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AMBASSADOR COLLEGE
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG, Chairman
Publisher of The PLAIN TRUTH Magazine
EXTENSION DEPARTMENT
An educational service at all levels
for all people worldwide
September 19, 1974
Dear Inner Family of
Co-Workers with Christ:
An accident happened to our airplane on this trip. It
gave us some excitement, and I thought you might like to hear
about it. It also made me realize how impossible it would be for
me to carry on the Work which God is now having me to do without
this plane.
We were on the runway at Cairo, Egypt, taking off for Tel
Aviv. I had a very large, important dinner as the scheduled
speaker the following night in Jerusalem. So far as I know, no
planes of any kind ever fly from Cairo to Tel Aviv, except that
of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and my own jet. We were
taking off on the runway at Cairo. Our two powerful Rolls-Royce
engines accelerated, picking up speed fast.
Then it HAPPENED!
We were about halfway down the runway, reaching 180 miles
an hour -- our lift-off speed. Suddenly Captain Black threw the
engines into reverse thrust and the brakes ground to a screeching
halt, just before the end of the runway.
ENGINE TROUBLE! That had never happened before in 4 1/2
years. In fact, what happened would not occur again in several
million flights.
Our left engine had caught some flying object in the air,
but first we thought it could have been a bird. Alighting to the
ground we could see that nearly all the blades in one of the
engines were bent out of shape. Then we concluded it must have
been a piece of flying metal. Birds are occasionally caught in
a jet engine on take-off when we are still flying low -- they
might do a little harm. But a piece of flying metal -- there
would not be one chance in a million that would happen!
The only way we could account for it was that it was
flipped into the air by one of the front tires.
We probably would not have been in danger, even had it
occurred about five seconds later. It would have been too late
to stop on the runway. We should have had to take off into the