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BATAM - It is just several minutes before half past one as Batavia Air flight 7P-577 from Jakarta is preparing to land on Hang Nadim international airport on Batam. After a nice and quiet flight that departed just a few minutes behind schedule from Jakarta, Batam is visible and the last empty cups of water and paper napkins are collected by the stewardesses.
The plane is still in approach, the landing gear not opened yet, when the plane suddenly drops. The pilot is reacting to it by pulling the yoke, because the plane made a sharp turn to the right with waves approaching rapidly, creating an impossible situation to maintain a proper approach. The crew is somewhat scared and looks around, but outside several sighs and some "Allahu Akbar" nothing seems to be wrong.
Just a few seconds later, the fasten seat belt sign is lit and the pilot tells the crew to sit down and prepare for landing. In the meanwhile, the landing gear is unfolded and the plane makes a turn to the right again. The plane is now also rising again. Procedures and checks to put the seats in upright position and opening window shades are not performed entirely.
A slightly shivering voice from the tail section of the plane tries to pick up the proper procedures with announcing that seat belts should be fastened, but also forgets to announce to put the seats upright and open the window shades. A stewardess in the front of the plane meanwhile turns off all lighting in the cabin, a mere seconds before touch-down.
Before the passengers are all seated again - no announcement about the upcoming landing was made yet, while this is normally done some ten minutes before landing - the orange hillsides at the edge of the landing strip of the airport flash by. Three seconds later the right landing gear touches the ground, followed by the other ones a second later. It is up to the pilot to correct the planes course once more, but just slightly now.
Something did not go very well just before the landing. I suspect the people in the cockpit had planned on making a circle over the area, but that we hit some turbulence instead which caused us to deviate from our course, in the direction of the sea indeed. We headed towards the sea for just a few seconds though. No people were injured, the event just caused some hearts to beat a little faster. The plane should be checked though, because during taxiing there was a loud sound to be heard on the right side of the plane. The sound was that hard that I even noticed it as being strange.
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