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November 12, 2005
So Much for Arriving in Tunis Today....
Right now I should be posting this from Tunis, but I'm not. Last night, my Air France flight from Boston turned around after 30 minutes, citing "mechanical issues," which they wouldn't explain until we reached the ground. This, of course, made people worry if we'd actually reach Boston, but landing was just fine. The tarmac, though, was filled with ambulances and fire trucks flashing their lights, so clearly they thought there was a major problem with the flight. The pilot then said that they'd detected smoke in the cabin and turned around as a precaution. Next thing we knew, firemen in oxygen tanks were going up and down the aisles with smoke detectors.
The firemen wanted to search more extensively, so we were asked to deboard the plane. We spent the next three hours waiting for them to sort out the situation, at which point they officially cancelled our flight. While I waited at the baggage claim with fellow WSIS delegate Avri Doria, I called the airline to figure out how I'd get to Tunis. They've rebooked me on an 8pm flight tonight that gets into Paris 8am Sunday. Unfortunately, because thousands and thousands of delegates are all trying to get to Tunis, the next flight with an open seat isn't until 9:15pm. So I'm stuck in Paris for more than 12 hours. Now I just need to decide if I'm going to sit at the airport or go into town and take pictures of people rioting. :-/ -andy
Posted by acarvin at November 12, 2005 3:48 PM
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