Aeroflot/Аэрофло́т to Lima
We all were moved from Paris to a tiny town called Luxembourg on the 14th January 1989. Asians, Africans and those who were at the International office arrived in Luxembourg and were joined by Europeans. We were to embark on the longest flight we have ever taken. We later learned that there were 20 plus of us were travelling so we received a special group discount on this flight. And it was also my first time to travel on the flag bearer of USSR–Аэрофло́т or in English, Aeroflot. The flight had a lot of empty seats. The flight attendants were huge Russian middle-aged women wearing ocean blue uniforms. The seats were blue too. We settled into our designated seats and soon we realized this was not an ordinary flight.
Some of the window seats were vacant and for most of us, we liked to see the outside through the windows especially when taking off. We had no understanding those days about flight balancing and why people are seated in a way to balance the flight. Father Joe Naliath was in the middle row of seats. He wanted to change his seat and while the seat belt sign was still on, he stood up to move to another seat–remember? There were plenty of empty seats. Right then one of the flight attendants saw JN and approached him and ordered him to sit down. JN tried to explain, “there are empty seats and I want to change my seat.” “Sit down!” there was no please or any sort of kindness in that voice. JN looked at the flight attendant, still standing, and he did not know what to do. He was possibly thinking what is the logic behind preventing him from moving to another empty seat? Right then, the huge flight attendant put her strong hands on the tiny shoulder of JN and pushed his shoulders down forcefully to settle JN violently on his seat and said firmly, “sid down.” JN was looking at the face of the flight attendant like a cat scared to hell. There was no mercy on her face. She then told him in a thick Russian accent, “sit here! Put your seat belt now!” After we all witnessed this we knew that changing the seats is not going to be an easy affair.
The flight was speeding on the runway to take off. The whole flight was heavily vibrating like it was going to fall apart and the sound of the engines were so deafening that we could not hear what others were saying even though they were yelling. I now know the aircraft we flew in was IL62 or Ilyushin 62 manufactured in the 1960s. Quite surprisingly, they still fly some of these IL62s and it is listed as the worst passenger aircraft in some Internet sites. With all that roar and chaos, the flight took off. But the sounds of the engine did not subside and we had to endure that for the next 21 hours or so.
Our first stop was after less than a couple of hours at the Shannon Airport in Ireland. We stayed in the flight while it was being refuelled and a few passengers joined us as well. Then it was the second leg of the flight across the Atlantic. And we were served our first meal–chicken and peas. We were tired and slept. After about 7 or 8 hours we were descending on to a small airport in Gander in Newfoundland. The pilot muttered something in a thick Russian accent and the only thing I could understand was “twenty six.” We landed and the outside was pitch dark except lights on the tarmac. Then, we were asked to disembark. When the door of the plane was open only we realized that the terminal building was about 200 meters away from the plane. 200m is no big deal for us, so we heroically descended along the stairs onto the tarmac. Then only we started feeling the cold from the top as well as from the bottom. The tarmac was icy and we could not walk fast. We did not have proper winter shoes–hey, we were heading towards a sub-tropical country. The cold air penetrated through our cheap and weak winter jackets. JN had his scarf wound around his head and the neck. His hands stuck in his jacket pockets as if the pockets were not deep enough and he was forcing his hands in a way to expand the size of his jacket pockets. It was such a sight to see him walking away like a child running away from the scary nanny–the Russian flight attendant. Vic, Joe Thomas and I got through to the terminal building, which was a one story small building. Later we came to understand that the pilot was saying–twenty six meant the temperature and it was -26 Celcius.
When we arrived at the terminal we saw a clock with local time and the words “Welcome to Canada.” We have touched down in Canada. But somewhere out of nowhere in Canada in icy Gander. We were excited and snapped photos outside the clock and Canada sign. After about an hour, we took that painful dash in -26c temperature towards our plane–remember? We could not run, the tarmac was icy!
Flight took off with a thunderous roar, and headed south towards our next stop–Havana, Cuba. The sun was up and we could see a thick layer of beautiful cloud below our plane. Our second and third meals were served–chicken and peas, the same dish, for the third time and we will be served again this meal for the fourth time in a row during the last leg between Cuba and Lima. I later learned that many Cubans took the Aeroflot flight to Moscow through this route and at Gander defected to Canada!
The small duty free shop in Havana had two things in abundance, Cuban cigars and rum. For some reason, I had no interest in either of those. Should have I known how special those cigars were, I should have bought some. But I was not a smoker and also did not know anyone who smoked cigars, so I passed.
The last leg was the most picturesque one. We were flying over beautiful Andes mountain range and it was stunning to see the sun shining over these mountains covered by snow. We were utterly bored! The only flight entertainment available was old fashioned pipe music headphones and with the noise of those engines those music did not make any sense. Out of boredom, Joe Thomas alerted me to the life jacket under his seat. For some reason, he was quite fascinated by this life jacket and he said he wanted to see how it works. Soon, he took the un-inflated life jacket and walked away towards toilets in the aft of the airplane. He would later return without the lifejacket. He has inflated it inside the tiny washroom and did not know what to do next and has left it there. We did not know what happened to that lifejacket and most probably a flight attendant had removed it.
Finally, on the 15th January 1989 we landed in Lima around 10am local time, 21 hours after we took off from Luxembourg. Lima looked sunny and beautiful. We were glad to get off the Aeroflot plane to get away from the noise of those engines, chicken and peas and the unfriendly flight attendants. We are to stay in this lovely city until 18th February 1989.