The Smoking Compartment

This quite miraculous story is not the figment of poetic imagination. It did really happen and is described in the Autobiography of the Nobel laureate philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell. Russell relates that a few years after the end of the Second World War, during the Berlin airlift of 1948-49, the British government solicited his help to persuade Norway to join an anti-Soviet alliance. So, Russell flew to Oslo and there he boarded a sea-plane to take him to Trondheim. He asked for a seat in the smoking compartment and said jocularly: "If I cannot smoke, I shall die." Ironically, through the capricious turns of fate, this turned out to be a correct prediction. The sea-plane took off into the cold air of Oslo and flew through stormy weather conditions. As the aircraft approached Trondheim and descended, it hit the water at touchdown with excessive force that made a hole in its fuselage. The plane began to sink. Russell sat beside the emergency exit window. He and other passengers jumped into the freezing sea. There were boats in the area but they did not come close because of fear of being sucked into the whirling maelstrom as the plane went down. Russell threw his hat and briefcase into the water and swam in his heavy coat about a hundred yards to a small boat. He climed into it with his soaked garments. He was now safe. He was rowed a few miles to shore and then taken by car to a hotel. People treated him with care and kindness. He asked for a generous dose of brandy and a huge cup of coffee. It was a Sunday, a day in which hotels in Norway were not allowedto serve liquor, but in view of the medical need for the brandy, the rule was overlooked. Russell went to bed and his clothes were put to dry. A group of students assisting him even dried his wet matches, one by one. When he jumped out the sinking seaplane, he threw his briefcase into the water. It was later retrieved and returned to him, including his water damaged passport. In the flight that Russell took from Oslo to Trondheim there were 19 passengers travelling in the non-smoking section. They all had been killed when the plane sank. Betrand Russell died in 1970, at the age of 97.