I was 13 when I met a passenger who took care of me and treated me like a son. Before I tell my story, I must explain the background situation. I was on a flight from Beijing to San Francisco when engine #1 was on fire. Apparently a passenger discovered this and notified the captain. The captain didn’t know about this problem since there was nothing wrong with the instruments (he later announced this to the passengers). We had no choice but to divert back to Beijing and stay overnight while the aircraft got repaired.
The next morning, we returned to re-check in for our flight at 7am when we discovered that the check-in desks weren’t open. After 30 minutes of discussion with other passengers, we were notified that our flight (United 888) was renumbered to United 888A since another flight was flying out of Beijing numbered United 888. After going through security one more time, we finally managed to board the plane. Although the plane left Beijing uneventfully, I couldn’t sleep because I kept having thoughts of the engine fire from yesterday and the cramped seats didn’t help either.
After we finally arrived in SFO, we were told that we needed to uncheck and re-check our bags to take the connecting United 888 flight to Los Angeles. After check-in, my dad had to separate from us because we had to do extra screening and he didn’t. I was already tired from not getting any sleep so extra screening made me feel more exhausted. After the extra-screening, I boarded the plane feeling sick.
The flight was full and I was seated away from my parents. The woman who sat next to me noticed that I wasn’t looking and was kind enough to ask me if I was OK. I lied to her that I was fine and she continued to read her book. When we began to push back, she removed a tin of candy from her bag and gave herself a piece before offering me one. She told me that it would help my ears from the air pressure and it would make me feel a little better. I politely refused her offer and she told me to call her if I don’t feel comfortable.
After take-off, I couldn’t hold it back and I vomited in my air sickness bag. When the woman who sat next to me saw this, she reached into her bag and handed me some tissues and told me I should clean myself. Then, she pressed the call button and told the flight attendant to get me a cup of water. After I dealt with my mess I thanked her and told her about my flight story from Beijing (the one I mentioned above). She handed over her air sickness bag and told me to use it if necessary.
For the remaining thirty minutes of the flight I managed to get some shut eye and felt a lot better when we arrived in LAX. Before we left the plane, my father and I thanked her for taking care of me. She hoped for the best of me and left the plane.
Tagged as:
pilot,
united airlines,
vomit
Several years ago I was flying Delta Airlines on a short hop from North Carolina to Florida. It was a large plane and I was seated on the aisle in the front 1/3 of the plane. It was a normal boarding and taxi, but things got interesting on take-off.
As the plane lifted off the runway, everything began to shudder. This is normal to a degree, but the overhead panel above my seat came loose and swung down heading straight for my head. I didn’t see this until a gentleman from across the aisle launched himself over me to grab the panel before it could hit me. The flight attendants were facing me and could see what happened and were calling out to us to stay put until we leveled off. That poor man held that panel for over 5 minutes waiting for the flight attendants to come back to help.
The captain came back several minutes later to check on us and then, you guessed it, used duct tape to put the panel back in place!!! I guess it really can be used for anything!
Tagged as:
delta airlines,
overhead bin
I make my home in SE Alaska, so our only carrier is Alaska Airlines.
On a southbound trip out of Sitka, I was seated in a window seat on the left side, just behind the wing. As I settled into my seat for the short flight, I noticed an anomaly on the left wing. You’ve probably all seen those small pods that are attached to the trailing edge of the wing. I’ve since discovered that they’re called “flap canoes.” Their purpose is to house the machinery that controls the extension and retraction of the flaps, those movable segments on the back edge of the wing that can be extended to provide essential additional lift on takeoff and landing. The canoes themselves are streamlined to offer less drag, and they taper to their rear.
Well, I noticed that the back half of the canoe housing was missing and that I could look up into the innards where the flap drives were located. I didn’t think too much about this, figuring that the flight crew knew what they were doing. Surely the plane had been given a walk-around inspection before flight and had passed. We took off and the flight down to Ketchikan was uneventful.
About ten days later, I was once again traveling out of Sitka, also southbound, and was seated in approximately the same position on the left side of the plane. As I took my seat, I realized that I was on the same aircraft as my previous flight, since the flap canoe housing on this plane was still missing on its rear half; the trailing portion of the canoe had not yet been replaced! I had the same view of the machinery inside the canoe, still exposed to the Alaskan elements.
A couple of the guys around me also noticed this defect and we were discussing it when the flight attendant came by. We told her that part of the plane was missing and inquired if this was safe. She said she’d question the captain about it. She returned a couple minutes later with the message that the pilot had said everything was OK, the rear portion of the housing “was not necessary for flight.” Afterwards, we were all joking that they should just remove the other one, too, in order to balance out the aircraft.
Alaska Airlines pilots are among the best; they have to fly in terrible weather. But you wonder a bit about an aircraft that goes unrepaired for ten days…
Tagged as:
alaska airlines,
flight attendant,
pilot
I was on a flight from Caracas, Venezuela to Barcelona, Venezuela. It was a “dark and stormy night,” as they say, so we were bouncing around with lightning flashes punctuating the cabin with white flashes. We hit something, maybe a wind shear, or something like it. The plane plummeted sharply. We lost cabin pressure and the oxygen masks came down.
Wherever the cabin pressure leak was, it was allowing the outside moisture to enter the cabin. It filled the cabin with fog, though it looked like smoke. So it looked like our cabin was full of smoke, where you couldn’t see but a few seats in front of you and then all you could see was white haze.
I was sitting next to a missionary. I had just got done telling him that I’m an atheist and shortly thereafter was when the incident occurred. Maybe he thought God was after me! And, no, I didn’t go asking for God to save me. Contrary to popular opinion, atheists do not suddenly find religion when they feel threatened.
What I did do was look to the flight attendant. There was one close enough to me to see through the fog, and he didn’t seem panicked, so I put on my mask and hoped for the best. We landed without further incident.
Tagged as:
near disaster,
weather
