By now you must have heard all about the spectacular arrival of American Airlines flight 331 which ended up in three pieces on the sand of the Port Royal road.

One can have a bit of fun with it now since (miraculously) everyone escaped death and even those with injuries are now all out of hospital.

One passenger (a lady of about my age) and obviously a veteran of bringing goods to Kingston before graduating to becoming a Miami commuter bringing more fashionable items to market, said: “Well, it was a very rough landing but them old Field Marshall country buss dem used to throw (throw) me around nearly as bad on the roads over the mountains!”

That’s the sort of customer American Airlines needs. They won’t get an insurance claim from her!

While not quite up to that standard a few more interviews and observations are emerging. One intrepid passenger mentioned that when he exited the aircraft there was a woman laying on the ground but he hurried away because, as he put it, “me always hear that them planes can catch fire and blow up when this type of thing happen and so me decide to jus lef her. Me did think she was dead anyway so it might not matter.”  (There is a sort of awful logic in this)

Another logician remarked that after he got out of the plane he was standing on the beach with “rain pouring down on me and I thought ‘suppose me catch a bad flu now and it kill me. That would be too bad!’ 

Because the crash was immediately adjacent to the Port Royal Road many passengers flagged down passing motorists and got lifts home. Others called (on their cell phones) the people who were waiting for them at the airport and asked them to “just drive round by the lighthouse and pick me up.” One called 119 and was told by the emergency operator to hang up the phone and stop bothering us with crank calls!

The law-abiding and injured waited for official transport to take them to the terminal. Some of these were delivered in error to the airport police station where they discovered that the uniformed officers there were “unaware” that anything unusual had happened. They were then taken (along with the other passengers that were now arriving by car, bus and foot) to immigration who said that they had to be processed just like normal arrivals and to join the line. After that they had to “clear” customs although the entire checked luggage was still on the wrecked plane. Why? Well, said the customs, some of you still have handbags, and I see one man over there who still looks like he has a carry-on so we have to check you as usual. They told the immigration and customs that lots of passengers had just gone home directly from the crash in cars with their friends or in passing vehicles and the officers said: we will try to catch them tomorrow and prosecute them. Them is lawbreakers!