Ep 18 Caught Short In Niger
[00:00:00] Enid Otun: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the next episode of, if women were meant to fly, the sky would be pink, Caught short in Niger. I'm Enid Otun. In this episode, more encounters and emergencies, as I near senior first officer promotion. I get the opportunity to join a ferry crew, bringing  our HS 125 aircraft back from the UK, and I am faced with a terrified student at the Lagos flying club.
[00:00:58] It had been decided that we [00:01:00] celebrate the reopening of the Lagos flying club, by inviting club members, plus their family and friends for a party complete with a barbecue. It had been a good weekend and we'd had a great turnout. We had also been approached during the week to take part in the first Lagos flight show, which would be held at the international airport.
[00:01:22] It was meant to represent the growth of aviation in the country. So as well as the flight school in Zaria being invited, we were so asked to show our training aircraft off in a fly by, over the airports main international runway. There would be various flight demonstrations by some of the commercial companies and a static line of parked aircraft for a number of dignitaries to inspect. 
[00:01:45] I thought it would be fun to raffle off the passenger seat, to allow someone to fly with me and experience the thrill of an official event. We pulled the entries out of a hat. Well, not so much a hat, as an old oil drainage [00:02:00] can, yuck. The winner turned out to be a young student who had just begun lessons at the club and was showing promise.
[00:02:08] This lucky young man would be accompanying me the next week from Magbon airfield to the Lagos international airport, where we would perform a fly past at 1215 on the Sunday, followed by a meet and greet with guests on the ground. 
[00:02:22] It started out so well, I had planned our fly past down to the last minute, and everything had gone according to plan, up until we taxied out at magbon for takeoff. I had decided to do the flypast from the right hand seat, where I normally sat as an instructor, so that my student could use this as a free lesson. The weather unfortunately had been threatening all morning and we had low cloud and strong winds in the area.  
[00:02:49] As we took off, it became evident that this would be a bumpy ride. My student started to look a little bit off color at about 2000 feet, halfway [00:03:00] there. In fairness, the turbulence that day would have made anyone not used to it, quite sick. I passed him an air sickness bag from my case in the back ,whilst  holding on to a ferociously rocking aircraft.
[00:03:14] As I passed him the bag, he grabbed my arm and didn't let go, in spite of my gentle persuasion to do so. So now I had a sick, frightened, and now frozen student, and only one arm left, to not only control the aircraft, but to complete an upcoming fly past at the same time. An  instructor many years ago, had told me that he always carried a small baby baseball bat, just in case any of his students freaked out and froze on the controls.
[00:03:46] He had good reason to do so as it had actually happened to him and he had come perilously close to losing the aircraft. He was determined that it would never happen again. The baby baseball bat was chosen because it was [00:04:00] smaller than the normal version, yet it  still packed a punch if you hit someone with it.
[00:04:05] The idea was, that if a student froze on the controls, you needed to strike his knuckles, which usually resulted in a release response, thereby allowing you to regain control of the aircraft and the situation. Now, whilst I had given it some thought, the only thing I had to hand in the aircraft were a set of metal chocks, which were used to slide up against the aircraft wheels on the ground to keep it from moving, in addition to the parking brake. 
[00:04:32] Two things prevented this course of action. One was, I couldn't reach back without letting go of the aircraft, which would have been poor airmanship. And secondly, being thrown around the sky would probably have resulted in me, hitting him harder than was absolutely necessary, and that might not have ended well.
[00:04:52] So I was stuck. Somehow, I had to fly the aircraft, managing the throttle and everything else, with the one hand I had available. [00:05:00] As we were cleared to approach the runway for our fly past, he suddenly let go of my arm as he caught sight of the spectacle of planes and seated dignitaries coming into view below us.
[00:05:10] Now this at least gave me the chance to set the aircraft up for our low fly past, using all available limbs. Phew. As we climbed away and entered the pattern for landing, he was unusually subdued. Once on the ground, I gave him a stern talking to about endangering us both and using this episode as a learning experience in what not to do. I did however, cut him some slack, his first exposure to turbulence in a small aircraft can be a shock to the system.
