When I was a child, I thought that I could see the other side of the world across the ocean.

I never believed myself to be superhuman in this endeavor; on the contrary, I believed that it was something everything but my (at that naïve age) old mother with her ‘failing eyesight’ could see. It was only just sitting on the horizon; a whole new experience just waiting to be reached. Sitting on the beach by my grandparents' house in New Hampshire, the world seemed so small—if I hopped on a boat I could be in another continent by noon, and there were no doubts in my mind that I would someday make that trek...

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

8/01/2012- Failed Attempt to Fly (Kulusuk?, Greenland)


Greenland is dictated by the weather—and in over two months living here, I have seen many examples of this firsthand. Sure, you can cite examples of going on the sledges when the ice is thickest or good shipments to the settlements and towns being contingent on the ice situation in the fjords. Even working in tourism it's evident as there are a lot of peoblems with operators cancelling excursions on days with good fishing, or cruise ships changing calls or berthing due to icebergs in the harbors year round.

So I'm writing this, not surprised in the least, on a flight from Kulusuk in East Greenland to Nuuk—except we left Nuuk at 0600 this morning.

After waking up at 0430 to be at the airport by 0515 to check into my flight (without even needing to show an ID or receipt to get my boarding pass this time, just provide my name), taking off at 0600 and arriving to the edge of the east coast by 0730, the 20 of so of us on the flight realized the odds were not in our favor. As we descended below the cloud cover and East Greenland's signature snowcapped mountains came into view, so did a solid layer of white fog just below the peaks. Although a stunning visual to see mountains fighting through a flowing sea of white, it did not bode well for landing.

As expected, the pilot announced a few minutes later (although I'm not sure why he didn't simply turn around and tell us as the door to the cockpit had been open the entire flight) to tell us in Greenlandic and Danish (and a quick version in English after the flight attendent made note there was an 'English talker' onboard) that we were in (admittedly the world's most beautiful) holding pattern.

((Yes, I just broke the world record for using the most parenthesis in a single sentence))

The calm I was feeling promptly broke when, a moment later, the pilot told us 'we are going to try and land through it, and will pull up if we see something that shouldn't be there' and put he wheels of our Dash-8 down. All the while, we couldn't see more than five feet through the fog.

At this point I should mention that just this week I sat in on an interview a German journalist was conducting with an Air Greenland pilot—who did not seem to grasp the idea of too much information and happily told us not only about why there had been accidents in the past, but how he 'longed for a challenge while flying' because the routes here apparently bore the pilots. The comments seemed amusing at the time—but not while attempting to land in no visibility while replaying his comments about landing in no visibility in Greenland being vastly more difficult than anywhere else in the world as the angles and mountains leave a smaller margin of error than the instruments allow for.

Luckily (though not so much for my nerves and stomach), the pilots decided last second to pull up hard, giving me a great sideways view of a mountaintop. They then let us know they weren't going to try again and that we needed to go to the nearest airport in the country with an airstrip to land—which happened to be back to Nuuk, on the other side of the country, as all other towns and settlements on the east coast only have heliports.

Strangely (to me as an American), the 20 or so other passengers (17 native Greenlandic and a 3 person Danish party) all smiled and laughed, before simply asking the flight attendent for more coffee. She wasn't asked about alternate flights or times or compensation—and she seemed genuinely surprised when I asked her how often our flight ran weeky (twice). 'They'll arrange something for you all; maybe tonight, or tomorrow possibly' she said calmly before walking back to the front to take pictures out one of the windows herself.

*

After landing two hours later, I was informed by the agents at the desk that they would call me at 1900 that night and they had booked me a hotel, sending me on my way back to my apartment in a taxi (with, I kid you not, a piece of paper from the airline to give to the driver saying 'we owe you ___' for him to fill in later and collect from them) after finding out I lived in Nuuk. Hours later, I got a call from operations letting me know they couldn't arrange another flight until Friday morning—two days after my original flight.

That flight, however, made it in record time.  


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