Patrick Logue: A moment of terror in the sky above Dublin

It was a fitting end to the most aggravating flight I have ever been on. It was just as we were within touching distance of the tarmac in Dublin. You could see cars racing up and down the M1 and the market gardening outlets of north Co Dublin glistening in the half sun.

As we prepared ourselves for the final thud on the ground, we were suddenly thrown backwards into our seats. Ryanair flight FR6874 from Barcelona to Dublin surged back into the air. Amid the thunderous roar of the engines, you could tell the passengers were gritting their teeth and clenching their buttocks. Being in the trade, I immediately wrote a headline: “Two journalists among 150 killed in Dublin air crash.”

I made funeral arrangements. No flowers, a track from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon as the coffin is wheeled out of the non-denominational service. People weeping and remembering. Eulogies, kind words, comfort for my grieving family. Soup and sandwiches in a local hotel and, of course, a rake of pints.

Back in the real world, the aircraft cut through the clouds and continued at some speed at a 45-degree angle, it seemed, towards the stars. Puzzlement and concern were palpable in the cabin as the plane banked right and levelled up while continuing the mysterious and worrying ascent. Eventually the nervous air was broken by an announcement by one of the cabin crew: “Attention, ladies and gentlemen, the captain has decided not to land the aircraft at this time.”

No excrement, Sherlock, we thought to ourselves.

“This is normal procedure,” came the end of the message. This was certainly not normal procedure. Normal procedure is that the big bird is put down delicately and with precision on the ground and we all toddle off through passport control.

Engine failure?

Scenarios raced through my mind. Were we returning to Barcelona? Had one off the wheels fallen off? Or had one of the engines failed? A bird strike, perhaps? Maybe a tray table hadn't been returned to the upright position. Was the captain still in control of the aircraft? I began to regret spending the five-minute safety procedure lesson reading that excellent opinion piece by the Greek finance minister in The Irish Times. If we landed in Dublin Bay, I wouldn't know where to find my lifejacket or how to make it inflate. My nerves were shot.

But then the soothing lozenge of the captain’s voice wafted out. Cool as you like. I imagined he had his feet up, aviator shades on, sipping on a pina colada. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We decided not to land just there as another aircraft was blocking the runway. We’ll just go around again and be on the ground in Dublin shortly.” No big deal, basically. Don’t hold the front page. Cancel the funeral arrangements.

It was the best damned announcement we got during the short hop from Barcelona to Dublin. The previous ones were loud, incessant and unnecessary, and they interfered with my enjoyment of Varoufakis’s article.

There was the one about taking off, seatbelts and the like. There was the one about “in the unlikely event of landing in water”. Then there was the one about landing in water in Spanish. The announcement that a passenger had a severe nut allergy and could we refrain from waving our peanuts around. This announcement was not made in Spanish. Then there was the one about food being served, without nuts. The one about perfume being sold. The one about lottery scratch cards on sale. The other one about food. The one about the trolley coming through with drinks “available to purchase”. The duty-free perfume on sale. The scratch cards again. Finally there was the one about the cabin crew coming to collect the infant flotation devices.

When the captain pulled up suddenly as we were about to land, it crossed my mind that perhaps the cabin crew had forgotten one of their announcements and we had to go back up for it.

When we finally made contact with terra firma, the Spanish lady sitting to my left was beginning to babble. She turned to me in relief and said, “I heard there aren’t any snakes in Ireland. Is this true?” No, I said. No snakes.

“Not unless you count Irish men,” the man a seat ahead of us pipes up.

“It looks warm; it’s not going to rain today?” asked the Spanish lady.

“It might rain later and then it might get sunny again,” I replied.

She looked puzzled. We were all puzzled.

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• Michael Harding is on leave