysian Aviation.Should no survivors be found aboard the missing AirAsia flight, Malaysian carriers, or their subsidiaries, will have been involved in the world’s three deadliest aviation disasters this year. Like almost a thousand dead passengers. Seven hundred something more or less, to be inexact.
 “It almost makes no difference now,” said a spokesperson. “That’s almost three quarters of our passenger base. There are actually few people left in Malaysia who want to go anywhere. They’re all…expired.”
It was true. Marquel looked around the airport in Kuala Lumpur and there were few people around. There was a Starbucks but it was empty. I went in and asked.
“All our customers are…passed,” said a barista.”I miss them so badly. But it’s everybody so even if they rebuild the airline it won’t matter. All the flying public is at the bottom of the Pacific.”
I went over to the tower and they were good enough to let me in. “How is this possible?” I asked.
“The air here is different. Theoretically it’s impossible to fly in Malaysian airspace. We’ve been lucky for several decades. But if you go over to the runway…. Oh wait here’s one trying to take off right now.” Said an air controller, pointing towards the runway.
 A small trainer aircraft was speeding down the runway and then suddenly screeched to a halt fifty meters from the end.
“Physicists have studied it here at the University. It’s almost impossible to generate lift here. Look there’s another pilot trying to get airborne.” He said.
I watched as a twin engined propeller plane did exactly what the trainer had previously done. It looked like it was flying, but it never broke free of the tarmac and had to brake to a sudden stop to avoid crashing.
“My God,” I said, “how do they manage to get airborne?”
“Our numbers indicate that three out of four attempts have to be aborted. Malaysian pilots are used to trying three four or five times before they get airborne. The passengers too. I should say the late passengers. We have very few potential customers any more.”
I know,” I said, “they told me in Starbucks.”
The controllers raised their eyebrows at that but said nothing.
“So the crashes ..How do you explain them?” I asked.
“We think we know. You really can’t fly here. The planes that get off the ground are lucky and as long as they keep flying away from here they’re all right, generally. But it’s the air. It’s unflyable. Occasionally the air mass may shift, to the west or east, and vertically a few thousand or more meters. A jet flying into that will react just like the two planes you just saw trying to get airborne. They literally fall out of the sky.”
 “That’s crazy,” I said. “How did my plane land here?”
“Rough landing, right?” He asked.
 “I’ll say,” I said, remembering the two tires that blew out in the toughest landing I’d ever experienced.
“Well, we usually keep them at altitude until one of these little planes takes off successfully. That means the air has changed. We clear everybody to land at the same time, and unless the air changes again too quickly, we have a good day.” He said.
 I was astonished. Unflyable air. I’d never heard of it. But the next day it proved true. Our Airbus out had to attempt three times before we finally became airborne the fourth time around. I was the only scared passenger.
I was the only passenger. I don’t think I’m returning soon.
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BY MARQUEL: Cleared for Takeoff?

 

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