Raise Your Hands… Like You Just Don’t Care

October 15, 2009

in Airplane Stories

In 2006 my now-husband and I were flying from Dallas to Vegas. Since my “spare plane out back” adventure in 2002 I have become increasingly afraid of flying, to the point where now I’m nearly crippled with fear. But I’m on this full plane to Vegas going over the mountains on approach.

The turbulence is pretty bad, and some crusty old slot-lady retiree’s comment that it IS considerably worse then usual. Ironically, I’m not afraid of turbulence or storms, I’m afraid of “smooth sailing” flying (clearly, my fear is irrational), so I’m sitting there cool as a cucumber while everyone else is gasping with every big bounce. The pilot comes on and says there are some crosswinds, so landing might be “a little rough.”

The plane is bobbing, weaving, bouncing and tottering its way down. Approach is slow. Plane touches down and just as it does, swerves violently to the left. People scream and everyone lurches with it. Anything not fastened down goes flying. Some of the overhead bins fly open and crap spills out. Then the plane yanks back to the right and proceeds straight. The plane is full of gasps, squeals, a few crying people and someone puking a few rows down.

Once we’re plodding to the gate, the pilot comes on and goes “Well, hell, if I had known it would be that much fun, I would have told ya’al to raise your hands in the air like you just don’t care!”

As if that wasn’t enough, on the return trip our plane was delayed by nearly an hour. Found out that the front gear wouldn’t come down all the way, so the pilot had been circling trying to shake it loose, with spotters with binoculars offering the ground view. The only reason any of us passengers found out is we were told it would be “several more hours” while mechanics tried to fix the problem. Within about an hour, though, the mechanics said they couldn’t fix it and brought us a new plane. At this point I was set to rent a car and drive back to Texas…

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Demotage October 15, 2009 at 7:35 pm

Thanks a lot! I'm flying to Vegas tomorrow 🙂

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Hugh October 16, 2009 at 12:35 am

OMG, Turbulence…that really must have been hell. Then a WHOLE HOUR delay on the way back. You poor thing, that must have been horrible. Just so we're clear here…I am being vERY sarcastic. These are all too common occurences, and you sound like a whiny baby.

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Demotage October 16, 2009 at 6:02 pm

"People scream and everyone lurches with it. Anything not fastened down goes flying. Some of the overhead bins fly open and crap spills out. Then the plane yanks back to the right and proceeds straight. The plane is full of gasps, squeals, a few crying people and someone puking a few rows down."

Hugh, these are not common occurances, and goes well beyond normal turbulence.

Reply

saw October 17, 2009 at 5:41 pm

Demo… They're not common occurrences. They go well beyond normal turbulence, and seems to happen far to often for a writer who "is afraid of flying" and isn't in the air daily…

*saw raises his "bullcrap"card above his head…"that's 0 points from the judge in NYC…" *

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saw October 17, 2009 at 5:42 pm

oh… addendum… I've figured it out… the poster is flying the on the starship enterprise, not a plane.

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jitters June 25, 2013 at 2:10 pm

Sounds like the pilot was "crabbing" the airplane. That's when he has to bring the plane down at an angle pointing left or right of the runway (kind of like a glider would do). This is very common in crosswinds landings and all pilots are trained on how to do this. In the cabin it might feel like he has no control, but trust me the pilot knew exactly what he was doing.

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