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On February 6, 1979, I left Lebanon to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I wasn't thrilled about it. I just didn't have much of a choice, then. Saudi Arabia, with its numerous job opportunities, was the place to be if you needed a higher revenue in order to provide for your loved ones back home. A few months had gone by, and I was getting along just fine with my new job and my lonely life. One Tuesday night, I had a vision in my dream. I say "a vision", because it felt so strongly like one, that I couldn't just call it a "dream". It went on like this: It was a very dark night. I saw myself playing volley ball in the middle of the runway of Riyadh International Airport. Suddenly, I was being blown away in a suffocating sand storm and out of nowhere, the heavy rains started pouring down, and the landing strip was quickly covered with mud. I heard above me the deafening sound of a Boeing 747. Raising my head, I could clearly see the red, green and white logos of the Middle-East Airlines (MEA, a Lebanese airline company), painted on the Jumbo Jet. As I watched, I realized that one of its 4 engines was spitting fire and black smoke. As it landed, it slid on the mud, and I saw it abruptly leaving the runway, and colliding into a sand dune nearby. As the fire and other emergency vehicles surrounded it, the plane passengers' door was opened, and all people on board were escorted down, unhurt. In my "vision", this was the Saturday flight from Beirut to Riyadh. Next morning, I told my "dream" to the sales manager in our company. He laughed, and said that if it truly was a vision, then all we had to do was to wait for tonight's flight! He even said it would probably happen in Jeddah or Dammam's airport, not in Riyadh, since no MEA, or any other airline beside Saudia Airlines, could ever land in Riyadh, as everybody knew then (see point "2", in the explanation below). I insisted this would happen in Riyadh, on Saturday! I
had the deep conviction it would.
Now, let's look at the facts: 1- Two flights were regularly scheduled weekly from Beirut to Riyadh. Both arrived at night. Wednesdays and Saturdays. 2- Only Saudia planes were allowed landing in Riyadh Airport. Never in its history had any other commercial plane landed there, unless previously painted with the Saudia Airlines green logo. (this law was still in effect until mid 80's, when the new Airport, K.K.I.A., was finally ready, and the foreign embassies were transferred at last, from Jeddah to the capital, Riyadh). 3- All other Airlines would only land in Dhahran (Gulf) or Jeddah (Red Sea) airports, then have their passengers transfered to Riyadh, on a local Saudia flight. 4- It was the summer. The sand storms
only hit in the late winter / early spring. It never rains in the summer
there. Never the less, "flood like" rains!
In the next few days, this "vision dream" slowly faded away, under every day's work pressure. On Sunday morning, I was working in my office, like usual. (In Saudi Arabia, as in all the Arab countries, Saturday is the first day of the week. Thus, the weekend starts on Thursday afternoon, and ends on Saturday morning) As I needed to go to our reception desk, I saw there a familiar face: it was my neighbor in Lebanon, Roger S.! After the hugging and greeting, I asked him how come he was in Riyadh. He answered that he had been hired as a site worker by our company. So, as it is the customs there, I thanked God for his safe arrival to Saudi Arabia, and asked him, as I knew he had never traveled before, if he had enjoyed his first flight ever. To that, Roger S. answered : "For a first flight, it was quite an initiation!" he then added quickly, before I had the time to realize what he meant, : "If it wasn't for God and Captain Abou Ghazaleh, we would've all been killed" To this last sentence, my vision immediately came to my mind... I realized that it was Sunday already, and that Roger S. had arrived on the Saturday night's flight from Beirut!!! Now, let's hear his version of what happened: Roger S. told me that while in Beirut Airport, the passengers of the Saudia Airlines flight to Riyadh were notified of a delay due to technical problems. After a couple of hours, he learnt that the scheduled plane had a serious mechanical problem, and that they had to cancel the flight. But due to the fact that the flight was fully booked, the airline had no alternative, but to ask for a special authorization to charter a local M.E.A. 747! Authorization was granted, and for the first time ever, an M.E.A. flight flew directly to Riyadh! Half an hour before the scheduled landing in Riyadh airport, a sudden and unexpected violent sand storm rose, and was accompanied with flood like rains! One of the engines caught fire, and the captain notified the passengers to prepare for an emergency landing! It seemed that what really saved the plane was that it deviated after landing, hitting a sand dune, which halted it. As we learnt later, whether from "so said officials", or heard through the grape vine, as Captain Abou Ghazaleh (who had the honorable reputation of being one of the best in his field) realized his plane was dangerously skating on the mud covered runway, he decided to take it off its trajectory, and direct it to a sand dune nearby. We never got any official statement though. Guess we'll never know what really happened. The plane was immediately surrounded by all the emergency vehicles available at the airport. But, fortunately, no one was seriously hurt. The news then spread quickly at the office, and a few
minutes later, our sales manager followed by the employees who were present
that morning when I had told him my "dream", stormed into my
office, pointed at me and said: "Burn the witch!"
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