The headline read, ‘Couple’s Terror as Ryanair Plunges 20,000 Feet.’  Scary no doubt but there was loss of cabin pressure and procedures were followed. There was no danger to passengers or crew. Stuff happens.

Passenger Melvin Frater, travelling between Milan and East Midlands Airport, described the incident: ‘I thought our number was up,’ he told the Daily Mirror.

‘It was quite strange that, unlike the scenes of panic and screaming, which accompany cinema portrayals of such situations, there was initially a real sense of calm and quiet.’

I put this down to the speed and rapid recovery of the situation. In my experience movie producers are not that far off the mark. Mine was an experience neither I nor my fellow passengers wish to repeat.

Flying Murcia San Javier to Liverpool we checked in and in the restrictions of the terminal had not taken too much notice of the weather. We made it to the waiting aircraft’s steps just in time. Those raindrops were thimble-sized and in the gathering dusk the skies looked menacing, to say the least.

The sense of relief in settling into our seats wasn’t going to last very long. Soon after becoming airborne, passengers and crew experienced the weightlessness you get when you are falling without a parachute. That is exactly what we or rather the airliners are doing.

Our airliner was experiencing extreme turbulence. The aircraft had entered a meteorological vacuum. Simply put, there is no air in a vacuum to hold the airline aloft. The effect is the same as being in a lift when the cables snap.

Only the flight’s pilots would know how far the aircraft repeatedly plummeted. To us, it seemed that recovery was unlikely.

Each time the airliner hit a pocket of air an ear-splitting explosion followed; the shock is beyond belief. It was as though some supra-natural Goliath had kicked the aircraft as a footballer would kick a ball.

Air is hard when a weightless falling airliner belly-flops on a pocket of air. When seaplanes land on sea or lake surfaces they do so at less than 70mph; otherwise, the effect is that of landing on concrete.

For what seemed to be twenty minutes our virtually uncontrollable airliner was tossed around the heavens. I would describe it as like being inside a football roughly kicked between players. As a regular flier, I am used to turbulence but this was far from anything I had experienced; other passengers, more experienced agreed.   

Each of those thunderclap explosions was followed by jarring crashes as the falling aircraft met pockets of air. We expected the plane would disintegrate under the force of the repeated shocks. Never doubt the strength of an airliner’s tail and wings but if it is a Boeing airliner – be afraid, be very afraid.

Ours was a terrifying experience but being what I am I couldn’t help but take in passengers’ reactions. I generalise but many of the women were screaming each time the aircraft hit an air pocket and others were weeping.

Children mimicked whoever they were with. The male passengers neither weeper nor screamed. The male passengers were ashen-faced and appeared to freeze in their seats. Most closed their eyes with eyes and jaws clenched tight. Some male passengers tried to soothe their women or children. Otherwise, men gripped their armrests and through clenched teeth prayed. I was one of them. PLEASE SHARE OUR STORIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

RETRIBUTION A Liverpool-based city-vigilante thriller more gripping than Death Wish by Michael Walsh award-winning novelist. ‘Retribution is the greatest movie never made’ ~ William Housman. ‘An excellent thriller written in the tense style of a John Le Carre spymaster novel’ ~ Brian Smyth.

LINK TO BOOK     https://tinyurl.com/4n6ysckj