As an offline operation Manager during late 70’s for Seaboard World Airlines, the medium sized New-York based cargo airline, I had already participated in many programs involving travelling in the middle east or in India but my “end of the line” stops were usually limited to Ryad, Dhahran, Jeddah or Taïf. If some wet lease contracts had also taken me to North and West Africa, I was yet totally unfamiliar with the Emirates in their early days.
(The Clock Tower, Dubaï, the very early days....or not that early ?)
(Dubaï, before the rush for luxury, money, and later on,mass tourism...)
Flying Tigers operated to Dubai but most of our charter flights en route to “somewhere east” of Rome would stop for fuel, every now and then in the small Sharjah airport, just a few miles away from Dubai International. Sharjah was a calm place with a slow pace of life and served none of the big passenger’s carriers operating to Dubai. Sometimes, after landing in Sharjah, during the short time between touchdown and block-in, I would always wonder if someone would really show-up to the airplane to provide the required services. In the early 80’s, the Dubai area was certainly not like today. Far away from being an exotic and glamorous place to spend time shopping or laying on a sandy beach, it was a rough location with a few luxury hotels, authentic parts of the town reminding me of other places on the Red Sea, and wild camels rambling on the outskirts of the airport.
(Sharjah airport: a silent place, a few miles away from Dubaï. In these days, each emirate wanted an airport...)
Accidents between cars and camels regularly occurred and at the police station, little rubber stamps bearing a “camel” shape were used to designate, on the accident reports, the approximate place where the wild animal had met his fate after hitting a Range Rover or a truck loaded with immigrant workers. On the visa application to enter the UAE, one had to indicates one’s religion in addition to the usual information and I found that a bit disturbing. Just across from the Dubai airport terminal, a few hundred yards, was the hotel accommodating foreign passengers in transit or airline personnel such as the cockpit and cabin crew of the reputable British Caledonian Air Line, a private British company whose flight attendants were clad in tartans of various colours.
( Crossing the "river" in Dubaï...possible during the Aïd period)
(Dubaï International. I still remember the early wake up during the night to catch a B.CAL flight returning to Europe whilst the FTL airplane would go East...)
Many beers were sipped at the bar located in the middle of the swimming pool and many buffet breakfast prepared by a swiss chef were certainly enjoyed in that pleasant location. A few miles away from the hotel, many beach businesses offererd “hobbycats” (0) which could be rented for an afternoon at sea under the hot sun of the Persian gulf. On the way back, the warm evening wind would dry you up in just a few seconds!
(Sheep in Turkey)
In the airline business, religious celebration or festivals, (such as the Haj period, Christian festivals related to pilgrimages…), can become an opportunity to make money and on that year, Flying Tigers had signed a contract to carry live sheep into the Emirates before the Eid al-Kabir (1), the “festival of sacrifice” celebration period, reminding believers of the intended sacrifice of his son by Abraham. With a constant flow of immigrant workers building new hotels, housing, company headquarters, new airport facilities, the demand for meat had drastically increased and tons of sheep had to be imported from wherever it was available: countries where grass grew and sheep were well fed, countries far away north of the Emirates.
A DC 8-63, configured for cattle transport with an 11-pen system set to host 280 animals on each live flight, was assigned to this operation and we started our contract in “post Tito” Jugoslavia, long before the ethnic fighting begun, when Belgrade was still a reasonable place to be and “Nisko” or “Karlovac” beer was still cheap! (2)
Our program included about twenty-five flights with one trip a day going non-stop from Belgrade to Sharjah, where landing fees were cheaper. Three hours and fifty minutes after take-off from Belgrade airport, we would land in Sharjah.
With its slow pace of life, the tiny emirate was the right place to offload live sheep, turn around the airplane, and depart for a ferry leg to Belgrade where we would wait for the next load of animals. Islam, along with Christianism, being a major religion in Jugoslavia, I suppose that Muslim faithful’s in that country also wanted to enjoy the day of Aid Al-kebir and the lamb as pretty soon, after only three flights loaded with livestock, the supply of sheep reduced to a few heads per flight, not enough to justify the cost of flying a DC 8 from Belgrade to Sharjah.
