Diary From The Missing Plane

Unfortunately, there was no success story. Ahmed murmured, ‘The hijackers must have done years of research to find this location. You see, they have not kept guards to stop us from escaping. We have been imprisoned inside the most secured, natural prison of the world.’

  ‘It is now time to go back.’ Hanif said and then murmured, ‘We shouldn’t discuss the hijackers so openly. Who knows who amongst us is part of their team?’

  We all went back to our prison cells; the caves. Same stinky and cold food was awaiting us. That night Hanif, Dr Prakash, Rayhana, David and I decided to discuss privately from the watchful eyes of others. Unlike the first night, all the inmates slept quite early and comparatively peacefully. Probably people are now at peace with themselves and no more in a hurry to reach their destination.

  It was a waning moon night. We all went outside the caves and sat on a small rock. We looked around and found nobody other than us.

  Hanif started, ‘I hope none of us is a party to the hijackers. This is my gut feeling.’

  All of us nodded in affirmation.

  ‘Well, I don’t have another choice but to trust. We have already spent few days here,’ Hanif continued, ‘and we are totally cut off from the outer world. There is no mobile network available. There is no radio signal. It seems we are far away from any country. This island must be inside some ocean and uninhabited.’

  ‘When I climbed that tall tree on the mountain, I didn’t see any other island nearby,’ Rayhana added, ‘there is the only ocean and ocean all around.’

  ‘This is another crucial point,’ Hanif continued, ‘even if we are somehow fortunate to come out of this nature-made prison, where will we go? The worst thing is that we can’t even contact with the outside world.’

  ‘My question is: where are our abductors?’ David pointed out, ‘if they are living amongst us as passengers, they must try to contact our Government for negotiation. They must be using mobile phone or some other device to contact.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ Hanif argued, ‘they are more intelligent than you think.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘The leaders of the hijackers must be sitting in some luxury hotel, in some friendly country, and negotiating.’ Hanif explained, ‘And few of low ranking people are keeping watch on us. They must know how to get out of this place.’

  ‘If we are so much convinced that leaders of the hijackers must be negotiating with the Government,’ Dr Prakash suggested, ‘why should we remain concerned? No Government in the world will allow so many people to die. They must come to some final agreement. I have a gut feeling that we will be liberated soon. We should spend our time in making friends, gossiping and laughing.’

  ‘Laughing!’ Hamid exclaimed, ‘can you see the clothes we are wearing? We are all looking like some uncivilised stone-age people, tying plant fibres around the waist as our clothes. Do you remember the funny looking alien type people came here on our first day? We resemble just like them, only our face is not covered.’

  We all looked at one another. We are all looking like those strange looking attendants. Except for the first day, they have never appeared before us.

  ‘Where are those aliens now?’ I asked.

  ‘They must be well amongst us.’ Hanif reasoned, ‘They are from the gang of hijackers who are living among us as passengers. They must have done this trick to fool us. You see they are not appearing now. Rather we are getting our food dropped from somewhere. Do you all think God is dropping all that food from the sky?’

  ‘If God would be dropping food,’ I said, ‘he at least will give us something better.’

  We decided to wait and watch who amongst us are with the hijackers. We continued to eat the same bland food and wear the plant fibres. In our quest to find out the way to the outside world, we tried to recollect the way we came to these caves on the early morning the flight landed. Surprisingly, no one could remember, as if we were all hypnotized. All of us searched every possible area and there was no way to find out how we all arrived in the caves from the airplane.

  After this, the whole lot of three hundred plus passengers could not think of any other strategy. There must be many highly intelligent people among us. Frankly speaking, I consider myself as one of the high level talented person. We all just helplessly continued our stone-age lifestyle. Some people even stopped praying as they felt God certainly didn’t exist. We spent around up to fifteen days like this. There was no indication why the hijackers and the Government are not reaching any agreement.

