Having done some globetrotting for couple of weeks, I finally flew back home from London Gatwick to Genoa Cristoforo Colombo airport yesterday. This was my last leg after being on the move for 24 hours already. We left wet, misty and wintry London with the BA flight on time.
It is only a short hour and a half hop from London to Genoa. The captain sounded very warm and welcoming on the intercom, the usual cheery and professional "you just relax there and leave the flying to me" - type of an announcement, spiced with some information about weather conditions in Genoa. Not that I was listening, as I was too tired to register anything.
We soon approached the airport after an uneventful time up in the air and the crew prepared everyone for landing. I knew that the runway at Cristoforo Colombo is a bit short - it is only 2.9 km long - and that the sea is right next to it. You can often see container ships alarmingly close to the landing strip.
This time the plane was just about to touch down, when it suddenly shot up again. I know this happens all the time at airports, it is totally normal and a sensible thing to do, if the conditions are not ideal. But it is a different matter altogether, when you are sitting on the said plane and hoping that there is enough fuel, that the pilot has done this before and not just in a simulator. Passengers around me suddenly started chatting. I heard comments such as "it is a dangerous airport, this one", "happens all the time", "planes have ended up to the sea"... hold on! What???
After some agonising minutes, there was an announcement from the very confident sounding captain, who explained that the crew had not been 100 % happy with the landing conditions, therefore, he had decided to abort the landing and we would now try again. 15 minutes later the plane was positioned to land from a different direction and down we came, with a little bump but quite smoothly, under the circumstances. The passengers gave spontaneous applauds to the captain and the crew.
Back at home I immediately checked the Aviation Safety Network (www. flightsafety.org) to find out if it is true that Genoa is a dangerous place to land. The last recorded incident with fatalities occurred in 1999 when a domestic flight from Cagliari failed to land in 15-18 knot winds and crashed to the sea. Out of 31 people on board, 4 died.
Even though I take comfort in statistics, I also know that from now on, there is an additional factor every time I arrive to Genoa by air. Trains from Milano do sound quite an attractive alternative, but in truth this would be too impractical. The only thing to do is to stay calm and land at Cristoforo Colombo....
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