Emergency Exit

By now, many of you have seen the updates on Facebook, so know the basic outline of this story. But here is all the glorious detail.

This was on the first leg of our trip to Las Vegas to meet up with my brother, Terry. It was a 6:35 p.m. flight out of DCA, landing in Chicago. Or, the plan was to land in Chicago.

You could tell immediately upon takeoff that there was an issue. There was a lot of drag, and then you could hear the wheels just churning and churning. We were kind of wavering.

They had turned the lights off before takeoff, and just about one minute after liftoff, they turned them on, the flight attendants were up, and walking towards each other (smallish plane, one attendant in the back one in the front – it was a four seater in each row plane) and talking.

The female flight attendant comes back to the exit row, squats down and says, “Ok, folks, I need to know. Are ready and able to open those doors when I tell you? I need to know right now. If you are at all uncomfortable, tell me now.”

That’s scary shit right there.

We said yes. I was in the window, and Mike and I immediately switched seats so he was by the door. There were two women in the other two seats, and one was a bit shellshocked at the request. The flight attendant switched her out with another guy.

We re-routed to Dulles, and along the way, the female flight attendant came back several times, talking to us, gauging our continued resolve. The male flight attendant went on the intercom and went through how to take the crash position (bend forward, wrap your arms around your legs), and asked everyone to read the safety booklet. In the exit row we went through opening the door, and what command she would shout to tell us to open it (not to open while the plane was still moving, as soon as it stopped, if she shouted the command to “unbuckle your seat belts,” we were to open the doors and start evacuating).

Dulles is only 45 minutes by car, so we were out there in no time. But we had just taken off, so we were above the allowed landing weight. And, I imagine, they were getting the runway and airspace ready.

While we circled to burn off fuel, they finally got the landing gear down and, as far as the pilot could tell, locked.

It was a guess, after all. The flight attendants were really good, and really open. She said that she wasn’t particularly “scared” for the landing, but that the process could be frightening. That was when she said that if the gear gave out, we could end up in a belly flop. She said she’d been through one before, and the worst part is the noise of it. She said it would be really loud, and just medal scraping. But, the closer we got to starting decent, the more relaxed her and the other flight attendant became. They – and the pilot – seemed to believe the gear would hold.

As we did start the decent, you could see the airport. The runway we were approaching was empty of planes, but there were about a dozen fire trucks and a half dozen more ambulances, clustered in three spots along the runway – where we’d touch down, in the middle, and where we were expected to stop. It was not reassuring to see all the flashing lights as we came down.

I’m no expert in landing, but I’ve been on a number of flights. When you land, they put the back down first, then the nose. We did that, also, last night. It was the back landing gear that was the trouble maker, and my perception is that we came in at a much stronger angle – back down and nose up. We also rode on the back for what seemed like a long time – 30 seconds? 45? Before he put the nose down.

The wheels wobbled. It didn’t feel good, but it was never an out-of-control feeling. My guess – and I’d love to ask a pilot this -- is that he wanted to ride the back wheels because if they gave out, he could pick back up off the ground. He didn’t deploy the air flaps during those 30 or 45 seconds, he didn’t put on the brakes, and he didn’t stop the engine. It was as if he was ready to lift off again.

But then the nose came down, air flaps up, and brakes. We rode for a while, I imagine so that they didn’t have to put the brakes on hard, and when we were slow enough, the rescue vehicles caught up and rode along side of us.

It was, not fun. 

But, I'm in Vegas now! We're hoping that the whole experience -- and the not crashing part -- is a sign of good luck for the trip. But that didn't exactly play out last night....