Word: runway
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...brother Sediqullah Rahi, 37, turned up in Washington to announce his defection and call his brother "mentally deranged." Though heavy combat has not touched the capital, Kabul, the sights and sounds of war intrude almost daily. At the airport planes follow a narrow corkscrew flight path down to the runway rather than risk flying in low over hostile territory. Day in and day out, the crump of outgoing artillery echoes through the city as government forces try to keep the mujahedin off balance...
...outline of an island is visible on the sea. An old Spitfire runway has been commandeered by a wing of gulls. Their strafing missions are conducted over a neglected lighthouse. All in all, quite beautiful. Still, it's easy to see how Tom Watson was able to close with 65-65 to Jack Nicklaus' 65-66 in their famous staring match at the 1977 Open. Turnberry is a soft place to start...
...left engine burst into flames. Pilot Bob Harry kept his cool. Banking sharply, he cut a swath over the city, put the Statue of Liberty behind his right wing and headed back to LaGuardia. In a matter of minutes, he had lined up his plane over an empty runway, pulled out the flaps and felt the familiar jolt of a successful touchdown...
...this was one emergency landing that was not greeted with relieved applause from the passengers. No rescue crews or fire engines scrambled on the tarmac. No fire engines rushed to the runway. In fact, there was no fire, no passengers and no plane. The MD-80 that Harry "flew" was really a van-size contraption perched on six spindly legs, one of 20 advanced flight simulators at American Airlines' Fort Worth training facility. Operating 20 hours a day, seven days a week, the earthbound machines prepare thousands of would-be pilots every year for one-engine landings, sudden wind shears...
...enough for a twin-engine prop plane from Beijing to deposit its passengers. They are whisked past the barracks of a People's Liberation Army (P.L.A.) unit. It is shortly before sundown, and troops are playing soccer, basketball, Ping-Pong and open-air billiards on the edge of the runway, not far from a wing of 70 Chinese-built MiG-21 interceptors, each sheathed in canvas to guard against corrosion in the heavily polluted...