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Wreckage from an Aeroflot flight that crashed in 2008. The Russian airline had a terrible reputation in the 1990s, when Robyn Dixon began her career in Moscow. (Associated Press / September 14, 2008) |
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Reporting from Antananarivo, Madagascar -
Clackety-clack. Clackety-clack. I pause as I mount the steps of the 737, frowning at the spinning engine.
"Does your engine always make that noise?" I ask the flight attendant while boarding the airplane from Antananarivo to the south of Madagascar. "Seat 5B," he says. "On your right."
A moment's hesitation. I sit. (Mental image: flames shooting from the left-hand engine.)
FOR THE RECORD:
An article in Saturday's Section A about a foreign correspondent's fear of flying referred to a helicopter lurching sideways at 15,000 feet. The copter was at 1,500 feet. —
The problem with having one of the world's most interesting jobs and flying to the world's most fascinating places is getting there.
Whenever I land, it's fine. I plunge in, full of curiosity, and forget all about flying.
Accelerating down the runway on our flight from Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, the thundering momentum should be exhilarating. But for me it defines phobia: fear of flying.
Odd sounds send that fear soaring, like the midair thunking sound on a flight out of Liberia in 2005. Thunnnnk. Thunnnnk. Thunnnnk.
I asked the flight attendant what was thunking.
"It's nothing. Just the air-conditioning compressor."
Relief.
Then I thought of a recent international air catastrophe -- when the pilots on a 737 to Athens lost consciousness, reportedly because of a fault in the air supply system or decompression; 121 people were killed.
Choppers are even worse. Perhaps it was the helicopter flight I once took in Chechnya with the Russian military. We rose to about 300 feet and then descended abruptly to the ground.
"It's normal, normal, totally normal," I told myself.
Again we rose. I sat as far as I could from the massive interior fuel tank.
About 15,000 feet up, the chopper lurched sickeningly sideways. There was a moment of sagging equilibrium as it hovered before plunging with an alien metallic roar. (Mental image: fuel tank exploding in a ball of fire.)
At the last moment, the pilot dragged the machine from its descent and began skimming just a few yards above the ground, rising to avoid trees and electrical wires, dipping into valleys. Finally I understood. This was terrain flying, Russian-style.
And in Tajikistan, the world's biggest chopper, the Russian Mi-26, nicknamed the Korova ("Cow"), took me up into the maze-like valleys of the Pamir Mountains, black peaks striped with snow like a herd of zebras. Clouds descended rapidly. It got so bad the pilot considered giving up and heading back to the Tajik capital of Dushanbe.
"Oh, come on," his co-pilot said. "Be a man."
"Does your engine always make that noise?" I ask the flight attendant while boarding the airplane from Antananarivo to the south of Madagascar. "Seat 5B," he says. "On your right."
A moment's hesitation. I sit. (Mental image: flames shooting from the left-hand engine.)
FOR THE RECORD:
An article in Saturday's Section A about a foreign correspondent's fear of flying referred to a helicopter lurching sideways at 15,000 feet. The copter was at 1,500 feet. —
The problem with having one of the world's most interesting jobs and flying to the world's most fascinating places is getting there.
Whenever I land, it's fine. I plunge in, full of curiosity, and forget all about flying.
Accelerating down the runway on our flight from Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, the thundering momentum should be exhilarating. But for me it defines phobia: fear of flying.
Odd sounds send that fear soaring, like the midair thunking sound on a flight out of Liberia in 2005. Thunnnnk. Thunnnnk. Thunnnnk.
I asked the flight attendant what was thunking.
"It's nothing. Just the air-conditioning compressor."
Relief.
Then I thought of a recent international air catastrophe -- when the pilots on a 737 to Athens lost consciousness, reportedly because of a fault in the air supply system or decompression; 121 people were killed.
Choppers are even worse. Perhaps it was the helicopter flight I once took in Chechnya with the Russian military. We rose to about 300 feet and then descended abruptly to the ground.
"It's normal, normal, totally normal," I told myself.
Again we rose. I sat as far as I could from the massive interior fuel tank.
About 15,000 feet up, the chopper lurched sickeningly sideways. There was a moment of sagging equilibrium as it hovered before plunging with an alien metallic roar. (Mental image: fuel tank exploding in a ball of fire.)
At the last moment, the pilot dragged the machine from its descent and began skimming just a few yards above the ground, rising to avoid trees and electrical wires, dipping into valleys. Finally I understood. This was terrain flying, Russian-style.
And in Tajikistan, the world's biggest chopper, the Russian Mi-26, nicknamed the Korova ("Cow"), took me up into the maze-like valleys of the Pamir Mountains, black peaks striped with snow like a herd of zebras. Clouds descended rapidly. It got so bad the pilot considered giving up and heading back to the Tajik capital of Dushanbe.
"Oh, come on," his co-pilot said. "Be a man."
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