I was doing an ETOPS flight technician job on board a B757, and was on my way to Hong Kong from Guam. That is about a ten hour turn. Five up and five back. Maybe one hour on the ground in HKG. Well, somewhere along the flight, some lady decided to give birth. She went into some kind of unconcious state. There was a Chinese doctor on board, and he was asking around for a first aid kit. Being on the job, I somewhat helped out the flight attendants by gathering some tape, and making a makeshift room for privacy out of curtains.
Funny, I am a walking geographical genius, having traveled the world for many years, even before the airlines. I said to myself, that TAIWAN had to be the closest place for an emergency landing of a sort. I was right. The pilot got on the intercom and broadcasted to us that we would be landing in TAIWAN. Sure enough, we landed, and the Taiwanese were so slow and reluctant to even bring the ambulance nearby. The security seemed tight, and they were locked and loaded with machine guns. I had to go outside the airplane and perform an ETOPS predeparture check. The pilot told me to wait or these guys might open up on their UZI'S and make swiss chease out of me. I WAS THE MAIN MAN if the plane flew or not. The maintenance log book was ALL MINE. Finally, after I was cleared, I performed my duties outside in the cold rain, I had the maintenance guy in Taiwan pick me up and take me to the office to submit my paperwork. This guy almost ran into a fuel truck. We were almost killed right then and there. Fortunately, this ordeal lasted only about an hour and 15 minutes, and before long, we were back in action and flying to HKG. Despite this "DEFLECTION" to Taiwan, this rarely set us back since Taiwan is almost in the path heading towards HKG. Maybe lost an hour all together, but an hour more of OVERTIME I got. That was the first and only time I ever been to Taiwan. Just like it was in the military days for me. One must always EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.
