Photograph by Kazuo Kikuchi
At the end of August (Editor's note: 1980), I set off again on a trip to the treasure island of Taiwan. When I arrived at the airport, the counter was bustling. It seemed that there had been a change in the flight schedule due to a large typhoon.
The 10:30 AM flight was delayed until 1 PM. Since that was the case, we had no choice but to take a seat at a sushi restaurant and wait for the time to pass.
However, by 1 o'clock it was still not possible to take off. The reason for this was that while the sky in Japan was cloudless and beautiful in late summer, an incredibly strong storm with wind speeds of 40 meters per second was approaching Taiwan.
I only had a week's stay. On the day I arrived, I was planning to transfer to a domestic flight to Hualien on the east coast and watch the Amis Harvest Festival the following morning. My plans would likely have to change drastically. With this in mind, I dozed off in the afternoon in my bed at the hotel near the airport that had been booked for me.
At 8pm, the boarding announcement finally came, and it looked like we'd be able to depart for Taipei on the scheduled day at least. However, there was no sign of the plane taking off. Soon, an announcement was made that one of the passengers had not boarded, and that due to recent circumstances, they would like to have all passengers' luggage unloaded and checked. In short, it seemed to be out of consideration for the possibility of a bomb attack or something similar happening.
The passengers were shocked, shocked, disappointed, and then seemed to settle into the feeling that there are worse things out there.
However, just then, an announcement was made that the missing passenger had been found, and the plane finally took to the runway.
Unfortunately, one of the passengers had a high blood pressure attack, and the plane returned to the gate.
The patient was taken off in a wheelchair, receiving oxygen. In case of an emergency, new oxygen tanks were loaded and the doors were locked.
