S1 Ep 20 To The Rescue

Our 20th Episode and the end of season one.

In this episode: Aviation Accidents are on the increase and I lose some very good friends, I am offered another job and a contract is hard to refuse, and I experience my first piranha fish encounter on a company boat trip, which puts me off fish for life.

Transcript

Enid Otun: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the next episode of if women were meant to fly, the sky would be pink to the rescue. I'm Enid Otun. In this episode, aviation accidents are on the increase, and I lose some very good friends. I am offered another job and a contract is hard to refuse. And I experienced my first Parana fishing counter on a company boat trip, which puts me off fish for life. Before I start this 20th episode, yes 20 episodes, which marks the end of season one. I want to say how grateful I am to all our listeners and followers for doing just that. Listening and following my life story. It has been a pleasure to share the highs and lows, the rawness, honesty, sadness and elation with all of you. Season Two will hopefully share more of the same. My aspirations for this podcast were not only to tell my life story, but to highlight the many things that accompanied me as my journey progressed. The homophobia, misogyny, prejudice and trauma, which all form part of my story from childhood to adulthood. I was hopeful that I could reach out to people who may have experienced any of the same things I did, who may have previously struggled or who are struggling now with some hope and strength, and support. If I have been able to reach even just one person with a word, a thought, an experience, then my job would be done. I have used the medium of what I know best, aviation to share my story, but that is just the vehicle. So as I continue on this journey, I am excited to share more of my life with you all. With the growth of aviation in Nigeria, we were introducing more and more aircraft and more and more players in the field of company ownership. More wet lease aircraft were arriving, many from Eastern Europe where the aircraft and the crew were leased as a package. Sometimes it seemed that proper precautions were not adhered to with catastrophic consequences. On November 28 1983, a Nigeria Airways Fokker F28 fellowship jet crashed on final approach to Enugu airport, which is in the east of Nigeria, where the visibility was below the minimum descent altitude, due to thick fog. The crew elected to continue in spite of this, and the aircraft crashed, killing 53 people, including two crew. On January 10 1987, a DC 10 belonging to Nigeria Airways was carrying out a training flight at Ilorin, which is 130 nautical miles north of Lagos. The crews were carrying out touch and go's where the aircraft lands and then immediately takes off again for another circuit essentially to practice landings. With the aircraft high on the approach, and a situation rapidly developing where a decision was to be made regarding abandoning the landing to try again, coupled with apparent confusion on the flight deck with regard to procedure and decision making, the visibility too close to the minimums, the aircraft made a heavy landing and overan the runway, which resulted in a fire which was not adequately contained by the airport Fire Service. All nine crew members, including the instructor, and the trainees, survived. Training procedures, operating procedures, airport facilities and regulation all needed to improve as aviation grew, and this was not happening fast enough. As experienced grew, it was tempting to think that you could push the boundaries of both your knowledge and the aircraft in order to achieve a successful outcome. However, many times this proved not to be the case. Airmanship and adherence to the rules, as well as a healthy respect for mother nature who could provide ferocious weather, needed to be constantly followed. Every time an accident happened, my heart would skip a beat. The aviation community was still a relatively small one in those days, and it was likely that you knew the crew. With Search and Rescue services very poor at the time, it was also likely that you may be involved in some way in trying to provide assistance. Unbeknownst to me, I would in the years to come experience more and more of this type of loss. With the private sector becoming busier, the resultant requirement for more flights, grew. I was at work more and home less. I also spent a lot of time in restaurants and cafes. Often I could be found in the Aero Contractors restaurant further up the ramp from us. It served good food, and was a place to meet colleagues from different companies. The crews from different operations would often come together to meet and impart urgent and relevant information from their flights around the country. The state of navigation aids, fuel availability as well as airport and runway conditions as well as helpful company frequencies were just some of the information that was freely distributed for onward transmission to crews, who flew the length and breadth of the country. This was often the surest and simplest way of adding relevant information to charts and procedures, before it was made official by the relevant authorities. On one such occasion, one of the Aero Contractors training captains was present and introduced himself to me. We got talking about our respective schedules, and before long he inquired about what it was like working at Bristows with the Shell requirements for experience being so high. I replied honestly, that as I was close to this goal now, it would remain to be seen how they handled the promotion of copilots, who had risen through the ranks. Nothing was a given, but I was hopeful that they would see the worth of the crews they had helped to develop. I had just taken a large bite out of my ham and cheese toastie, when he said, come work for us. You'll be a captain very quickly and possibly a training Captain after that. I've heard only good things about you and I can guarantee you a command. I spluttered