I was flying with a group of military from Gatwick Airport , an airport near to London’s Gatwick Airport. There were 89 of us and we were to fly on a Vickers Viscount aircraft for a thirteen hour flight to Halifax , a place in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia is almost exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole and is one of the parts of Canada.It can be minus 30 degrees in Halifax and we had our heavy polar equipment and clothing which we loaded in big steel trunks into the aircraft. We were to spend 22 months in the ice learning how to cope with extreme cold.The aircraft was the only one owned by a company called Transglobal and was pretty old and well used.In the departure area of the airport I saw a slot machine that issued life insurance for any flight. It was about $15 for $100,000 life cover. This meant if we were killed flying, my parents would get $100,000.I was seventeen and never imagined I would die in a crash, so after thinking about how much nice food $15 would buy , I decided not to get any insurance from the machine.We all had some pies and beer in a bar/café at Gatwick whilst we waited for boarding time, which was midnight. There were about six cleaning women mopping the floors in the room and they got very impatient, wanting us to clear off so they could clean the tables and floor under the tables!So, just before midnight when we all got up and headed for the tarmac, the cleaning ladies gave a big cheer! “Good Riddance!” they shouted, waving their mops and we laughed and shouted raucous things back!We boarded the aircraft up a step ladder and arranged ourselves comfortably in the cabin. It was going to be a long flight and we were probably going to enjoy a long awaited sleep!The aircraft taxied and then smoothly took off and soon we were at cruising altitude of 23,000 feet. These aircraft had four Rolls Royce engines and purred into the night.I was a navigating and gunnery officer at this time and had graduated from a military base called Whale Island in Portsmouth England. I was very young at 17 but so were all of us in those days. We were only allowed to hold any command until we were 23, when we were to be “retired.” Already I had trained as a diver at “HMS Dolphin”, in gunnery and weapons control at “Vernon” and “HMS Dryad”, in radar and radio at “HMS Pasco” and a Thames based station, in underwater warfare and unarmed combat of Jiu Jitsu, and command training at an Officer Cadet College at a base at Warsash, part of the University of Southampton. There I studied Navigation, Astronomy, Ship Construction, Electricity , Chart work, Advanced Mathematics, Spherical Trigonometry, Signals ( Morse, Wireless, Semaphore) Ship Handling, Command Training, Dancing !, Political and General Science, Diesel and Gas Mechanics , Sailing, Heavy Weather boat and Surf Boat skills , Rope work (including Wire and rope splicing), Life raft and Lifeboat skills and handling. Ship Stability, Fire control and advanced medical treatments. So, we were pretty well prepared for life at sea but not too much for flying through the air!To continue with the story, as we flew I could see out of the window, stars and planets and the moon.I saw the Northern constellations and the faint North Star which is hard to find without training.I noted this star through my right seat window and dozed on for a while.About an hour later I saw the star over on the left side of the aircraft!“What on earth is going on? “ I thought – we have turned around!!! As I thought about this, a few minutes later, the North Star was back over on my side again! We were circling ….I wasn’t sure if I should query this situation, I had heard of gyro compasses going haywire now and again but aircraft had three gyros and it was unlikely all three had gone wrong!I decided the best thing to do was discreetly talk to the pilots. So I lurched my way up to the cockpit, introduced myself and rather shyly said “I could be wrong but I think we are flying in circles!!!” “We are indeed son” said the Captain – “Please go back and sit down and we will make an announcement!”With rather weak knees I returned to my seat and waited for the announcement. “Gentlemen, may I have your full attention. We have a technical problem on this aircraft. When we left Gatwick our wheels have jammed out of position and we have been unable so far to fix this. We suspect a hydraulic fault has occurred This means we cannot land this aircraft safely. We have been circling over the Atlantic for the past two hours dumping our fuel to lighten the aircraft. We will shortly be descending and I will be asking you to prepare yourselves for a severe crash landing! The cabin crew will assist you preparing for the impact.” “In the meantime we understand we have naval mechanical engineers aboard and we would appreciate some assistance in helping us operate manual gears which may be able to free the wheels!”So, several of our Engineer Officers went forward and struggled with some manually operated worm gears to try and shift the wheels. They failed and returned to their seats looking pale and sick.At this point in time I remembered the chance I had at Gatwick to insure my life!! “Oh no” I thought “not only am I going to die but Mum won’t get any decent money.”The Commander was busy being sick nearby, so I gave him a poke in the arm and asked “Sir, are we insured by the Navy? “ He got very red in the face and shouted at me “Why don’t you shut up idiot, we are all going to be burnt alive! Money won’t matter where you are going “and he vomited again ….There were men praying aloud and being physically ill but all I could think about was the blinking money!As we approached the airstrip back at Gatwick and we heard the orders to put our heads down on our knees and brace for the crash, I felt that the floor would get smashed and come up and cut me to bits, so I pulled up my knees and feet away from the floor and curled up in the seat, shying away from the impact. With a screeching enormous bang and a snapping grinding crashing THUMP, we hit the runway. I was thrown forward into the seat in front and stunned. It took what seemed forever to stop. The cabin filled with smoke and stunk of first rubber then fuel and then there was dead silence. Then there was panic with everyone trying to get out of the aircraft as fast as we could. There was a big hole where the left wing had been joined to the fuselage but it was smoky and we could see flickering orange flames through it.I tried to get up out of my seat but people kept pushing past and pushing me back into the seat. A lot of them were carrying bags! They shouted at me “Don’t panic! “as they thrust past me in a panic!!When I finally was swept along the cabin and tumbled down some steps and landed in about a metre of foam!I ran blindly through the foam and dark, hearing the shouts of fire crews to “Move, move, move…!”Suddenly, behind us, I heard a mighty WHOOMP! and I felt a powerful blast of very hot air push me over back into the foam again! The airplane had finally blown up and was blazing from end to end!So it was – but there was a hilarious finish to the adventure! We had crashed back onto the Gatwick runway and ahead of us was a lit up building. Thank God, the canteen was open? The cleaning ladies had just finished a thorough clean of the huge canteen and were at some tables smoking and drinking tea. They obviously knew nothing about the crash. Suddenly the doors of the canteen burst open and in poured over 89 sooty, foamy, bloody, smut covered men yelling and whooping – in a big crowd they ran to the bar which was closed.The metal grill closing off the bar was ripped down and men leapt over the bar seizing bottles of beer and spirits and gurgling down the contents. The floor and the bar and then the tables and chairs were covered by laughing men in soot and beer and blood and smuts – the faces of the women were contorted in horror and dismay! It was a funny end to a lucky escape for us. A few broken limbs and sprained bodies were all the injuries some men suffered. We had all by the grace of God, escaped My Plane Crash.