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I was just at a big family reunion in Chicago and returned with a couple of unexpected thoughts in my head. Unexpected after a family reunion anyway. The first was about the extraordinary safety of this country’s airline system. The second was about how good home can look when you get off a plane. All this came to mind after I experienced the first emergency aircraft landing of my life – and hopefully the last. My girlfriend, Gwendolyn, and I were flying back from O’Hare airport just after noon. We should have been in Fort Lauderdale by 4:30. We weren’t.
As the jet took off from Chicago, all of us in the rear instantly smelled an acrid smoke. A man behind me said, too loudly, “Something’s burning!” Gwen kept reading and I said nothing. What can you do? But being an imaginative writer sort of guy, my mind conjured images you don’t want to conjure inside a plane. Fire somewhere, sparks, jet fuel – you get the idea. Still, everyone stayed calm. Until, in mid-climb, we all knew something definitely was seriously strange. This large jet banked to the right so hard that we began to pull G forces. I’d never felt that in a commercial plane before. Someone a couple rows behind me said, “I think I see ORD,” the code letters for O’Hare. We all hoped so. All I could see out the window were Chicago warehouses and freeways.
Now we began to descend. Fast. This pilot wanted our plane on the ground as quickly as possible. That was obvious. I said quietly to Gwendolyn, “We’re in some trouble.” Some people were praying. We heard the wheels lock down and the plane was coming in very quickly – but to what or where, we weren’t sure. We waited for the landing in silence, as everyone else did too. Luckily, O’Hare’s runways were below us. We landed hard but safely, then rapidly taxied to a remote section of tarmac before fire trucks and firefighters arrived. The pilot explained he’d seen some indicator light and, coupled with the smell, didn’t want to take chances. I never learned what, if anything, was really wrong. Maybe nothing serious. But as I reflected on the experience, I was struck by how rare such events are in a nation where thousands of passenger jets take off daily. One fellow on our plane said he’s flown 150 times annually for ten years and never been through an emergency landing before. And the swift, decisive reaction of our pilot only reassures me further about the great training of today’s air crews. If they sense any possible risk, they take action. Now. After Gwendolyn and I finally got another flight back, one more thing came to mind when we touched down to passenger applause in Fort Lauderdale. I thought about how much I love to travel. But also how amazing it always seems when I come home to the palm trees and warmth of South Florida. On this night, maybe, South Florida felt even more amazing to me than usual.
As the jet took off from Chicago, all of us in the rear instantly smelled an acrid smoke. A man behind me said, too loudly, “Something’s burning!” Gwen kept reading and I said nothing. What can you do? But being an imaginative writer sort of guy, my mind conjured images you don’t want to conjure inside a plane. Fire somewhere, sparks, jet fuel – you get the idea. Still, everyone stayed calm. Until, in mid-climb, we all knew something definitely was seriously strange. This large jet banked to the right so hard that we began to pull G forces. I’d never felt that in a commercial plane before. Someone a couple rows behind me said, “I think I see ORD,” the code letters for O’Hare. We all hoped so. All I could see out the window were Chicago warehouses and freeways.
Now we began to descend. Fast. This pilot wanted our plane on the ground as quickly as possible. That was obvious. I said quietly to Gwendolyn, “We’re in some trouble.” Some people were praying. We heard the wheels lock down and the plane was coming in very quickly – but to what or where, we weren’t sure. We waited for the landing in silence, as everyone else did too. Luckily, O’Hare’s runways were below us. We landed hard but safely, then rapidly taxied to a remote section of tarmac before fire trucks and firefighters arrived. The pilot explained he’d seen some indicator light and, coupled with the smell, didn’t want to take chances. I never learned what, if anything, was really wrong. Maybe nothing serious. But as I reflected on the experience, I was struck by how rare such events are in a nation where thousands of passenger jets take off daily. One fellow on our plane said he’s flown 150 times annually for ten years and never been through an emergency landing before. And the swift, decisive reaction of our pilot only reassures me further about the great training of today’s air crews. If they sense any possible risk, they take action. Now. After Gwendolyn and I finally got another flight back, one more thing came to mind when we touched down to passenger applause in Fort Lauderdale. I thought about how much I love to travel. But also how amazing it always seems when I come home to the palm trees and warmth of South Florida. On this night, maybe, South Florida felt even more amazing to me than usual.
posted by LauderBLOGGER at 2:58 PM
Thank God you and the rest of the passengers are safe. All this comes the same day it was discovered that terrorists planned and plotted to plow up fuel tanks at JFK. This is a scary reminder that even after the Sept. 11 attacks evil people are still trying to create unnecessary havoc in the world which we live.
Hi MH
Thanks for your good wishes! Yes, it's scary out there, any place in the world. Always has been, I suppose, though probably less so now that at many other times in history. The good news is that the bad guys were caught and the plane landed safely. Luckily, that seems to be the norm in our country. We can all give thanks for that!
I'm so glad you're o.k. and made it home safely. Sounds pretty scary.
MH: "This is a scary reminder that even after the Sept. 11 attacks evil people are still trying to create unnecessary havoc in the world which we live."
This is a scary reminder that some people still believe that their own government wasn't implicated in the attack. For your information MH, the real "face of evil" was sitting in a classroom full of school kids listening to them read about a pet goat, while simultaneously his fellow Americans were jumping to their death from an inferno he may as well have lit.
Did it never occur to you that when any country is under attack, the President is the prime target and would normally be whisked away to a secure location? The lives of the children would never have been needlessly endangered by Bush's presence, especially after he was informed of the second crash - had it been a genuine threat by another nation.
You'd better grab a clue as to who the real enemy is soon because by the time you figure it out, it could be too late.
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