Whee!
(PARA377, PARA371, WELL216, WAIK387, WAIK381, PAEK361, PLIM351) AIRPORT-AIRH PARAPARAUMU AIRPORT. FULL EMERGENCY.

So that comes over my pager just after I left the house taking Hunter to school-7 trucks and an airport emergency, whoa. Fortunately, Hunter's school and the fire station are very close to each other, so I hurriedly got Hunter out and buggered over to the station. Just barely made the truck; grabbed my gear and jumped in still in full civvys. Which isn't any big deal if we're going to Paraparaumu, that's a good 25mins from here. On the road we find out what's going on; apparently an aircraft in flight lost a door and had to make an emergency landing at Paraparaumu. We got turned back before getting to Pukerua Bay, as the plane landed with no injuries or anything. But get this, reportedly one of the passengers on this plane is none other than Prime Minister Helen Clark. No wonder the FS turned out everything.

In my crystal ball, I foresee either a budgetary increase, or a sound whipping, or both for the Royal NZ Air Force.