(A Flying Tiger Line belt-buckle)
The Tiger team in Belgrade packed up everything and ferried back to the Emirates to enjoy a couple of day’s rest in the airport hotel. We were told to wait so we waited until the company who had chartered the plane and already paid a hefty sum of money, found a new source of supply in the northern part of Cyprus (3) under Turkish control. The rest of the mission was now to carry sheep from the Turkish airport of ERCAN to SHARJAH international.
With new instructions and a new flight schedule, we started up the operation and pretty soon, the first sheep arrived in Sharjah, totally oblivious of the tragic future waiting at the end of the line. As a charter supervisor for the Flying Tiger Line, living a nomadic life represented for me a daily opportunity to document myself about the countries we operated to and from and, having a passion for History and Geography (4) I tremendously enjoyed learning about religion, historical facts, local customs and tradition, and of course local food and beverage!
( FTL DC8-63 F: 18 cargo positions, the company "workhorse")
All of our DC8 were equipped with what is known as a “tail-post” or “tail-stand”, a long cylinder made of sturdy aluminium, stored and tied-down in the “C” belly of the airplane. As soon as a Tiger DC8 would block-in, anywhere in the world, the tail-post had to be offloaded, carried back to underneath the tail of the airplane, and, lifting it as high as possible to reach the correct “hooking” height, was attached into position and left hanging freely till the loading was completed and it was removed and re-stored in the hold.. The purpose of that tail-post was to prevent the airplane from tipping on its tail should a shift of cargo take place inadvertently during loading or offloading. If flying a jet airplane can sometimes be tricky, handling operation can also become a source of problems, incidents or accidents.
(Turkish prisonners during the Greece/Turkey conflict: everyone needed Alka-Seltzer in these days)
(Turkish tanks in Larnaca 1974)
Attaching the tail post in a windy weather, especially alone, was a real pain in the neck, and on that very day, a strong hot wind blew across Erçan Airport. With the pen system in position, the airplane cargo compartment covered in fresh wooden chips,the “corral” gates opened, we were ready to load. But the shepherds and (the herds) were about three hours late on that day. After assembling the portable aluminium ramp stored in the “A” belly, not knowing when the animals would finally show up I agreed with the crew that they could go and explore the surroundings of the airport instead of staying in an overheated airplane waiting for the loading to be completed. Although I was convinced of the tail-post utility I simply did not feel like going through this rigmarole. I would do it shortly before the sheep would arrive at the airport. Everything was obviously under control, I thought!
(A Turkish airline "small" crew)
After a few flights to the same airport, especially such a small location with a limited operation, contacts with local personnel had been established and I Had befriended a couple of guys from the THY station ops. On the roof of the airport terminal was a small restaurant serving kebab and raki and on that day, it was my turn to buy lunch! Keeping an eye on the airplane while eating my kebab and drinking my raki (5) I had given the THY staff instructions to alert me when the trucks with the sheep would get to the airport and I sat there, simply elated, eating good food , discussing aviation issues and simply enjoying life . By Turkish coffee time, under the blue and white umbrella bearing the “Yeni Raki” commercial logo, I simply fell in a deep sleep!
( Carelessness, thirst and Raki : three components of a failure...)
Did I sleep one hour, one and a half ? I remember being woken up by people shouting. I opened up my eyes and came to my sense immediately. Our DC8-63 was surrounded by trucks, some of them still full, some already empty, and the tail of the airplane was simply about 3 or 4 feet away from the ground while the nose gear was about 4 to 5 ft in the air! What did I do ? What did happen?
From the top of a cattle truck, I managed to reach the right part of the cargo door sill and then I discovered and incredible sight: about one hundred and fifty animals had simply walked their way into the back of the airplane and congregated into position 16,17 and 18. that I had left open in anticipation of the loading to come.
