Terror on a Layover (Not Me)

The following is an excerpt of a blog entry by a Northwest Airlines pilot on a layover in India during the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Several NWA and Delta crews, along with a number of international carrier crews, were on normally scheduled layovers when the attacks occurred. Nearly all international airline crews stay at the Oberi-Trident Hotel in Mumbai. The terrorists targeted "Westerners" (Americans and Europeans) and the Oberi Hotel was a primary target. This is one U.S. crewmember's account -- the content is graphic:

Dateline Mumbai: I was lucky. Just two hours separated me from a life altering event.
Yes I was there. My flight was on approach to BOM when the first terrorist attacks took place. Our ETA to the Oberi/Trident hotel was about 90mins later. The outbound crew was scheduled to be in the lobby about 20mins after the first attack at the hotel (10:30pm).

My crew spent 6 hrs on the aircraft before being relocated to one of the airport hotels. In retrospect, NWA should have gotten us there immediately. We were the crew who would fly out of BOM. Being off duty on the aircraft is not resting, and I correctly guestimated how most of the decision process was going to play out over the next 12 hrs. We were eating into what would be a 48 hr period with (in my case) just 4 hrs of sleep. I thought my day couldn't get much worse.

At this moment, I'm on a flight from BOM-AMS. My crewmembers are all safe, and we have nine of eleven of the crew who were at the Oberi/Trident. Sadly, a pilot and FA are still at the Oberi, holed up in their rooms. NWA hired two different civilian extraction teams to get them out of the hotel safely ... you know, expats - challenge/response passwords & all that James Bond stuff .. That may have worked initially; but the hotel was locked down by the local military (to the exclusion of those rescue teams) and that simply provided the terrorists time to reorganize, take hostages, and prepare for a long standoff. 

Flashback to Oberi hotel. Some stories from that unfortunate crew follow: (Apparently, a well built hotel muffles sound more than you might think ) A F/A exits the elevator in the lobby of the Trident. The terrorists (probably) just gunned their way through the lobby, into a connecting hallway to the Oberi (their primary target). Bodies and pools of blood everywhere. The two girls at the front desk, Bellman, and Doorman all killed in the initial attack. All other people in the lobby were either shot/killed or helped the injured out of the hotel. The F/A returned to his room then followed a housecleaner out through a (sort of) hidden stairway into the relative safety of the street. I later found out the hotel manager, who lives in the hotel with his wife and children, were all killed in the initial attack. That may point to an "insider" helping the terrorists.

A male Chinese F/A was trying to escape the hotel following a hotel employee through a different pitch black service stairway. He opened a door to a short hallway leading into the lobby. Shell casings and damage littered the floor. He started into the lobby and came face to face with one of the armed terrorists. Fortunately, he was not in uniform, and wearing a European style black leather jacket. He didn't fit the victim profile. He turned around, back through the hallway and got out alive.

Another F/A goes to the elevator to head down to the lobby. Doors open and the interior of the car was splattered in blood. She returned to her room and got a few other F/A's and left that floor via the emergency exit. Once out on the exposed outer stairway, the fire door locked behind them. If they ran into trouble down below, without another exit strategy, they'd be truly screwed. Near the bottom, they heard a lot of commotion beyond a set of double doors. They were potentially stuck in a real bad situation. They backed up a bit, laid down and played possum (wouldn't have worked - no blood). A few minutes later a police team came up to their position and escorted them to the relative safety of a nearby parking garage.

That crew eventually spent about 9 hrs on an ascending ramp at a concrete parking structure about two blocks from the hotel. The F/O on the scene separated that crew from perhaps 300 other confused civilians. Automatic weapon fire and hand grenade explosions permeated the restless night. They were able to keep in touch with NWA security via an international cell phone. They got on a charter bus about 9 am, and were transported to the hotel where my crew was located.

I'm now in AMS. I'll be on a flight to civilization in another 3 hrs. The two crewmembers stuck in the BOM hotel are OK, but still waiting to be rescued along with Lufthansa and Air France crews. The above was a quick summary of what happened last night. I could get into a Lot more detail. But right now, there's a shower with my name in it.