It was a simple 162 mile helicopter ride to a book festival that nearly ended the lives of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles recently. The two were headed to make an official appearance when their pilot began to radio a frantic mayday message. It seems that a malfunction in the chopper’s rear rotor blade caused an emergency that was very hard to keep under control.
According to the June 10th print edition of GLOBE the pilot truly saved their lives by rerouting to the nearest airfield in Buckinghamshire and then preparing the seven on board for an emergency landing. Luckily the pilot was able to make a perfect emergency landing as the helicopter sputtered to the ground. The craft hit extremely hard but all on board were fine in the end.
During the harrowing ordeal Queen Elizabeth had called Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton to prepare them for the potential bad news. If the pilot hadn’t pulled off the emergency landing then there was little doubt that everyone on board would have been killed. This fear came at a time when Charles is clearly being prepared to take the throne so it could have changed that situation as well.
After landing Camilla wanted to return to the palace but Charles insisted that they continue on to the festival. This time they were driven by limousine and Camilla clearly came prepared for the harrowing ordeal. As soon as they had landed she was seen taking swigs of gin from her hip flask! That’s pretty much exactly how I’d expect Camilla to deal with any serious situation!
Until now I hadn’t heard anything about this emergency situation. Do you think the palace prefers to keep issues like this under lock and key? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
Photo Credit: FameFlynet
