Monday, January 12, 2004
In-flight entertainment?
There is nothing more unsettling than to be waiting for a flight only to hear over the airport's PA system that another plane has been struck by lightning whilst landing. Pilot and airplane veteran, Lembit Opik, assured us that this should not cause a problem as planes are designed to dissipate such impacts. Nevertheless, visions of all those disaster movies, where a plane is downed after a lightning strike severs a wing or destroys an engine, flashed through my mind. As though us passengers were not nervous enough after this news the Captain announced before departure that due to low pressure the journey from Edinburgh to Cardiff would be very bumpy. However, "there would be some sustained periods of smooth flying". I didn't believe him when he then went on to tell us that there had been a tornado in the Bristol Channel but it seems that it was true. For once we all paid particular attention to the safety demonstration.
