Pills, airplanes and vodka

A friend just returned from a Spring Break vacation in Colorado. I hadn’t known he was going anywhere. His big vacation break was to have been in the Caribbean Islands in February. He told me that he decided to go because he got a few free coupons from Northwest after his Caribbean experience. He had been flying south for his holiday and was nearing his destination when he, along with all passengers sitting on his side of the plane, noticed that one of the engines was on fire. The plane began to drop altitude. The pilot came on to say that they would shut down the engine and try to extinguish the flames. They would also make an emergency landing at the nearest Florida airport.

My friend said that everyone was silent and cooperative as they all went into emergency preparations.

In the end, it was the smoothest landing my friend (who is a very frequent flyer) had ever experienced. Any reflections on the incident? He tells me: “I was sorry that I didn’t get to finish my beer because the attendants swept away all loose debris during the emergency preparations. It was a good beer.” Any thoughts about flying? “The pilots are like anesthesiologists: most of their work is boring. They train for these emergencies. They did a good job, even though the fire extinguishers inside the engine did not work properly and so we wondered if the fire would eventually spread.” Wondered???

Perhaps we should all be flying these days with a small supply of tranquilizers. Not because I especially think flying is unsafe, but I do think you can get crazy with anxiety when the unexpected happens (an engine on fire in mid-air would qualify). I bet many hearts were racing on my friend’s flight. Though, when I was 10 and flying over the Atlantic, two of the prop engines of the small plane died in mid-flight. We had to make an emergency landing in Gander. It was freaky to be flying and looking out the window at the still blades. My recollection is that by the time we were over Gander, we were down to only one spinning propeller, but I could be off by a blade in this. As the drama unfolded, fellow passengers from the Soviet Union (it was a cheap charter flight, full of very frugal Eastern Europeans) opened several bottles of vodka and sang very loudly. There was an almost jovial atmosphere as we spun to our demise. Of course, we didn’t crash, but it wasn’t a terribly fearful experience.

A thought for future travel then: either pills or vodka in the flight bag. And the confidence that pilots can indeed land a broken down piece of metal with malfunctioning fire extinguishers.