You get an entry ticket prize and 4 (yes, 4) free drinks (with or without alcohol as required), food, and 3 bands - all for the sum of 7 Riyals per ticket. The ticket also includes the charitable contribution as usual. The band tells me the Charity is yet to be clarified, but it's to do with running pre-school care in the villages of Oman, so a good cause.
Their last charity gig in April last year was great. I attended and had a blast. Must admit, 123Orion remind me somewhat of famous trippy band Jefferson Airplane:
Enjoy!
In other news: New ROP Plane crash lands at Muscat Airport
Anyone got any phone-cam footage of the crash landing a few days ago at Muscat Airport of the brand new ROP Embraer plane? I'm told HE Macki and the head of the ROP were on board for the VIP first flight. No reports of any serious injuries, but the undercarriage collapsed on landing apparently.
It forced the closure of the airport for a couple of hours while the badly damaged plane was removed from the runway.
UPDATE:
Here's the pic of the new ROP plane on the runway. A bit of an Oh-no moment...
I wonder who the pilot was?
Glad they're ok.
ReplyDeleteThe plane: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ilnFrE9UljY/TStuE4XsyII/AAAAAAAAAEo/1Dn-X7SvHz0/s1600/image.jpeg
Did you ask JD?
ReplyDeleteThanks Mimi!!
ReplyDeletePosted. Great pic. Captures the moment so well. Big thank you.
OPNO
He's not talking - I asked. Maybe he's somehow involved.
the landing gear of one of the back wheels did not want to lock.. the plane did land safely, with very minor damages due the pilots great efforts.
ReplyDeleteThey said the jet is Brazilian... I wonder why our media didn't announce it immediately after the crash???? (again talking abt local media oh are they gonna change after the GREAT 40???)
ReplyDeleteanyway, luv the first topic i think i will go with my frnds for the sake of motivating charity events only.. thanx a lot
The pilot is a very good friend of mine and all I can say is what a wonderful ,very experienced pilot he is, I flew with him many times and you couldn't of asked for a better Captain to of dealt with this unfortunate situation.
ReplyDeleteHe is an Omani and I say and so do many others a job well done and we 'take our hats off to him'.
Anons,
ReplyDeleteYes, I've been told the plane reported an un-locked left landing gear, and although it was down it clearly wasn't secured. So I agree the pilot did a great job to keep everyone safe.
You'd think he should have been on the cover of the papers in a "Hero Pilot saves the day" type story. But this is Oman after all. The knee-jerk reaction is always to hush it up!
Anyone got more pics?
To round up what happened.
ReplyDeleteA "Gear Unsafe" warning was received from the ECAM (crew alerting system).
The crew did a low-pass, requesting that the control tower assist in viewing the gear.
The controller in the tower told the pilot that his gear was indeed down, however, could not verify if it was locked.
On landing, the aircraft was placed in its normal attitude and then gently controlled as the left main gear began to sink onto it's bogie.
Good job done by the pilot.
Not a hero - and he will say that to you himself.
He did his job. It is why we get paid so much.
As we like to say: "We earn our money about one day out of every year."
JD
I remember seeing a report of this in the Muscat Daily last week. There was another landing gear problem in early january. No photographs though. only unnamed Oamc official were quoted in both the stories.
ReplyDeleteRohan
what type embraer was it?
ReplyDeleteThe pilot is very experienced and did a great job. Knowing him, I'm sure he went straight off fishing afterwards!
ReplyDeleteTalking of news - one of my Omani colleagues was watching a video on YouTube showing young graduates in Al Khuwair protesting about the lack of jobs and (shock) shouting that some of the Ministers need to be replaced. A big protest is apparently planned for next month.
ReplyDeleteIt reminded me about the earlier protests in 2010 when SQU graduates in Arabic Studies who didn't pass the MOE competency test and didn't get teaching jobs demanded jobs - what happened afterwards?
It's a brand new Brazilian built, i hear d 4 numbers aircraft recently purchased by ROP and OmanAir - informed by police on crash site.
ReplyDeleteIts am embraer phenom 100 executive jet to be used by ROP top brass.
ReplyDeleteInteresting footnote to this - while its apparent that the gear was cycled in order to clear the warning, it was not manually cycled as per operating procedures (basically this is a manual procedure which allows the gear to "free-fall" into position. Also in such cases , before attempting the landing, fuel should be dumped as a safety prcaution - again this also was not done.
ReplyDelete