and proceeded to turn bright red as I weighed up an offer that I had not expected, with the possibility of choking to death on my toasty, before I'd given him an answer. What just happened? He could tell I was shocked and asked why. Did I not realize that I was sought after? I replied that I didn't have the faintest idea that the community felt that way. He left me to think on it and said to take my time. When I was ready, I could start immediately. I sat there in a strange sort of trance. This was a milestone in my development, and I needed time to process. I don't remember thinking at the time, wow, this is such a coup for women in this industry, but I think I knew deep down inside that it was. It was a simple engagement, but little did he know that it had meant so much. I had a decision to make but I wasn't going to rush. First, I was going to take a much needed weekend off. And for this I had been invited to join our avionics engineers, along with a couple of maintenance engineers to go on a boat trip. The company owned a small motor boat, which was managed and maintained by the engineers and was sitting at the Lagos Motor Boat Club in the heart of Lagos. I knew this place well. As a child. My father had also owned a motorboat, and it had been moored here as well. We would often take trips out onto the water, although at the time, I had not enjoyed the experience. Founded in 1950, even then, it was a prestigious club, and still is today. Launching into lagos lagoon, our route would take us under the Ahmadu Bello road bridge, an area of the choppiest water I had ever experienced. It was here that I would often lose my stomach contents, and clutch at my life jacket. I could fly a plane through the most ferocious storms, but my sea legs were absent, possibly because I didn't have any. Out past the Lagos Yacht Club, it would be calmer, but busier as we navigated towards Apapa on the way to badagry creeks. Sometimes we would stop off at a popular beach area called Tarkwa Bay, where we would moor in the shallows, whilst Beach Boys, not the actual Beach Boys, but hired youngsters who acted as porters, would come out to retrieve your cool box full of beer, coke, and an assortment of other picnic favorites. I hated this bit, simply because as a poor swimmer, I had to navigate a short stretch where my feet didn't touch the sand and I always managed to inhale a vast quantity of salt water. Yuck At other times, we would head out to our newly procured beach hut, which was situated further into the creek, I think it was called Ibeshe. These days, there are many resorts in that Thank you for listening. As always, your reviews and area, but in our day, there were very, very few and they were very underdeveloped. You would hire someone to make sure your beach hut or canopy or s ructure was cleaned and s affed when you got there. And o the plus side, it was a calm a d serene location with few h wkers to bother your t anquility. I remember spending m ny hours there relaxing in a p ace which could have been a ywhere, with good company and ood beer. Happy Days. On our ay back to Lagos, we often had o pass through some very hallow areas of the Badagry C eek, which often necessitated a andoning the boat to push it o f a sandbank. I hated not k owing what was beneath my feet w en I jumped into the murky w ter. And once we were off the s ndbank, you had to be pretty uick jumping back into the oat. That wasn't my strong oint. I remembered instances rom my primary school days when was trying to catch jellyfish y the Lagos lagoon waters, hich my school looked out on, and being carefree and blase a out it and until I was told a out the sting a jelly fish c uld deliver. My colleagues d cided at that moment to remind m that these waters harbored P rana fish, and it was best not t take your time getting back o to the boat after a sandbank i cident. I didn't believe them, t e creeks look too tranquil for hat. But they did tell me about he myriads of Parana fish that urrounded the offshore drilling igs and that they sometimes howed up in the local lagoons ust waiting for an unsuspecting and or foot being trailed in he water, as you approach the bridge entry back to the Boat Club. Unfortunately, they decided to impart that information, whilst I was inadvertently trailing my hand in the water at that very point. With my beer goggles on. You will not have, and will never se a person remove their limbs fro the water so fast, that the ve y momentum of this action prope s them across the small boat a d out over the other side, befo e my colleagues could grab a ho d of me. I went from inib iated to sober in about five s conds flat as I flew out of t e boat and into the Pirana i fested water. I flailed about s rieking and swallowing great g lps as my colleagues tried to s op laughing long enough to e fect my rescue. Having been re rieved, I sat wrapped in a to el frantically counting my fi gers and toes looking like a dr wned rat. Lucky said one, fish oulda gotcha. I remember hinking from the safety of t e dock, that if I ever had to pe form an emergency landing, I ould do everything in my power o glide onto the beach because knowing my luck, I would be he only pilot in history to be onsumed by a Pirana fish. What an undignified end that w uld have been, and it wasn't a f rst I was in a rush to lay claim to. comments are very much appreciated. Thank you to Lucy Ashby for the editing of this episode. If you want to ask a question or make a comment please do so on our social media sites. We're on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or send us an email. Our email address is theskyis pinkpilot@gmail.com or visit our website. www.skyispink.co.uk. We have reached our 20th episode. And as we end season one, I am looking forward to more of my adventures in season two. To begin season two, in the next episode, I am pulled in many directions by job offer indecision, I experience more sexist abuse as I become a more senior crew member, and I welcome more women pilots into our slow growing fold. Thank you and goodbye.