…... I was blowed if I knew! Logic said that the visible damage pointed to the starboard side being the poorly one and to shut it down; however, a few years of single engine flying teaches you that if the engine is sick but still running, don't mess with it. Set a reasonable power setting and leave well alone. Besides, doing nothing meant not having to make a decision - wonderful stuff when you have enough other things on your plate to worry about. After a brief, shouted chat with John he concurred so we left the Rolls Royce brothers to look after themselves.
By this point
we were getting close to Newcastle and John "suggested" it would be a good idea to throw the thing on the ground there. Excellent idea Plumbo! The problem was getting the rest of the world to understand our intentions because not many people could comprehend our noisy, highly garbled RT transmissions. We could vaguely hear them trying to give us steers towards Leeming but we were now intent on securing a pint or two of Newcastle Brown ale! John was giving me excellent info' from the boot, running checklists and giving me directions, but heaven knows how because I believe all his 'gear' had gone out of the roof along with his maps. Perhaps he just couldn't resist the habit of always telling me what to do - I always said it was the nearest I have felt to being married to another bloke!
So finally, there we were - wheels and flaps down, 500 or 600 feet straight in to land, no ADD but the speed was about right and the thing was flying the right way up - what could go wrong? Well, at that point some kindly soul in a DC9/BAC111 or other suchlike contraption decided it was a good idea to line up and take off from the other end of the runway, that's what could go wrong! What else can you do? We put our faith in Mr. Rolls’ and Mr. Royce's offspring and very gingerly overshot, made a gentle, low level orbit and managed to get it down second time round. At least, by that time Newcastle ATC definitely knew what our intentions were!
Having go
t clear of the runway we found somewhere quiet to shut the Cab down and have a look at the poor thing. As the starboard engine cowling was very badly damaged we had a good look down the intake at the engine. Actually, it looked pretty good - as indeed it should have done because it was in perfect, undamaged condition. OK then, what about the port side? The port cowling and intake didn't have a scratch - but I've seen Heinz spaghetti in better condition than that engine. A bird or two had gone straight through and wrecked most of the compressor assembly en route! Moral in the story? If in a twin and in doubt, never shut one down - something the poor British Midland guys did and sadly came to regret at Kegworth some years later!
