Wings of Duty

Wings of Duty — Page 52

Syed Muhammad Ahmad 52 perhaps it would be more accurate to say, he was able to fall out of the plane. The aircraft, however, was totally wrecked. I put the torch on to find out what had caused the accident. To my surprise I saw that it was a cow. Half of its body lay near us while the other half was sprawled 50 yards behind where we had hit it. After taking in the scene, we proceeded to walk down the runway. We must have gone about 100 yards when a soldier told us to halt. We went closer, turned on our torch, and saw the BOAC airplane ahead of us. The soldier who had stopped us was guarding it. Seeing the plane shook both of us to the core. If Allah had not sent the poor cow to save our lives, we would have hit it with such speed—almost 100 miles per hour—that both our plane and the other one would have been blown to bits. Allah be praised, He truly saved our lives in a miraculous way that night. However, we were not out of the woods quite yet. The sound of the crash caused members of the airport staff to come out to where we were. The airport manager recorded the flight in his report as being both illegal and unauthorised. Other than that there was not much else he could do. It took us a long time to put out the flares and take them back to the store. We returned to Ratan Bagh, where Huzoor was