Nosedive
As per my previous post, I am conducting an experiment. While experimenting, however, I thought I’d entertain everyone with a few little plane frights as I still don’t have this ‘flying bug’ out of my system yet.
Flying to Montana for Christmas is not particularly fun. It is stressful, at best, to fly north during the winter. Maybe that is why those of the avian nature have developed the clear sense to fly south for the winter. But, partly because I like to see my parents at least once a year, and partly due to the fact that a white Christmas is the only way to go, I will head to Montana.
Years ago, the lovely airline, Northwest, had a cheap flight, on equally cheap planes, from Memphis to Minneapolis and on to Bozeman, MT. I’m not from Bozeman, but, in Montana, you make do with what you will and my parents drove 160miles from Helena to pick me up at the ‘international’ airport in Bozeman.
I did this for two years.
One year I spent the night in Minneapolis having missed the one and only connection to Bozeman for the evening.
The second year, I made the connection, survived a semi-bumpy ride through the mid-west clouds, and nearly hit a mountain. OK, maybe I’m being a tad dramatic, but that’s how it seemed. We flew out of this storm over the flat plains of eastern Montana and Wham, right there, as the clouds cleared were the Bridgers. Really, high, really. The plane banked up a little smoothly arced over the mountains, then began its descent.
There were about three or four of us on a fairly large plane (obviously the rest of Montana had missed the one and only connection until New Years) and as the plane descended from the mountains, or rather, started a nosedive, we all sat up in our seats. Everyone kind-of exchanged this look of horror (we’d all been peacefully sleeping in our section of the near-empty plane). The strangest thing is it was that look of ‘if you scream I will, but I’m not going to go first, because then I’ll just look stupid, and I’d rather look stupid with you, but not alone, because if this plane is going down, damn-it, I’m not going to embarrass myself alone.’
So we stared alternately at each other, the window, the approaching runway, where was that damn flight attendant? Should someone go up to the front and knock on the cabin? Did they even announce we were landing? Are you going to panic? Well, I’m panicking, so maybe we could just all….Oh
We landed.
Why no announcement? They didn’t want to wake us up.
Why so sharp a dive? Coming from the east over the mountains with the runway right at the edge causes planes to either drop fast or circle a lot.
I would’ve preferred to circle.
Tomorrow’s installation; the next two Christmases
Day after? All about lip gloss.
Flying to Montana for Christmas is not particularly fun. It is stressful, at best, to fly north during the winter. Maybe that is why those of the avian nature have developed the clear sense to fly south for the winter. But, partly because I like to see my parents at least once a year, and partly due to the fact that a white Christmas is the only way to go, I will head to Montana.
Years ago, the lovely airline, Northwest, had a cheap flight, on equally cheap planes, from Memphis to Minneapolis and on to Bozeman, MT. I’m not from Bozeman, but, in Montana, you make do with what you will and my parents drove 160miles from Helena to pick me up at the ‘international’ airport in Bozeman.
I did this for two years.
One year I spent the night in Minneapolis having missed the one and only connection to Bozeman for the evening.
The second year, I made the connection, survived a semi-bumpy ride through the mid-west clouds, and nearly hit a mountain. OK, maybe I’m being a tad dramatic, but that’s how it seemed. We flew out of this storm over the flat plains of eastern Montana and Wham, right there, as the clouds cleared were the Bridgers. Really, high, really. The plane banked up a little smoothly arced over the mountains, then began its descent.
There were about three or four of us on a fairly large plane (obviously the rest of Montana had missed the one and only connection until New Years) and as the plane descended from the mountains, or rather, started a nosedive, we all sat up in our seats. Everyone kind-of exchanged this look of horror (we’d all been peacefully sleeping in our section of the near-empty plane). The strangest thing is it was that look of ‘if you scream I will, but I’m not going to go first, because then I’ll just look stupid, and I’d rather look stupid with you, but not alone, because if this plane is going down, damn-it, I’m not going to embarrass myself alone.’
So we stared alternately at each other, the window, the approaching runway, where was that damn flight attendant? Should someone go up to the front and knock on the cabin? Did they even announce we were landing? Are you going to panic? Well, I’m panicking, so maybe we could just all….Oh
We landed.
Why no announcement? They didn’t want to wake us up.
Why so sharp a dive? Coming from the east over the mountains with the runway right at the edge causes planes to either drop fast or circle a lot.
I would’ve preferred to circle.
Tomorrow’s installation; the next two Christmases
Day after? All about lip gloss.
posted by ldbug at Tuesday, September 19, 2006
9 Comments:
i got to stop reading about your bad flights i going on my holidays soon an yes i am flying, well not me personally! touch wood i have never had a bad flight, it sounds like you are having mine as well as yours!
I will drive everywhere! Yikes....well, one day I will have to overcome the fear of flight to get to the Galapagos Islands, unless I want to boat all the way there...but it will take years of savings to get there and by then, you must run out of stories like this!
Well really, though, we were in no danger. It was just that the pilot and flight attendants really didn't want to disturb us. Seems not safe, though, and it scared the shit out of us, but we were fine. I guess due to the fact that there really were only like four of us on a plane that holds 150, they just gave us extra snacks, free wine, and let us sack out across the seats. The plane lands like that from the east a lot of the time...
When we flew to Costa Rica, we hit a wall, dropped what felt like hundreds of feet. It was so bad a few women let out shrieks.
It can be very, very scarey. The good news is, we are all on solid ground and lived to talk about it!
That's horrifying.
It's amazing you haven't taken to trains.
I dont care what they're reasoning was, I would've screamed and made a fuss, grabbing for my oxygen tank! And I know in doing so, I probably would've looked like an ass, but at least I would get to the be the main headliner in three or four people's stories. Anyways, glad to know you're still around!
Hatti, I hope I never 'hit a wall'! That sounds scary!
Jay, trains just take so long! and I'm still waiting on that bridge over the big pond;-)
dt, yeah, well, we're northerners, which means we don't make big fusses about things, crashes, religion, whatever, we like it quite, polite. Silly thing is, the same thing happened when landing in Chicago from Italy. The plane had vertually no one on board (even though it was a huge plane) a lot of missed connections..anyway, we go in to land, get almost on the ground, and then take off again. We're all looking at each other with that same, should I scream? Now? is Now a good time? Will you scream with me?
Turns out, they couldn't clear the runway in time. The pilot sounded bored, which relaxed me, I keep reminding myself these guys do this alllllll the time!
I have survived a couple of flights from hell. I wouldn't have screamed 1st, either,because I wouldn't want to look a fool..even if we were diving to our deaths!
That's totally what I'm saying!! I don't want to look like the idiot even in falling to our deaths!
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