On my way back to Kabul, I was all ready to jump back into work and journalise! I was, in fact, making mental notes on the plane back of things that I had to do, emails that needed replying and stories that needed telling. It was a great day for a flight, despite the monsoons. Clear skies, the sun shining bright — the perfect smooth sailing weather; that was until we hit some turbulence. Having travelled plenty of times before [flying is my favourite mode of transport], I knew this routine — strap yourself, lock your knees together, and just wait the bumps out. The little Afghans kids on m flight didn’t even seem to mind the bumps and continued running around. After all, we all know about the air pockets that cause these bumps, don’t we?
However, almost a minute into the turbulence, it didn’t seem to end. The plane suddenly lost a lot of altitude and fell vertically down a few hundred feet (?). We heard sounds of engine during off, at least one of them. We looked around and realise this was more than just regular turbulence. We saw a look strained, almost forced calm on the face of our young flight attendant. The “wobbly-ness” got more intense. It suddenly took a sharp tilt downward; we were in a nose dive. After he had rushed the kids to their seats and asked them to strap in; and then, on the pilots command, the flight attendant went to his seat, across from me [I was sitting near the emergency door], and strapped himself in, continuing to smile all this while.I felt a little bad of him; it seemed like his first international flight and here it looked like we might die. That’s when it struck me…
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