Credits to wikipedia.
British Airways Flight 9 was a scheduled British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Auckland, with stops in Bombay, Madras, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and Melbourne.
The aircraft flew into a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung (approximately 180 kilometres (110 mi) south-east of Jakarta, Indonesia), resulting in the failure of all four engines.
As the flight progressed, smoke began to gather throughout the passenger cabin of the aircraft and it was at first assumed to be cigarette smoke. However, it soon began to grow thicker and had an ominous odour of sulphur. Passengers who had a view out of the aircraft windows noted that the engines were unusually bright with the light shining forward through the fan blades and producing a stroboscopic effect.
At approximately 13:42 UTC (20:42 Jakarta time), engine number four began surging and soon flamed out. The flight crew immediately performed the engine shutdown drill, quickly cutting off fuel supply and arming the fire extinguishers. Less than a minute later, at 13:43 UTC (20:43 Jakarta time), engine two surged and flamed out. Within seconds, and almost simultaneously, engines one and three flamed out prompting the flight engineer to exclaim, "I don't believe it—all four engines have failed!"
Despite the lack of time, Moody the captain made an announcement to the passengers that has been described as "a masterpiece of understatement":
“ Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress. "
lols! Love this statement! :)
Maybe he was in so much of stress or sth, he totally doesn't care about the calmness he has to instill in the passengers on-board. Needless to say, by using the word "damnedest", the courtesy wont be there too.
It is equal to saying...
“Ladies and gentlemen, captain here. We are dying!! Please be prepared."
Many passengers wrote notes to relatives. One such passenger was Charles Capewell who wrote "Ma. In trouble. Plane going down. Will do best for boys. We love you. Sorry. Pa XXX" scrawled on the cover of his ticket wallet.
So cute! Short, optimistic notes. It definitely sounds much better than "I'm dying with our kids. Sorry to leave u all alone in this world..."
Eventually, due to quick decisions & accurate predictions made by the flight crew, the plane did an emergency landing & all the passengers were fine.
The crew received various awards, including the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air and medals from the British Air Line Pilots Association. Following the incident, the crew and passengers formed the Galunggung Gliding Club as a means to keep in contact.
One of the passengers, Betty Tootell, wrote a book about the incident, All Four Engines Have Failed. She managed to trace some 200 of the 247 passengers on the flight, and went on to marry a fellow survivor, James Ferguson, who had been seated in the row in front of her. She notes: "The 28th December 2006 marks the start of our 14th year of honeymoon, and on the 24th June 2007 many passengers and crew will no doubt gather to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our mid-air adventure."
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