Flying The Middle East

Directly below, the Gulf of Suez points the way to the Red Sea, and despite the fact that Israel and Egypt are temporarily at peace in September 1987, I'm uncomfortable flying in this airspace.

Strange things happen in this ancient land called North Africa. Barely a month ago, a young soldier on the opposite side of the continent fired a shoulder-launched missile at an overflying aircraft, apparently just for the hell of it. To his amazement, he hit it, a Mitsubishi MU-2 research aircraft returning from Antarctica to Europe with a pilot and four scientists aboard. Never mind that the MU-2 had no weapons and was on an approved flight plan, all on board were killed. The soldier was probably executed the following day, but !

My route today is dictated by war. Look at a map including the island of Crete, Israel and Jordan, and you'll note that a direct flight across Israel would be about half the distance. Instead, there's still no treaty between Israel and Jordan, so I must fly the long way around.

With that as prelude, the Beech Duke trundles along at 200 knots, and I can't help but check below me every once in a while for a telltale missile trail closing at Mach 3.0. Israel and Egypt fought over the land below three times, in 1956, 1967 and 1973. This is 1987, and I can't help but wonder if things have quieted down.

Perhaps they have, at least a little. Today, I was granted a routing I've filed for several times, but always been denied. I left Iraklion, Greece, at sunrise, flew south over the Med to Alexandria, Egypt, was routed east above the pyramids and Cairo, turned south down the Gulf of Suez to the bottom of the Sinai Peninsula, then was granted permission to fly north over the Gulf of Aqaba and on into my destination, Amman, Jordan.

"My" Duke for this trip is a cloud seeder owned by Weather Modifications Inc. of Fargo, N.D., and under contract to the Jordanian government in hopes of increasing the country's meager rainfall. This will be my third trip from Fargo to Amman in October and back to the U.S. in April. There will be two more round trips before the contract expires.

This is my 14th delivery flight to the Middle East, and I've learned that everything isn't necessarily what it seems. A few years before, I had been part of a large flight of 10 Piper Archers that launched from Vero Beach, Fla., and routed through Bangor; St. John's (Newfoundland), Canada; Santa Maria, Azores; Palma de Mallorca, Spain; and Iraklion, Greece, into Amman. After all 10 airplanes had arrived at Amman Civil Airport in Marka, and we were removing the ferry tanks and HF radios, we noticed a group of military pilots apparently waiting for us to finish.

When the aircraft were restored to stock configuration, the military pilots stepped up and accepted the keys to the Archers. They were all members of the Iraqi Air Force and were there to finish the ferry to Baghdad where new ab initio military pilots would be trained to fly. The U.S. didn't trade with Iraq, but we would sell airplanes to Jordan. King Hussein of Jordan was obviously acting as an intermediary for his then-friend Saddam Hussein.

I'm also gaining an undeserved reputation as the resident Middle East expert at the ferry company I fly for, a title I'd just as soon relinquish to someone else. I once landed at Luxor, Egypt, in a Piper Chieftain and made the mistake of allowing a hot engine to idle out before I turned off the runway. The airplane was impossible to restart, and there was no way to leave the runway with only one engine running. As a result, the tower sent out a truck full of ramp workers who proceeded to muscle the airplane onto the ramp, pushing on ailerons, rudders and anything else they could grip despite my protestations. Fortunately, there was no damage.

The next morning, the tower chief refused my flight plan until I signed a "Hold Harmless" statement. He said the airplane was obviously defective because an engine had quit, and the airplane hadn't been inspected by the local FBO. I tried to explain fuel injection and hot starts in extreme temperatures, but he insisted that my company would be liable for any damage if the Chieftain crashed on takeoff. I signed, but somehow managed to depart safely.

When someone does have an accident in some parts of the Middle East, the reaction is sometimes surprising. The year after the Duke's Jordanian contract expired, I was hired to deliver the airplane to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for the same cloud seeding mission. The outbound trip to UAE went fine, but the return flight was problematical. Shortly after I arrived on the airline six months later to pick up the Duke, I learned that an American-registered Navajo had crashed on the runway two days before. For that reason, all U.S.-registered aircraft were grounded until the probable cause investigation was complete. No one knew how long that would take.

There were only four other U.S.-registered airplanes at Abu Dhabi: a Learjet, a Cessna 210, a Bonanza and a Saratoga. All four crews were staying at the same hotel, and after three days, the consensus seemed to be that we were all going to be there for a while.

On the premise that perhaps the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, I called flight service and filed an IFR flight plan for Luxor, Egypt. The flight plan was accepted without question. I checked out of the hotel, grabbed a cab to the airport, arriving just after noon and told the service manager at the FBO that I was going to do some engine run ups. He was a burly Canadian with a sense of humor. He smiled and winked, reminding me that I wasn't allowed to depart. I told him I wouldn't think of it; he grinned and went to lunch.

The airplane was serviced and ready to go. I climbed aboard, started the engines and called clearance delivery for my clearance, expecting at any moment to be told to shut down. Instead, I was cleared as filed via Bahrain, Riyadh, and on to Luxor. I taxied to the holding point, did my run up and called the tower for takeoff clearance.

Again, I assumed I'd be directed to return to the ramp, but after some delay, the tower finally cleared me for takeoff. Just over an hour later, long after I had left UAE airspace and was working Bahrain Center, the Bahrain controller, a retired American, said he had received a message from Abu Dhabi that there was "something irregular" about my flight plan. He asked if I wanted to return to Abu Dhabi, I said no, and he commented, "Yeah, I didn't think so. You're cleared as filed, flight level 200, Riyadh and direct Luxor."

After I landed in Luxor, this time with both engines running, and checked into the hotel, I waited for the phone to ring, but it never did.