I knew that the forecast wind
for that day, the eighth of January
1971, was a little bit strong.
So instead of flying at 500 feet,
it was decided to go up to 1000 feet
And after about four mile Bob said,
I'm going to have to power on
And as you put power on,
and I thought we'd hit the ground.
The next thing I heard was "Fire
and he started pulling the aircraft.
Away from the ground.
So anyway, we climbed out,
got the fire extinguishers going,
and it looked as though the fire had gone
Great.
So there we are, climbing away
thinking, what are we going to do next?
You know, clearly a diversion
And then the AEO
Said to the crew, the fire's not out,
and then immediately another fire warning
So then the emergency procedures for
engine for two engines out,
and all the non-essential stuff
flying was switched off automatically
was put out mayday, call fire
on board,
And we climbed up to 9000 feet.
And it was obvious that the fire
was not going out and then the whole thing
Bob decided
We're going to have to bail out
Certainly
So he then gave the order.
To bail out abandoned aircraft,
abandoned aircraft,
Jim swiveled his seat and he went out,
so at that stage with both seats swivelled
I went down,
stood at the top of the
the door,
and as I jumped out, I heard this
It was massive noise.
The parachute opened.
I tried to look around
My great regret that
I never saw the aircraft.
You know, could I just could not see it
Never thought of it, but I could hear it
So there we were at
9000 feet and coming down,
a nice green valley below me
Easy landing.
But then I remember, of course,
then it was made quite clear to me that.
Quite a windy day.
So I started to drift,
I could see that I was being drifted on up
over the Cheviot hills.
And as I looked down, I could see there's
Oh Jesus, this is going to hurt.
And I was all sort of
resigned to hitting
one of these rocks
And I just kept on coming down
I was going backwards to the wind,
in that I went over the
feet.
My boots touched soft.
Heather and I rode over a couple of times
and it was like dropping onto a nice
And I got up.
I felt myself and I felt great,
