In the night from Sunday to Monday, a TUI plane that was to fly from the Dominican Republic to Amsterdam had to make a ‘precautionary landing’ on Curaçao. The pilot decided to do so because a crack had formed in the windshield in the cockpit. On NH Radio, presenter Patricia Nagelkerke spoke to her neighbor Ronald, who was in the device.
“We just left and after an hour we would actually be served the food and then it was said that we are not going to do that, we are going to break that off. Then I thought, that is crazy”, Ronald describes the situation. “Then very shortly afterwards a message came from the captain that a ‘crack’ had formed in the windscreen. They did not dare to fly over the entire ocean and decided to make an emergency stop.”
‘A crack’
That was quite a scary moment, because the plane was already flying in the air. “He said, ‘It’s double windows and it’s a small crack, so it’s not that bad in itself’.” Ronald was reassured, but his traveling companion was less enthusiastic. “He has also flown and said, ‘if the window bursts then we have a big problem because it is -40 degrees’, so of course that is not possible.”
“The captain told us that we were going back to Curaçao”, Ronald continues. “We first had to discharge a lot of kerosene, because of course we were completely full and that is life-threatening when you land. Then you are literally a bomb.”
“That was a very strange sound, you could really hear something being discharged into the ocean,” he describes. “And then finally we landed on Curaçao and then all emergency services were ready.”
Shattered window
But after landing the long wait began: “We had to stay put for a long time, we were not allowed to leave because Curaçao did not want to open the border. That was a lot of hassle.”
It became clear when the passengers were allowed to leave that the emergency landing was not in vain. “When we finally walked out of the plane, we saw that the left window was completely shattered,” Ronald says with dismay.
slight panic
In the air he noticed that people around him were getting a bit panicky and the emergency landing was not quite right for Ronald himself. “It does cross your mind for a while, also because that friend said ‘it could really go wrong’.”
“The first thing I thought was that I’m glad it’s the end of the holidays,” he says with a laugh. “And then I thought, ‘Now have a glass of wine!’ But we didn’t get that anymore.”
Meanwhile, Ronald has been in a hotel for almost two days, waiting for updates. “Nobody knows when we will go back. I heard from friends from Amsterdam that a flight is planned for tomorrow, but I don’t know anything officially yet.”