[00:05:41] Back on duty in the commercial world, I had my head down building the hours towards my senior first officer promotion. I could hardly believe it was within my grasp,  it seemed like such a huge responsibility and step up. But everyone around me seemed to think I would soon achieve it.
[00:05:57] One of my five check flights was with our chief [00:06:00] pilot, and on that day we had been rostered for a special Lagos - Port Harcourt - Lagos flight. Now. My job was to fly both sectors under supervision. To show my capabilities and decision making skills. Outbound from Lagos, all went according to plan, and we even picked up some time putting us into destination ahead of schedule.
[00:06:22] Now, shell always liked it when we were early. As it happened, we were also able to depart earlier than scheduled back to Lagos. And as I negotiated our start time with air traffic control, we were also going to be able to sneak in ahead of the weather, which was deteriorating
[00:06:53] Once airborne, I constantly checked weather updates with air  traffic control and our operations [00:07:00] department. It wasn't looking good, and the storms had moved faster than first thought. At about 80 miles out from Lagos,  I had a decision to make as to whether to continue on and hold North of Lagos, or divert to my chosen alternate airport.
[00:07:16] I was under a little bit of pressure as my captain would not be making the decision for me. This was all about my march to a future command, and whether I was able to show the aptitude needed. I decided to press on if the weather worsened and we were unable to carry out an approach, I would still have enough fuel to hold for 40 minutes and then divert to Ilorin airport, which was my chosen alternate.
[00:07:40] As we descended and prepared for the approach,  air traffic control cleared us for the ILS approach to the international runway 19R. Now the ILS is an instrument landing system, and it's defined as a precision runway approach aid based on two radio beams, which together provide pilots with both [00:08:00] vertical and horizontal guidance during an approach to land.
[00:08:04] Unfortunately had been a while since I'd flown this particular one, but now was as good a time as any. The storm was clearing to the west of the airport, but it still packed a punch with a lot of rain. In fact, I had never seen so much rain in my life .With the aircraft setup, I careened down the approach trying to keep on the glide slope, which gave me vertical guidance and the localizer which gave me the azimuth guidance and it looks kind of like a plus sign on the instruments. It was a wild ride, but as I flared for landing and the captain took over to taxi in, I felt I'd done my very best. I'd been too focused and too busy to worry about whether I was nervous or not.  Instinct had taken over, and I felt that that was a good sign.
[00:08:48] The feedback at my debriefing was good, with an acknowledgement that the weather conditions had made the flight particularly testing, and resulted in yet another sign off towards my goal, which felt [00:09:00] fantastic.  Around the same time, I was given the opportunity to join a ferry crew, bringing our Hawker Siddeley 125 aircraft back from London Gatwick for a short spell of duty in Nigeria.
[00:09:12] This I saw as a great honor. For a start, it would put me back in Red Hill where I'd done all my initial training with the company, and an opportunity to meet up with my instructors. We were to fly out to London, commercially, pick up the aircraft at Gatwick, and return via  Tamanrasset in Algeria. 
[00:09:31] All my flying life. I had wanted an opportunity to pack light for trips such as these, but I always overdid it and packed far too much. My family will tell you, I have most definitely perfected this art now, and I'm extremely judgmental of their flagrant over packing because they need 'clothing options' on short trips. Outrageous. 
[00:09:53] Anyway, on this occasion, due to luggage restrictions on the return journey, as we were bringing spare parts back as [00:10:00] well,I had no choice. I packed three sets of uniform as well as essentials into one bag and was good to go. Or so I thought .The journey outbound was fine. We had one night stop in Red Hill and then it was on to collect the aircraft.
[00:10:16] I was fascinated by this aircraft type, as it was used quite extensively in those days for executive travel. The HS 125, to give it its shortened abbreviated name was a twin jet, which is a midsize business jet carrying seven to eight passengers manufactured by de Havilland, which incidentally is the same company that manufactured the Twin Otter, my most favorite plane ever, then Hawker Siddeley to 1977, hence the name, followed by British Aerospace between 1977 to 1993. Then by Raytheon from 93 to 2007, and finally by Hawker beechcraft between 2007 to 2013. [00:11:00] We, duly picked up the aircraft at London, Gatwick and prepared it for its ferry, back to Lagos.
