All week at training camp we kept hearing about all these amazing and crazy stories about things that happen on the world race. Each story was followed up by a comment about how soon we, too, will have these stories. Well, how about this for a World Race Adventure? My flight home from training camp was struck by lightning and we had to turn around and return to Toronto to get a new plane.
During take-off I was looking out the window when there was a really bright flash of light and I was forced to look away. The plane shook a little, and dipped, and then continued flying as normal. I figured out what had happened, but didn’t really think anything of it. I’ve heard many stories of planes being struck by lightning, so I assumed we were fine. About 10 minutes later the pilot makes an announcement that yes, we were struck by lightning, and several electrical systems were working on backups and they couldn’t get the primary systems back online. We would continue flying, but if they couldn’t rectify the problems soon, we would have to turn around. So, about half an hour into the flight, we are turning around and heading back to Toronto. We touch down and immediately four fire trucks are racing down the runway towards us. After circling the aircraft with flashlights and apparently determining that we were not on fire we were allowed to taxi in. We changed planes and were on our way to Edmonton.
During take-off I was looking out the window when there was a really bright flash of light and I was forced to look away. The plane shook a little, and dipped, and then continued flying as normal. I figured out what had happened, but didn’t really think anything of it. I’ve heard many stories of planes being struck by lightning, so I assumed we were fine. About 10 minutes later the pilot makes an announcement that yes, we were struck by lightning, and several electrical systems were working on backups and they couldn’t get the primary systems back online. We would continue flying, but if they couldn’t rectify the problems soon, we would have to turn around. So, about half an hour into the flight, we are turning around and heading back to Toronto. We touch down and immediately four fire trucks are racing down the runway towards us. After circling the aircraft with flashlights and apparently determining that we were not on fire we were allowed to taxi in. We changed planes and were on our way to Edmonton.
The welcoming committe of fire trucks
We finally land in Edmonton about 2.5 hours late, and we run into another problem. They cannot connect the bridge to the plane, so the door was going to have to stay shut for a little longer. We sat on the plane for about half an hour before they finally figured out how to open the door and let us all off. By the point I finally see my dad, who already has my pack because the baggage beat us off the plane, I was about 3 hours late.
As Renee and I were finally getting off the plane we couldn’t help but laugh. How often do you have to turn around because of a lightning strike – when it wasn’t even raining? And how often are you stuck on a plane because they can’t get the door open? And for both to happen on this one flight! Just another story to add to the list of airport adventures and laugh about. Because that’s exactly what it was…an adventure. If the World Race is full of adventures like this one, I can’t wait!
