New year 1980

BY Capt Gihan A Fernando.

RCyAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, SIA and SriLankan Airlines

It was 31st December 1979.  Air Lanka was established on the 1st of September that year. It was my second ever trip to Europe. We were scheduled to fly Dubai to Orly airport, Paris, France via Zurich, Switzerland. Our Captain was an ex-Colonel from the Portuguese Air Force and had also flown Boeing 707 aircraft, for the TAP Air Portugal. We were flying a four engine, Boeing 707 312B registration 4R-ALB which was one of the two that had been leased from Singapore Airlines. Although I was still ‘wet behind the ears’, with regards to intercontinental flying, our Flight Engineer was an Air Ceylon Douglas DC8 veteran used to operating in that part of the world.

Our route took us to over Doha (Qatar), the Island of Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf to Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Cyprus, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria and then on to Switzerland. Our old Boeing 707 didn’t have Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Instead we had Radio Aids for navigation and a navigation system called ‘Doppler’ which used the Doppler Effect to measure the ground speed and displays the distance to run between two points. While it’s navigating one leg the pilot can programme in the next track and distance. So besides speaking with the ground stations, it was my duty as First Officer to programme the leg ahead. Since the ground communication wasn’t good, I had also to call every country 10 minutes ahead of arriving at its border known as the FIR (Flight Information Region) Boundry. As one can imagine it was hard work when one is doing it for the first time and heading to the unknown. Unlike the solid state digital radio sets of today, those days when the next Very High Frequency (VHF) change is given by the station you are in contact and the pilot selects it, he has to wait till the frequency selection is made before he speaks. You could even hear it change the frequency.  The Flight plan was a Cyclostyled (Roneo) sheet of paper that contained the time between reporting points in still air. There were no computerised flight plans those days.

In some areas like the Cyprus and Turkey, we had to call three stations (Damascus, Nicosia and Ercan Control) simultaneously. We had only two radio sets! Ercan was a radio station on the Turkish side of Cyprus. They were a relay station for Ankara. The Communist Bulgarian authorities needed an early call before entering the FIR, from all commercial aircraft. If not, they were intercepted by jet fighter aircraft and forced to land in Sofia. The Air Ceylon DC- 8 had to land there on two occasions with the same Captain (American) in command.  

When we arrived in Zurich it was overcast and when we descended through the clouds came into the clear, the ground was white with snow. I was amazed and caught by surprise to see such a sight and didn’t hear the Captain’s call to extend the landing gear (wheels). I think he understood that I was seeing snow for the first time!

The short sector from Zurich to Orly was uneventful except I was lost most of the time as the French pronounced the place names on our map differently. Anyway, we arrived safe and sound in Paris on New Year’s Day by about 8am. We had been flying through the whole night of December 31st. We didn’t have mobile telephones to call home, and wish everyone in those days. After a long snooze at the Orly Hilton, the crew met in the Chief Stewards room for an evening party. There it was decided that we will go shopping to a mall around the corner, the next day.

It was still during the Christmas season and the shops at ‘Belle Epene’ mall were nicely decorated. The Crew, except the Captain, spent the whole morning there. As we left the premises of the mall, we were suddenly surrounded by four or five security officers who wanted to check our shopping bags out. And, sure enough there was one new girl who had some items of underwear she had not paid for. The Chief Steward explained that it was a genuine mistake in his broken French. After the goods were paid for, we were allowed to depart for the hotel.

Immediately, on arrival at the hotel we had a post mortem of the events that occurred. We were all well aware of how strict the Singapore Airlines administrators, of Air Lanka, were reputed to be, on matters such as these. The Human Relations (HR) section was led by an unpleasantly strict Chinese Singaporean. There was much hysteria and crying by the accused party during our ‘damage control’ meeting. That evening I called our Captain and briefed him of what had happened at the Mall. The kindly gentleman from Portugal, undertook to make a visit to the shopping mall the following morning to check with the authorities whether they had any intention of pressing any charges.

That evening the Captain told us that the Shopping Mall had accepted that it may have been a genuine mistake on the part of our crew member and that they were happy to ‘drop’ the matter. Accordingly, rightly or wrongly, the crew members were briefed to keep the incident confidential. However, to be on the safe side being the First Officer (second in command), I advised the Chief Steward to mention that there was such an incident on our stay in Paris, in his Voyage Report (on his return to base.). He ran the report by me before submission.

About six months later, I was summoned in front of the Chairman, late Capt S R Wicremanayake, one afternoon and asked about this ‘shoplifting’ incident. There had been an information leak! He was not too pleased that he was kept in the dark. I explained to him that it was a non-event and that a full report regarding the incident was submitted by the Chief Steward. That saved the day, forty-one years ago.

We left Paris on 5th January 1980, midday and flew back to Dubai. It certainly was an eventful dawn of a new year. The young lady concerned went on to become a responsible Chief Stewardess in due course. The consequences of the events of 2nd Jan 1980, could easily have been quite different.