[00:11:05] The aircraft was full to the gills with parts and crew. There were five of us in total ,4 crew and a dependent, the wife of one of our captains. We stowed everything, fueled and completed all the paperwork. The two captains took their seats for the first leg, whilst the remaining captain and myself who were to act as relief crew squeezed into the aircraft, and we started the long journey home. 
[00:11:30] The flight out towards North Africa was uneventful. In fact, the weather was clear with unlimited visibility. And when we finally started our approach into Tamanrasset, we were relieved to be able to stretch our legs. Now I made the mistake of attempting to find the ladies whilst we were on the ground, and was directed basically to a number of holes in the ground, which was way out of my comfort zone. But with a little coaxing, I eventually relented and tried not to fall in.  Ugh. [00:12:00] Anyway, refueled, flight plan filed, and it was my turn up the pointy end with the training captain. Up at flight level 380, it was  smooth, and the greatest vantage point to soar high over the Sahara desert.
[00:12:14] We were in touch with our operations department by high-frequency HF radio, to make sure that we had customs arranged for our arrival. Then the message came through that Nigerias borders were shut. With very little information filtering through, it transpired that a coup had taken place, but no one knew if it had been successful.
[00:12:35] It was often difficult to tell in the early stages of one, who was actually in charge and if they would remain so. I'd been through them before. So, it was decided that we would have to divert to wait for the borders to open, whenever that would be. It was decided to divert to Niamey in Niger, which shares a Southern border with Nigeria.
[00:12:57] Unfortunately, with the uncertainty, [00:13:00] we could have a long way wait for entry. We were taken to a hotel in the Capital where we got some much needed rest. The next morning, we assembled to see if the situation had changed and await more information from our operations team. Unfortunately, that morning I had also made a startling discovery.
[00:13:20] My remaining emergency diversion uniform trousers had shrunk in the wash and were currently perched at the top of my ankles, looking somewhat orphaned from my shoes and socks. Much to my embarrassment, I had been caught short, literally. I attempted a rescue mission by abandoning my belt and forcing the trousers down my hips, which only resulted in a waist vacancy and a now abandoned white shirt, flapping aimlessly in the breeze having been released from its 'tucked in tasks'.
[00:13:56] I looked even more stupid and so resigned [00:14:00] myself to the where's the flood look. Now, this did not escape the attention of my fellow crew members who spent the rest of the journey, making short trouser jokes.  In total, we were stuck in Niamey for four days before we finally received the all clear to return to Lagos.
[00:14:17] Now, I for one could not wait to depart,as I was currently fighting a losing battle with my own trousers, again, having been forced to unpick the hem to claw back an inch or two of much needed length, and then burned the fabric with an iron, on trying to make them look natural. Nevermind the coup, I had some very serious street credit issues, which had to be rectified.
[00:14:39] Our flight to Lagos was approximately two hours and we arrived back into a very tense city. Everyone was on edge. Understandably. We finally cleared customs and immigration, and were allowed to taxi over to our general aviation ramp, but not before the immigration officers had grilled me on whether I was allowed back into the ,country.
[00:15:00] [00:15:00] Now this time I was traveling on my Nigerian passport as I was entitled to, but whilst my colleagues with UK passports were cleared, I was questioned intensely for some unknown reason. I never did find out why. But as Lucy has commented, at least I was able to avoid a crevice search. My relief at arriving back home was short lived as I had yet to walk through the hanger to get to my car suffice to say I suffered at the hands of the engineers who had obviously been briefed on my shortcomings.
[00:15:34] So cruel. 
[00:15:36] Thank you for listening. As always your reviews and comments are very much appreciated. Thank you to Lucy Ashby for the editing of this episode. If you would like to ask a question or make a comment, please do so on our social media sites. We are on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, or send us an email, theskyispinkpilot@gmail.com. 
[00:15:57] That's [00:16:00] theskyispinkpilot@gmail.com. Or you can visit our website www.skyispink.co.uk. 
[00:16:10] In the next episode, I am promoted to Senior First Officer, more fun and games at the Lagos flying club, and I suffer a series of setbacks on a personal level and fight to be exonerated.
[00:16:24] Thank you,and goodbye.