THE LARGEST PLANE IN THE WORLD LANDS TO BRING US SOME HEAVY EQUIPMENT.

This next little post I am writing as an opinion piece. It deals with an incident that helped form my opinion of this place over the time, I remained on this assignment in Kuwait. At one point we managed to contract the Antonov from the Russians to bring in a load of heavy equipment. At this time it was the largest cargo airplane in the world. There was quite a flurry of activity around the airport for this arrival. To land, it required every inch of runway that was available at the airport in Kuwait City. The airport crews worked tirelessly in preparation for this event.

It arrived and set down like a giant fly. It seemed impossible that something this big, even got off the ground. When they opened the cargo doors and started driving equipment off, you could then see how really big it was. Cranes were disgorged that looked like “Dinky Toys” compared to the size of the airplane. It held something like 250 tons of cargo and had a wingspan of 290 feet. Once unloaded the situation became tense. This plane had to be moved back off the runway before other planes could land. Now came the “kicker”. They needed fuel before they could leave the airport and the Kuwaitis refused them any credit for the costs of refuelling. They demanded cash! Now what ya gonna do.

After some major conversations, reasoning and negotiation, it became painfully obvious that the Kuwaitis were not about to budge. Now you have an elephant on the dance floor and the whole party is about to stop. This plane had a crew of 22 who had left their base without any “solid” plan of obtaining fuel for continuing their journey after Kuwait. Although it does not seem logical or even possible that they would fly without some kind of plan. That is exactly what they did. Whoever had promised them fuel in Kuwait was now completely silent and invisible.

The crew of the airplane put together all of the personal cash that they were carrying. And along with, some emergency donations by airport logistical crews were able to get enough money to purchase fuel. They could then, limp their plane into Saudi Arabia where they could get credit for fuel! Now I’m not talking a $15.00 top off! The fuel to limp this plane outta here amounted to a few thousand dollars. Does this sound ridiculous? No shit, but that is exactly what happened. The place is burning down, hundreds of millions are being spent bringing in materiel from all over the world. Now, some bureaucrat decides he is going to stick his finger in the Russian “bear’s” eyeball.

That, my friends, is the type of crap we ran into time after time after time. In my personal opinion, it was hard to feel sympathy for this country, the arrogance was unbounded. In many ways I felt like an indentured slave to the OIL DOLLARS. I was also of the opinion that given the last vote on freeing Kuwait, if it had of been left up to me, they might have remained a province of Iraq.