(This true account was forwarded to me by our friend Kitty in SoCal, who received it from her friend Doug in Nevada who read it on an aviation site, avweb.com. I'll paste this account by a pilot named Dennis and the next one by a pilot named JD, even though the second one runs pretty long. There's no point linking you to avweb.com because apparently newer stories have already replaced these. Jessica)
Narita, Japan
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 11:10 PM
We
were at the gate onboard ship 7001 with passenger boarding in progress when the
earthquake began. My F/O, Joe Haggerty, had taken his seat and I was standing
behind the center radio console when the airplane began shaking. Initially
thought it was wind gusts but ruled that out since it had been calm when we left
the hotel. Jet blast from a taxiing aircraft? Nope, look, the terminal windows
are flexing and the building is...moving! It's an earthquake...immediately, in
a brilliant display of airmanship, Joe reached over and set the parking brake.
It seemed quite possible that we could jump our wheel chocks and roll into
something hard. After a minute of this, the shaking got much worse and lasted
about 2 1/2 minutes total. Our passengers intuitively decided that the safest
place in all of this was on the aircrart and not in the terminal or the jetway.
Never seen 261 people board a 777 so quickly! Two long and impressive
aftershocks followed during the next hour. Narita closed it's runways and our
inbound flights began diverting. 281 from Atlanta was about 10 minutes from
landing and diverted to Nagoya. Hanada and Narita were both closed. They
evacuated everyone from the Narita terminals deeming the structures unsafe for
occupancy. The Narita tower was evacuated, Narita Approach Control was
evacuated. At about 4pm, the airport was notam'd closed "until 0600 tomorrow
morning". So, Delta cancelled us and all of the other flights out of Narita.
Well.........there was only one "safe area" established
at the airport (outside in a cold rain) where passengers could be taken if they
deplaned. It became full. There was no chance of deplaning into the terminal.
No chance of deplaning at all. No ground transportation as all busses and
trains were shut down and the highways had been closed. So, Delta calls the
Narita Airport Authority and suggests that since the runway had been inspected,
it might be a real good idea to allow 6 Delta departures and get maybe 1,400
customers out of this mess. They agreed and after a four hour wait at the gate,
we got out of there. On departure we could see four distinct, large fires in
downtown Tokyo, 50 miles to the south. A refinery was on fire at the coastline
to our east. We had no real idea of the size of the disaster until we had a
datalink discussion with our dispatcher who filled us in. Now, watching the
news at home, I am stunned at the devastation. All Delta crews and employees
are safe and uninjured in Japan. I am not sure if the layover hotel has power.
I'm glad I'm not in room 932 anymore with the aftershocks that they are
getting.
Happy to be home and thanks for your
concern.
Dennis
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