Sheep are gregarious animals. The first shepherd arrived on the airport had simply backed-up his truck and let the animals climb their own way onto the airplane, and other drivers had done the same. Was there some kind of communication issue? more than likely. Was I responsible for this mess? certainly yes.! Getting the front gear back on its nose was a challenge since the slope prevented the sheep to backtrack towards the nose of the plane.The mechanic participating into the operation solved the issue. Since the nose was up in the air, the only possible way out of this predicament was to open the left side back passenger door, and let the animal exit the airplane one by one, reloading them in the trucks and start all over again, this time under “ proper control” .
(Not me, this time....but yes, it did eventually happen..."my" nose was NOT that high in the air though...)
So the left side back passenger door was indeed opened and the sheep exited one after the other to be picked up manually and reloaded in the waiting trucks till the situation was back to normal and we could start a new loading sequence !
Meanwhile, the crew had returned as planned from their mini-trek and were dropped at the airplane by a THY(6) crew transport. To this date, I can remember the expression on the captain’s face when he discovered the mess! I can retroactively have pity on myself as, like an incompetent army officer losing control during an operation, I had grossly screwed up this transit and was covered up in sheep’s excrements from the collar of my shirt to the tip of my cowboy boots!
The charter crews were a nice bunch of people, looking for adventure far away from the routine of schedule service flights and the guys flying that particular flight were even the best amongst the best!
The captain approached me and in a very neutral and patient voice simply said: “ Frenchie, we only have about 6 hours of duty time left..it looks like you learnt something today, didnt’you ?”
(ERCAN airport : a godforsaken place in Northern Cyprus)
It was a great moment of solitude for me and time for a thorough walk around for the crew and the charter mechanic, ensuring that no damage to the aircraft had been cause by my sheer stupidity. About two hours later, with just enough duty time to make it to Sharjah, as the airplane had levelled off to its cruise altitude, the first officer came out of the cockpit for a cup of coffee, looked at me and simply said “If you’ve got nothing else to do when we get back to the hotel, I’ll buy you a drink so that you can tell me what happened, but you have to promise me something : first you will need to take a damned shower and then you will get fresh clothes! You really stink like a goat!”
©2017 Sylvain Ubersfeld for Commercial Air Transport.
(0) The Hobie Cat is a small sailing catamaran manufactured by the Hobie Cat Company. Hobie's line of products ranges from surfboards to catamaran sailboats to kayaks and stand-up paddle boards, though the Hobie Cat Company is most famous around the world for its catamarans. Hobie also designed a very successful monohull, the Hobie 33.
(1) Festival of the sacrifice. The tradition in the Moslem religion is to sacrifice a sheep, hence the great demand for sheep in many moslem countries. (2) Finding beer at reasonable price was amongst the first tasks to be conducted ANYWHERE in the world and east European countries were and still are known for producing fantastic beer. Jugoslavia was no exception.
(3) Northern Cyprus,officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was ( and still is) a self-declared state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. Recognised only by Turkey, Northern Cyprus is considered by the international community to be part of the Republic of Cyprus. Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides. A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the North in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support. Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. (4) I Was possibly the worst pupil or student during my school years and hated both Geography and History. Travel definitely broadens the mind! (5) Rakı is an unsweetened, occasionally (depending on area of production) anise-flavored, alcoholic drink that is popular in Turkey, Greece, (where it is distinctly different and comes as an unflavoured distillate, unlike its Turkish counterpart), Iran, Turkic countries, and in the Balkan countries as an “apéritif ». It is often served with seafood or meze. It is similar to several other alcoholic beverages available around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, e.g. pastis, ouzo, sambuca, arak, Aragh Sagi and aguardiente. In Turkey and Greece, it is considered a national drink. (6) THY = Turk Hava Yollari , the Turkish flag carrier.