Dumfries and Galloway's Katherine McIsaac shares more of her story in Galloway People

dailyrecord.co.uk:

In last week’s Galloway News we left Katherine McIsaac in mid-air aboard a stricken British Airways 767 jet above Vancouver.

The plane had flown into a flock of Canada geese on takeoff, wrecking one engine and damaging the other. The year was 1995 and Katherine, from Powhillimont near Southerness, had only recently got a job as cabin crew after working for the airline as ground staff.

Now 56, after more than a quarter of a century she still remembers vividly how her training kicked in as she calmed the terrified passengers. “We had to circle for 45 minutes to dump fuel,” she tells me at her home. “With only one sick engine we had to get high enough to do that – 10,000 feet – so the fuel would evaporate. “We had to play the emergency video for the passengers, which is used only when things are potentially catastrophic. “We told the passengers how to brace properly for impact and what instructions they will receive on the moment of impact. “That was the only time I have done a safety demonstration when everybody looked. “You could have heard a pin drop!” In the remaining 20 minutes before the descent, Katherine admits to “having a moment with my fellow crew” in the rear galley. “We were hugging each other and wishing each other good luck,” she says, her voice trembling slightly. “It was all about keeping the passengers calm. “Then at 2,000 feet the captain announced ‘cabin crew, take your seats for landing’. “We were calm – the training is drilled into you and it was clear in my head.” Talking about the emergency situation, Katherine remembers how the bird strikes had crippled more than the engines. “The damage to the plane meant we had no brakes, no reverse thrust and no flaps to slow us down in landing,”