  One particular day, we noticed a different person in our prison. He was soon distinguished as different because he was not wrapping plant fibre, like the rest of us. When we saw him from a distance, all of us were convinced that he came to us with the word of our release. As he approached near, Rayhana, the air hostess, immediately recognised that he was none other than another passenger. I also recollected that I had seen him in the business class section of the flight.

  Hanif was not disappointed, ‘One thing is sure he was not living in the caves like all of us.’ I heard him murmuring, ‘He must know the way out of this place. Who knows, he might be a party to the hijackers.’

  The man finally came near to us. All of us surrounded him and started asking questions in unison. There was so much confusion that we couldn’t know what to do. Dr Prakash and Hanif calmed everyone down and requested him to come with us.

  His name was Steve. We cautiously enquired if he knew anything about hijacking and negotiation with the Government.

  ‘Who told, we have been hijacked?’

  His answer almost made all of us nervous. If there has been no hijack, how did we land here?

  Here is his story.

  ‘I am a pilot, but employed with another airline. In the midnight, when the airplane was flying in high altitude, something happened inside the flight. I can’t even recollect what it was. When I regained consciousness, I saw that everyone else was sleeping. I called for assistance from the crew, but no one turned up. I was genuinely thinking that I was in deep sleep, and all other passengers were also in deep sleep. This was highly unusual. I was extremely annoyed as none of the crew was responding to me. I got up and went to find out the air-hostesses. I was awestruck to find them sleeping in their seats. I smelt something was unusual and rushed to the cockpit.’

  He took a breather. We all were listening with the utmost attention. I can bet all of us were nervous as if we still were inside the flight in high altitude and something worse was going to happen. I even saw few people who started praying with folded hands. I wanted to scream loudly at them, ‘Don’t worry. We have already landed safely.’

  Steve started again, ‘My worst nightmare came true when I reached the cockpit. Both the pilots were sleeping, and the flight was on autopilot. I touched the shoulder of the captain in order to wake him up. He fell down. He was gone. The other pilot was dead too.’

  Steve paused again as if the worst is yet to come. He started again.

  ‘I took over.’

  ‘Thank God,’ one of the passengers said loudly, ‘we are lucky at least one of the passengers was an experienced pilot. Thank you Mr Steve. We owe our lives to you.’

  I saw everyone suddenly looked relaxed.

  Steve continued, ‘I didn’t have much time left. The fuel was almost over. We were flying at exceptionally low altitude above the ocean. I tried to raise an alarm. Unfortunately, all the communications were lost. There was no time to find out a solution for getting the communication back. With the amount of fuel, there was a real urgency to land as soon as possible. Otherwise, the flight has to land on the water. That was certainly not an option, as all the sleeping passengers, I believed, were unconscious. Landing on the water would allow no one a chance to survive. Suddenly I saw a small island which was not far away. It was still dark, visibility was poor. But there was only one option. I circled over the island for checking if there was scope for landing. I couldn’t wait for long. I had to take the decision to l
and the flight or let everybody including myself to die. I saw a tract of land, I thought can be used a runway. I checked the fuel. It was on the verge of being completely empty, just like the hopes contained within the souls of the passengers it carried. There was no alternative to land or not. I had to land.’

  Steve looked around. Probably he was waiting for applause for a safe landing.

  ‘Sorry Steve,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘I was terribly angry because of the rough landing.’ I replied, ‘I was thinking to ask for an explanation from the airlines. I have also heard other passengers were showering abusive words to the pilot. We honestly didn’t understand the situation. You have done an incredible job and saved all of us.’

  Steve laughed, ‘Don’t worry; none of you was alive when the flight landed. So, there was no question of abusing me.’

  ‘Are you talking nuts?’ Hanif looked angry.

  ‘Now you are just being abusive,’ Steve laughed again.

  ‘I am asking for an apology from all of us,’ Dr Prakash tried to calm down all of us.

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ Steve assured him, ‘what I am going to tell you is exceptionally harsh, but true. I think you people will not get the same shock I got after landing of the flight.’

  ‘We have to listen even if what you are going to say is shocking.’ Dr Prakash said, ‘Please continue.’

  Steve