Lobnek Newsletter, October 2022

“Let’s have no illusions. We are in rough seas.”
Antonio Guterres (1949 -), current Secretary-General of the United Nations

It was 1985, and I was on a Swissair flight to visit some friends in Chicago. We were making our final approach to O’Hare International Airport on a clear summer afternoon and just as we were about to touchdown, the engines suddenly went full thrust, causing an intense rumbling sound and vibrations that sent our Boeing 747 behemoth right back into the sky. A few minutes later, as we started gaining altitude, the captain made an announcement apologizing for the commotion and went on to explain the cause. The plane that had landed before us had not cleared the runway, which meant that our captain had to make a split-second decision to abort the landing in order to avert a potentially catastrophic accident.

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