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“Bizarre death at Piarco! Visitor minced to bits by jet engine.”
Late at night in 1990 I was Captain of a Boeing 747 preparing for a flight from Piarco in Trinidad to Antigua.
Extract from my book — “Dancing the skies and falling with style.”
Available on Amazon and www.calvinshields.com/book
At 10pm we ran through the pre-flight checks for our return to Antigua. Faint flashes of lightning illuminated a line of thunderstorms in the distance and silhouetted the hills surrounding the airport. The warm, humid trade wind blew across the brightly lit apron as the last passengers boarded the aircraft and the doors were finally closed.
The overhead air louvre blew hot air onto my face, sweat ran down my back and my damp collar stuck to my neck. The ait-conditioning fans whirred, struggling in vain to control the heat from the instrument panel.
“Before start checklist.” I called
The engineer motored his seat forward and leant between the front seats and read the checklist in a slow monotone. Craig was tanned and wiry with a mop of dark brown hair. He wore an almost perpetual mischievous grin.
