After an overnight flight to Heathrow, the London underground brought me to St. Pancras Station and a connection to the train to London Luton airport (1). The flight to Sphinx Airport in Egypt left on time at 2:10. Taking off into the westerly wind, we banked left over Luton Hoo Mansion (now a golf course hotel) (2).
There is a cadence to a flight, with a ding as the plane ascends through 10,000 feet at which point the flight attendants get up. No ding, and the plane seemed to stop its climb. Soon, the pilot announced we would be returning to Luton due to a mechanical problem. Because we had just set out for a 5 hour flight, we had to burn fuel to reduce weight. The landing gear soon came down (3) (4), causing quite a racket as we circled the Bedfordshire countryside for the next two hours (5). The flight attedant asked for an Arabic-speaking volunteer to explain over the PA what was happening.
In a window seat, I was glad of a good book, as the first 7 times seeing the same towns passing below was sufficient. The plane landed where it had begun at 4:20, escorted by the airport fire brigade along the taxiways (6). We stopped at the maintenance hanger, and were shuttled by bus back to the terminal (7).
A replacement plane and crew (Hungarian) (8) were roused, and after just enough time for fast food, we embarked for a departure four hours late (9). Being sunset during Ramadan, many of the passengers had been fasting; a passenger in the second row was sharing his dates for the Iftar. Of the 222 passengers on the original flight, we lost 18 (10). Expecting arrival in time for a late dinner, I got to the hotel at 3:00 a.m. instead.
(1) London has five airports. I only went to the wrong one once.
(2) A "pile" as such grand (but difficult to maintain) houses are called in the UK.
(3) Substantially increasing rhe aerodynamic drag, increasing fuel consumption and thereby decreasing the time spent circling.
(4) I never had thought about it before, but the exit sign lights are linked to the landing gear, and they lighted up also, accompanied by dings.
(5) A passenger asked the pilot as we disembarked why we did not fly two hours toward Sphinx (a) and land (say) somewhere in Italy. The pilot responded (reasonably) that the airline had a large presence at Luton, which therefore had mechanics, spare parts, etc. I suspect there is also a prudential rule to keep the aircraft within X miles (or minutes) of an airport in case of a detected mechanical fault (b).
(a) A new airport closer to the Pyramids at Giza that opened last year to relieve crowding at nearby Cairo airport.
(a) I remember a few years ago a tempest in a teapot about a similar flight circling the Pacific off LAX, with breathless reports on cable news showing live shots of the plane.
(6) Just in case, and it gave the fire brigade something to do.
(7) Seeing three buses, one dazed passenger asked if they were all going to the same place!
(8) The airline in based in Hungary. At airports where airlines have a large presence, a standby crew is usually available against the advent of such a contingency.
(9) One flight attendant came rushing up the stairs out of breath at our scheduled departure time.
(10) The woman diagonally behind me, who was quite stressed on the original flight, did not rejoin.
St Pancras Station
Back at the Luton, at the maintenance hanger
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