It was not the three loud bangs in quick succession coming from the rear of the aircraft that worried me; it was the look of sheer terror on the face of the flight attendant.  

The aircraft began to convulse in a vigorous shudder and the inevitability of a crash landing dawned upon me.  It was an old Boeing 737 owned by FastAir a private airline that contracts to large mining and oil exploration companies in Indonesia.  They transport staff to remote mines and oil fields throughout the archipelago.  This time this old girl wasn’t going to make it.

I was sitting beside the port over wing emergency exit.  This wasn’t an accident.  Quite apart from the safety aspect, I always try to get allocated this seat since the bit of extra space that is often given to these seats is more comfortable for a tall guy like me to sit in.  Mind you, from the way this old bird was shaking and slipping around in the sky I wondered if my seat position would make any difference at all.  Strangely, I wasn’t afraid, but I was suddenly thrown into a challenge to survive and I began to rapidly take steps to tip the odds in my favor. 

Since my eardrums had not blown out and the oxygen masks had not been released, I guessed that the integrity of the cabin was still holding up, at least for now.  The plane was yawing drunkenly from left to right and the angle of incidence was rapidly changing from a climbing attitude to a dive.  Obviously, the pilot was having very great difficulty controlling the aircraft but at least that was more encouraging than if we were in an uncontrolled spin or a dive.  The flight attendant disappeared from my view as she ran to an empty seat and presumably strapped herself in.

I had long ago decided that the “brace position” described in the safety announcements was nonsense and so I proceeded to wedge myself into my seat by bringing my feet up and pushing hard on the seat in front.  I also busied myself by wrapping the airline supplied blanket about my head and upper body.  I wedged the edges around my glasses leaving the tiniest gap to look through to minimize exposure to the fire that must inevitably result.  With my now restricted vision I concentrated on the emergency hatch and rehearsed the action of releasing the hatch ensuring that I could find the handle and open it in the dark.  I put the small airline pillow between the seat belt and my belly and pulled the belt up as tightly as I could bear.

The attractive Asian woman sitting beside me obviously thought that I had the right idea. I became aware of her watching what I was doing and was following my actions.  I noticed for the first time that she was also wearing Levis like I was and I hoped that the thick denim might offer us some small protection in the likely event of there being flames after the crash.  I was wearing a leather coat not because I was cold but so that I could keep my papers and money secure in the inner pockets rather than in the more vulnerable pockets of my jeans. I had noticed when she first sat down that she was wearing a tight fitting woolen top that displayed the very pleasing shape of her body.  Possibly, I might have been a bit too obvious in noticing this and she had not spoken to me since sitting down. 

Somewhere deep in my brain was the realization that I wanted her to survive if I did.