Bright Side

“Would the lead steward please come to the flight deck... immediately”. Sounds like one of those in-flight announcements from a dramatic plane crash movie. No one would ever want to hear this in reality. Unfortunately, it’s exactly what the passengers on Air Transat Flight 236 heard as their plane ran out of fuel somewhere above the Atlantic.

It was supposed to be a regular flight for Air Transat from Toronto, Canada, to Lisbon, Portugal. The weather was fine that August evening, and Flight 236 took off without delays. It had 306 people on board. The Airbus was fairly new, with only 2 years of active service. It had two powerful engines, and 5 tons more fuel than is required when it took off. Yet, 8 hours later, when the plane should have touched down in Lisbon, it was nowhere to be seen...

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It’s 1961, and Dr. Arthur Duperrault decided to take his family of five on a long-awaited vacation to the Bahamas. And the trip was going perfectly: sailing across the sunny seas, swimming in the ocean, bathing in the sun. Five days of maritime paradise. Kids laughing, adults smiling, everyone was happy… or so it seemed.

The events that followed are fit to make your hair stand on end. Even now, more than fifty years later, it’s hard for Terry Jo to speak of what happened on the fifth night, and you really can’t blame her… Lost, famished, scared, and drifting alone in the open sea for almost 4 days on a tiny raft. And all that when she was just 11 years old.

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On December 31, 1988, a passenger airliner heading from Kaliningrad, Russia, to Odessa, Ukraine, made for a landing in the destination airport. New Year in Russia is a big deal. And this might have been the reason for what happened on that day with the Tu-134 flight.

The weather forecast for the day was not one that would make you overjoyed: it was overcast and stormy, with strong winds and low visibility. The cabin crew knew all this: they were warned of the conditions in advance. All systems were working fine, the airplane was cruising to its place of destination. The problems began when permission to descend was given. The speed at which the aircraft descended was way too high...

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It happened on June 24, 1982. On a calm summer night, passengers boarded the plane that would take them from Kuala Lumpur to Perth. The atmosphere was relaxed; the weather was fine, there were no approaching thunderstorms, and the plane didn't have any technical issues.

There were 247 passengers and 100 tons of fuel on board the plane. But by the time the plane was in the air south-east of Jakarta, Indonesia, the first officer was sending out a Mayday distress call. All four of their engines had failed...

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Imagine this: you’ve decided to set sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Only, you’ll be taking a flimsy little inflatable boat and no water or food supplies. It’s hard to visualize because who in their right mind would do such a thing? Well, one guy did it way back in the ‘50s, and he did it for a very good reason!

Alain Bombard was a French doctor with a huge interest in survival techniques. In his medical experience, he saw plenty of cases of how tragic outcomes of shipwrecks can be. One thing bothered him most of all: at that time, lifeboats didn’t have any fishing equipment. Plus, it was believed that people can’t survive stranded in the ocean for more than a few days...

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Sir Ernest Shackleton, a legend among British seamen and explorers, decided to build a crew for his famous Antarctic expedition. His new daring idea for a ‘hazardous journey’ gained so much attention from newspapers, that soon Sir Shackleton had a crowd of volunteers knocking at his door. He carefully selected only 27 of them. They were men of steel knowing what a huge goal they set for themselves.

With those men, Ernest Shackleton intended to reach Antarctica and cross the whole continent via the South Pole. In 1914, they left the shores of South Georgia in a ship called Endurance. This journey became one of the greatest survival stories of all time.

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Some survival stories literally make your blood run cold, and such is the story of Ada Blackjack, a young woman who spent 2 years on a bitterly-cold Arctic island, unprepared for such an ordeal and mostly on her own.

In 1921, 23-year old Ada Blackjack found herself on an Arctic island, far away from civilization, in the company of four men and a female cat named Vic. An unlikely scenario by all means, so how did Ada end up in that situation?

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We can all get carried away when making bets, but nothing beats Thomas Fitzpatrick's funny and brave story. He was just hanging out at the bar when his friend put him up to a daring challenge. He said that there's no way he could make it from New Jersey all the way to New York in just 15 minutes. Fitzpatrick quickly accepted the challenge and left the bar without saying a word.

A couple minutes later, Thomas' friends heard the distinct sound of an airplane. Nobody knows how Fitzpatrick was able to land the plane without ruining any of the New York buildings, but he did it, spectacularly landing on St. Nicholas Avenue right in front of the bar. Who knew that just 2 years later the story would repeat itself!

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Every day, about 10 million people take commercial flights to get from point A to point B. Almost 100,000 planes take off and land without a hitch. But from time to time, very rarely, an accident will happen that seems to spike cases of aviophobia all over the world. Like that time when a captain was partially pulled out of the cockpit, dangling in the sky at an altitude of 17,000 ft!

As it usually happens, nothing was amiss at first. The pilots were experienced. The plane seemed to be perfectly Ok and the cabin crew was professional and friendly. No one expected the dramatic outcome that was in store for this flight...

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Mr. Jan Mul, a Dutchman who was born in 1932, spent more than 20 years of his life flying to a different European city every single Wednesday! As a result, the man had more than 1,000 flights under his belt! And he bought airplane tickets, not to get to some destination, but just for the sake of flying!

Traveling by plane was his main hobby and his biggest passion. The day before the flight, the flight itself, and the day after were his favorite days of the week. On the first day, he was preparing for his journey. The day of the flight was the most exciting for him. And the day after the trip, he shared his impressions and the tiniest details of his adventure with his nearest and dearest.

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