Fresno Revival Fellowship

By Pastor Mark from Victoria, Canada (listen)

News Clip: 

Crosby woman survives Qantas air drama (Jul 31 2008)

by Lloyd Jones, Crosby Herald

A CROSBY woman has spoken of her “miracle” survival on board the Qantas jumbo jet forced into an emergency landing in the Philippines on Friday.

Jenny Nugent was sitting near the wing of the Boeing 747 where a hole the size of a car appeared while flying at 29,000ft.

The pilot was forced to drop quickly to 10,000ft as the cabin de-pressurised. The flight, en route from London to Melbourne, Australia, then redirected to Manila for an emergency landing.

Jenny, 20, from Moor Lane, said: “I saw bits of paper getting sucked out of the side of the plane by our seats.

“We were by the wing where the hole was, about four rows back I think, so when the wind came through, small things were drawn to us.

“It was then that I saw that a window or a door had a hole in it. I thought it was only a small hole, because I imagined seats would have been sucked out if it was any bigger.

“Then the oxygen masks came down and they were not working.”

Jenny, who is a manager at McDonald’s, in Netherton, was travelling with friends for a holiday in Australia.

She said: “We started to descend very, very quickly. The pilot only told us very small amounts of information, which was good, but it was enough to keep us satisfied.

“Then we started dumping fuel in the ocean. We couldn’t see any land where we could go down – only ocean.”

Jenny, a born again Christian, who attends Liverpool Revival Fellowship church, in Netherton, began praying when she realised something was wrong, and believes God brought the plane down safely.

She said: “In hindsight it was obviously a very bad situation but I stayed calm throughout – mainly because I was praying with my oxygen mask on!

“I prayed for ages because the plane seem to take a weirdly long time to land.

“When we landed at Manila aiport, I saw a fire engine and an ambulance – only one for 346 passengers – and there were lots of airport staff staring at the plane.

“We just waved and assumed there must be something wrong because they were all pointing. When we got off the plane we went around to the lounge and saw the hole. That’s when we realised what had happened.

“It was a miracle that we survived. We asked one of the air hostesses if anything like that had happened before. She said that in 1994 passengers were sucked out of a plane when something similar happened. God clearly had his hand on us to keep us safe through that.

“Apparently there had been a small explosion in the cockpit and the pilot had lost all his lights and his autopilot – I’m in no doubt that God was helping him too.

“Qantas have been very good. I’ll definitely be flying with them again. It was an accident but they have done everything for us. They gave us money at Melbourne airport for emergency clothes and they are going to give us a refund and new flights.”