Ditching in Dubai

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So we graduated! We had a special ceremony, a cake and met the CEO of Qatar Airways, Mr Al Baker.

At 5:30 the next morning, the bus picked us up and took us to the airport for our flight to Dubai. We were barely in the air when we started to descend.
Wow, I got that Hong Kong feeling...a fresh, bustling, impressive city ….Dubai! I cannot wait to take a trip there...it’s so close and easy for me to go there.

A bus took us to the Emirates training facilities where we found it to be state of the art and only 2 years old.

They have 3 mock up planes: an A300 for ground evacuation, one A330/340 also for ground evacuation and one for ditching. We practiced on the A330/340, 5 at a time we had to handle different emergency situations: fire in the overhead bin, smoke in the cabin, fire in the oven, fire in the cart, abnormal stop, planned emergency landings on land and on water, and rapid decompression ...while the rest were acting as scared passengers.

The mock up moved almost exactly like a real airplane taking off and landing with hydraulics and all the sound effects. The windows are monitors with scenes of the wing, mountains and water outside moving past us (depending on the situation) - amazing!

The mock up shook fiercely simulating a planned emergency landing. It was so damn scary at stages, especially when the oxygen masks were deployed unexpectedly and we all screamed…. Later, we had to evacuate the aircraft using the slide raft that is located in the door. These slide rafts are designed to inflate within 4-6 seconds when deployed. You then jump and slide all the way to the bottom. While sliding down, your bum heats up because of the friction and when you reach the bottom…. eina!

I was part of the planned ditching emergency. So after all the preparations, the aircraft came to a complete stop (on the water you could feel and hear as it would be in the real situation) and we had to climb onto the slide raft, erect the canopy and jump in the water....oooooo it was so cold!!!! To re-enter the slide raft, we had to use the boarding station and climb aboard!

We all dressed up again, did the makeup and hair as Qatar Airways cabin crew should and took the 7:15 flight back to Doha. Needless to say we were exhausted!

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