I Supposed That Was You

  Back by popular demand, OK maybe demand is too strong a word, is another ferry flying story from my book.  And speaking about my book I’ve made some really good progress by finding and agent to represent me and help get published.  Finding an agent was a lot harder than I thought, apparently there are a lot of pilots who think their stories are worthy of a book.  Really?  A lot of pilots want to talk about themselves and think their flying stories are the most interesting things in the world? Who would’ve thunk it?  Anyway here’s part one of a chapter of my book that might get cut from the final, damn editors!

I SUPPOSE THAT WAS YOU

There is an old saying in aviation, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself.”

That saying is certainly true in the business of ferrying small aircraft across big oceans. Since New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered a prize of $25,000 to the first man to fly across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in 1919 men had been making mistakes over that big cold ocean. Mistakes that other pilots could learn from. Mistakes that often cost them their lives.

Whenever ferry pilots run into each other on the road the first question might be “Where you headed?” or “how was the weather?” but it’s always followed by “Did you hear what happened to so and so?” The story of some brother ferry pilot’s misfortune would then be brought forth and examined, not just for its entertainment value but for any lesson it might contain. Ferry pilots are dedicated students of other’s mistakes, even if they didn’t think they would ever make such mistakes themselves. All pilots hold to the belief that they are masters of their own destiny but ferry pilots even more so. No sane man would willingly strap himself into a strange plane his career as a ferry will be a short one.

A ferry pilot’s attitude about accidents is that the superior pilots that they are, would have done things differently and survived. That is of course if the pilot in the story was killed, which was not always the case. You could learn a lot from the things that happened to pilots that didn’t kill them, sometimes more because the pilot is around to talk about it.

Shiv Shivany was a Pakistani ferry pilot in the 80’s who was a never ending source of entertainment and great stories. It seemed like every time I landed in Greenland or Iceland I’d be treated to another story of how Shiv managed get himself into some crazy predicament or other. Like the time shiv developed engine trouble over the Greenland icecap. Unable to clear the 10,000 foot mountain of ice barring his way Shiv made a successful crash landing on the ice cap but not before radioing for help and being told that a rescue helicopter was on the way.

Owning to the fact that helicopters aren’t very fast and Greenland is very big, Shiv was expecting a wait of a few hours or more before he could expect to be rescued. With nothing much to do until help arrived, Shiv decided to go for a short walk to check out the ice cap while he waited. He got about 100 yards from his plane before he broke through a thin snow bridge and fell into a crevasse. Luckily Shiv landed on a ledge thirty feet, uninjured but trapped like a Pakistani rat in an ice cage .

A few hours later a Danish search and rescue helicopter arrived at the downed aircraft. The Crew Chief got out and ran through the blowing snow from the helicopter’s rotor wash over to Shiv’s plane only to find it empty. He looked around but couldn’t see the pilot, which surprised him because the Greenland icecap is as smooth as a billiard ball and he could see for miles in any direction. Then the Crew Chief saw tracks in the snow leading away from the plane and followed them to a pilot-sized hole in the snow. Carefully lying down on his belly the crewman inched up to the hole, peered into the crevasse and saw one very cold Pakistani pilot staring back up at him.

Shiv was half frozen because he wasn’t planning on being out of the plane for more than a few minutes so he was dressed in only dress shoes, slacks and a light windbreaker. It wasn’t long before the helicopter winched Shiv to safety and into ferry pilot history.