It was a beautiful day for flying. The kind of day I’d always dreamed of when I was a young man, flying over exoctic lands, dodging storms and having adventures. I was ferrying a brand new Cessna Grand Caravan from St. Paul Minnesota to Singapore with it’s new owner, a wealthy Swiss businessman, and his father in law. We’d started the day in Karachi Pakistan, weaving our way through a wide band of towering cumulus clouds before stopping in Nangpor India for fuel before pushing on to Bangladesh. We’d gotten a sketchy weather report that morning that showed two huge low pressure systems parked over northern India. Now normally a prudent pilot would wait patiently on the ground for a day with better weather. But I’m not normally either patient or prudent so we were flying. It didn’t matter anyway because it was Monsoon season and if you wanted to wait for a nice day you’d be waiting a very long time. And anyway we had radar, can’t get into trouble if you have radar….right?
We made it to Nangpor around noon. Plenty of time to fuel up, get back in the air and tackle the worst of the thunderstorms while still daylight. Battling a huge area of imbedded storms at night was something I really wanted to avoid. So of course that’s exactly what happened.
To be continued.