Tuesday 13 March 2012

Thursday, March 8th, Day 4

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it. -John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704) 


Hi Patrice,

I hope you had a pleasant an uneventful trip across the Pacific. Sorry I 
didn't get back to you sooner however we were getting ready to go out of 
town ourselves to Disneyland. We had a fantastic time, the weather was great 
and the crowds were not too bad. We had a bit of a stressful flight back 
from LA though, The plane was about half an hour into it's flight from LA to 
Bellingham when there was a horrendous bang that seemed to emanate from 
right under and beside where Gerry was sitting, this was followed by a bad 
vibration and the plane immediately started descending. Nobody said anything 
for a few minutes but there was many questioning and apprehensive looks 
being shot about between passengers!. The lights in the plane were going on 
and off and we were alternately climbing and descending plane. Finally the 
pilot came on to say that we had experienced some kind of malfunction , they 
had shut the right engine down and we were returning to LAX.

Nobody really knew the scope of the malfunction and people were very upset, 
Maureen even got out a notepad and started writing a will!. The pilot 
obviously had his work cut out for him as he was going between full throttle 
and fully backing off to maintain proper altitude on his approach. We 
finally landed (on all wheels fortunately). I didn't know what to expect and 
had assumed the crash position just in case the landing gear hadn't engaged 
properly and we were doing a belly landing!. Once we stopped and it was 
apparent that we had survived there was a tremendous applause and great 
sighs of relief.

Emergency vehicles with lights flashing surrounded the plane on the runway 
but soon retreated when there were no fires or other problems present. We 
wound up waiting for 6 hours for another plane to come from Bellingham to 
pick us up so we didn't arrive at our door until 6:30 am. but again thankful 
to be arriving unscathed.

I'd like to tell you more but I need to get going on some other things . I 
will tell you more and pass along some pictures when I get a chance.

Take care, Al

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/03/07/2426442/allegiant-flight-from-la-to-bellingham.html


hi Patt,

have I missed you? call me.u free fro dinner Saturday night? jim Crowe




Pat,
    Jim wrote today and asked if you were in HK yet. Hoping to ride with George tomorrow weather permitting.
Ray


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