After 3 months of preparation for a tour to shoot the Aurora Borealis in Iceland, the black swan was grinning around the corner smoking his favorite cigarette.

We took off from Beirut [] International Airport on the 17th of March 2015 at 4:40 AM heading towards Reykjavík via Lufthansa Airlines with a transit stop at Frankfurt airport.  

There was a palpable sense of relief seeing Beirut fade away, I was sitting at the window above the left wing, gazing into the waning crescent moon and imagining the dancing auroras I have never seen before. 

I started filming as an attempt to document our trip. 36 seconds after the take off we were already above the sea and while trying to maintain a stable phone, two sudden brutal explosions happened to the engine underneath, the aircraft started shaking, vibrating and almsot resonated, it also smelled burning from the inside. The situation escalated when the "EXIT" signs lit. "EXIT to where? Hello guys! I don't swim". 

Minutes later, our pilot broadcasted that the left engine ingested a flock of birds, broke it down and we are heading back to Beirut. Ironically, some people woke up thinking they reached Frankfurt. 

The below video shows the double explosion (at 01:50) along with the mentionned weird landing sounds, and of course, passengers applauding (a Lebanese tradition). 

 

While it was hard to stabilize the flying aircraft and our brave pilot did a tremendous job landing us safely,  Lufthansa failed miserably on the ground. I know it's not the best timing to elaborate about its messed up crisis management, but they will be featured in an upcoming post....mainly because we still haven't reached our final destination yet!!

 

Edit (17/03/2017):

Following this event, I got obsessed by aviation accidents and birdstrikes, I watched each and every airplane crash on Youtube. I also found out that all aircrafts are built to handle take-offs, flights and landing with a broken engine - pilots are well trained do do this. But the case would be different when both engines break. 

During the same trip, two days after the incident, nothing was more symbolic than visiting the abandonned "Crashed US Navy DC3" on the black beach at Sólheimasandur, south of Iceland.

I used to play Ingress back then: