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Giant Killer Bees in Plymouth Aircraft Horror Attack
Part 1 – The Gathering
It was the last day of the summer school term in 2007 and James had just returned from a training flight. The sturdy Cessna was taxying in and I remember looking at them out the office window as I wanted to use the aircraft next.
They brought the aircraft to a halt and shut down the engine. After a few minutes I looked again but James was still in the aircraft debriefing his student and I wondered how long they were going to be. A moment or two later I gave a more impatient glance outside but the picture did not look right. There were flecks of darkness around the aircraft and I was confused so I went to the door for a better look.
The aircraft was surrounded by small flying dots and there was a strange buzzing, which I could hear against the background of airport and office noise. It seemed odd and I remember walking towards the aircraft to try to make out what was going on. Then I saw that all the flying dots were in fact bees. I moved backwards and probably stood for a few seconds without moving, I had never seen anything like it and I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t a massive black cloud but the aircraft was inside a swarm of bees, more bees than I had ever seen before and they were starting to land on the aircraft.
James waved at me from inside the cockpit. He was obviously aware of something and using a combination of hand signals and gesticulations to communicate we both thought it was a good idea to restart the aircraft engine and blow the bees away. James was concerned that they may get into the cockpit which wouldn’t have been much fun or into the empennage or wings. Would it make them angry? There was nothing much else to try.
The engine roared, the prop-wash was massive and the bees were blown away. After a few seconds James shut down the engine.
In almost no time they started to reassemble, swirling again around the stationary aircraft and sounding somewhat fiercer. James and his student ran from the aircraft (James will say he proceeded from the vehicle in a slow and unconcerned manner) back to the safety of the office.
The shape of the swarm started to change from a shapeless cloud to a smaller but denser blanket as they settled on the aircraft, randomly at first but then moving together on the tailplane. It took maybe 45 minutes or more for the flying blanket of bees to change into a writhing noisy clump.
They calmed down as the clump got larger and our initial fears that they would enter the structure of the aircraft seemed unfounded but the clump was very dense and the clump of bees seemed like a very permanent addition to the back-end of G-BSTO.
Part 2 – The Lady in White – to follow soon
Posted : Sunday 4th Oct 2009, 12:42pm
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