Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, 1998-04-01(2) 11:00 local (Z+3)
I'm out! Once again I have escaped from Saudi Arabia! <g>
That's the good news. The bad news is that Tower has ordered the airplane to Tel Aviv rather than to JFK for maintenance, and, since directly flights from Saudi Arabia to Israel are not allowed, we have landed at Cairo.
Even more interesting is that during the flight here, the company selcaled the captain of the operating crew, telling him to call on the phone after landing here, that they had a message for him that couldn't be given over the radio. That usually means a military diversion, but in this instance it was to tell him that Saudi Arabia was protesting having this airplane go into Israel even after stopping in Cairo. So, they sent a new flight plan sending us to Larnaca, Cyprus. C.J., you may remember us landing in Larnaca when we visited Cyprus from Saudi during Xmas, 1981.
We won't actually land at Larnaca. As soon as we're in Cypriot airspace, we'll divert to Tel Aviv. This could be interesting. Tower is telling us to make no radio transmissions other than those absolutely necessary for air traffic control. We are not to make the usual after-departure and pre-arrival messages that get relayed to the company. Hopefully, Tower has set things up with Tel Aviv. If they haven't, we'll have to land in Cyprus or divert to someplace in Europe.
We're all wondering why Saudi Arabia is so upset. This airplane isn't in Saudia colors, it's painted in the Garuda Indonesia livery. My question is: what will the Hassidics say when they're taken to board an airplane painted in the colors of the national airline of the world's largest Muslim country, albeit one that is tolerant of all religions.
Whoops, the battery is about to go. Later....