Engine Failure
June 15th, 2006
Aliza Nadi, Bahrain
We were sitting on a C-130 in the military airfield in Djibouti ready to head out to our next stop: the 379th Air Expediatiary Wing. The airforce crew had just loaded the palletized luggage and band equipment. And I still hadn’t managed to successfully fasten my seatbelt by myself. These seatbelts are not your average click and fasten seatbelts by the way.
It was seconds before takeoff when one of the crewmembers asked me if I wanted to sit in the cockpit. I jumped at the opportunity and grabbed the camera. It was my second time in the cockpit, but this time it was completely dark except for the green lights emanating from the pilots’ computer screens. I was filming the moon to my left, over the pilot’s shoulder. It looked like we were hovering over it. We were a few thousand feet above Djibouti already. All kinds of numbers, and radar signals in front of me. I didn’t know what any of it meant, but everything was as calm as can be. Or so I thought.
I stepped down from the cockpit after finishing filming, and sat next to Peter, a band member. "I guess you heard the news," he said. "No," I replied, sounding surprised. "We’re turning around. One of the engines died. They’re using the second engine now." Shocked. "I had no clue up there in the cockpit," I told him. Everything was so calm. The pilots were communicating in a language of their own.
I looked out one of the small windows. And there it was. One engine clearly working. The other dead. Its propellers completely stalled thousands of feet in the air. I got it on tape.
Later I found out the pilot had to dump fuel as we were turning around. The plane had to be light enough to make a safe landing.
