Scary Stuff.

I guess it was bound to happen. When logging the flight hours I do at some point in my flying career an emergency landing was most likely to happen sooner or later. Well in keeping with my interesting summer my last trip of July provided to be no different.

Before I tell the story - I will say I’ve been flying a total of 7 years and nothing of this sort (well …not really) has happened to me. Usually, I’m getting paid to in a silly sort of way - host a party in the sky. I have fun layovers and meet interesting people while flying around the world making pretty good money for it. Therefore - when I actually do “earn” my money - It can be scary as hell……

The flight was only 45 minutes long and packed with 128 passengers onboard. We had taken off and had just past through 10,000 ft when almost simultaneously every passenger in my eyes view (from the back of the airplane) turned around in their seat and yelled “SOMETHING IS ON FIRE!” I was sitting on the jump seat and asked if they could see a fire - and they all said no. I reached for the interphone to call the pilots and then I heard the very dreaded… “All Flight Attendants to the front immediately” At that point I was overwhelmed by an extreme smell of smoke/fire/chemical fumes. Passengers had their heads buried into their shirts and people were starting to cough and a look of sheer fright spread amongst the cabin. I ran up the center aisle having no clue if I was about to see a huge fire in the front galley.

I get to the front of the cabin and see the FA (flight attendant) working in the front of the cabin shaking. She said “There is a fire….we are diverting back to the ground…the captain said find the fire.” She was on the verge of breaking down when I grabbed the fire extinguisher and we started searching for the fire. We then proceed to go through the entire cabin opening up overhead bins, feeling the sides of the aircraft for heat, and checking everywhere for a fire or the source of the smoke/smell. Then this haze/fog sets in the in the cabin. It wasn’t really Smokey but the smell was unbearable. People were starting to panic but I can’t remember making much eye contact with any of them. At this point I was holding myself together and all I could think about was fighting a fire.

The captain calls back and says for us to hang in there. He says he realizes the smell is extreme and they still didn’t know was causing the source of the smell/smoke/haze in the cabin. We then were 8 minutes from landing (Its probably been 12 minutes already since the emergency descent started) and people were on the verge of serious breakdown and the others had out their video phones. I’m still expecting any day to see myself with wild hair and a halon extinguisher running through the cabin on you tube any day now.

So by then people are going a bit looney. Everyone starts agreeing in the back of the cabin “It smells like someone is trying to light a MATCH” “A MATCH YES IT’S A MATCH” Then this one genius stands up in the middle of her middle seat and yells “WHAT IF SOMEONE HAS A BOMB!!????”

Ok haven’t you all seen meet the parents? YOU CAN NOT SAY BOMB ON AN AIRPLANE! Especially when you are nose diving towards the ground with a haze in the cabin and smells of fire. Without missing a beat I yelled “ NO ONE HAS A BOMB SIT DOWN NOW.” Of course - I was thinking “OMG WHAT IF SOMEONE HAS A BOMB!?” So then I start monitoring everyone and looking at their feet and hands pointing the extinguisher at people letting them know I wasn’t afraid to use it. By then we are almost to the ground and I head for the back jump seat to land. So with a Halon in one hand and the other flight attendants hand in my other hand we landed safely. Don’t you think the other flight attendant wasn’t -praying out loud those last few minutes until touchdown and I was amen-ing every word!

We sat on the runway for a while fire trucks inspected the airplane then after what seemed an eternity they tugged us into the gate. I then ran off the airplane and lost it. The stress of an emergency liked that is A WHOLE LOT to handle. I kept it together in the air but stepping off that airplane tears just came erupting out of me. There were emergency personal everywhere in the jet-way. We had supervisors from every department and they took good care of us afterwards. They pulled the rest of our trip with pay and sent us home. For days later I kept getting calls from our “Care Teams” checking on my mental stability. By day 3 I was like “Well I’m fine about flying…but can we dive into my personal life?” Sadly they weren’t offering that type of therapy.

Turns out there was some sort of gasper fan in the cockpit (that wasn’t visable to the pilots) that caught on fire and burned out. Well those are what provide air flow to you at your seat (the nozzle above your head you adjust) and that’s why the cabin was filled with a haze and horrible odor.

So that was my emergency landing. Bad day at work I must add. Thank goodness that stuff rarely happens because I would be considering a bank job real soon if I had to deal with those situations often. What a summer it has been. Hopefully nothing exciting like that for a LONG TIME. I can handle pimps and ho’s (see my prior blog ALL IN A HARD DAYS WORK ) but fires ….NO THANKS. Stay tuned… like they say.. Where there is smoke there is bound to be fire!

(I know I’ve REALLY been slacking on the blogs… They will start back up soon… I’ve had BUSY few weeks..thanks for hanging in there!)