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A couple of years ago I was flying out of Calgary on my way to Winnipeg. The flight had been booked last minute and as a result I wasn’t able to be selective about my seat. I always sat in the bulkhead seat in row three or four. The right hand side of the airplane serves my sleeping interests thebest and the seat was far enough away from the shitter that I didn’t have to endure the smell or the people who thought a seat back near the lavatory was a resting place for their entire arm while they waited in the piss lineup.
But, like I said the booking was last minute and I wanted to get home and so I took what was available. The plane was a two seat on either side regional jet and my seatmate was a young lady on her way home from a week in Disneyland. Her name was Tamara and she was a nurse at a Winnipeg hospital.
I don’t usually encourage conversation with my seat mates. I prefer to sleep and listen to music but this flight was unusual in a few ways and as a result I ended up talking at length with Tamara.
Everyone had crammed all of their baggage into the overhead storage and managed to stow their phones and so we were finally rolling down the runway. My airplane experience told me that we were a second or two from lift off and I always appreciate that moment because it means we’re committed and finally on our way.
But, just as the nose of the plane began to lift there was a bang right underneath my seat and the plane began to shimmy to the right. I was alarmed and silently urged the plane to get into the air. I urged us to be airborne because I knew we were out of runway and an abort for any reason at that stage likely involved words like fireball and no survivors.
We got into the air though and as we lifted I could hear the noise of debris striking the bottom of the plane. In a couple of seconds I concluded that one or more of our tires had exploded and the rubber fragments striking the fuselage were responsible for the noise that followed the initial bang.
One or two of my fellow passengers looked around in mild puzzlement but when the noise stopped they went back to reading or sleeping and no one seemed too concerned.
I was concerned.
Once we got leveled off and the flight crew started to move around the cabin I was able to stop one of the airwaiters. Once stopped I asked him what the noise was. He seemed uncomfortable and evasive but I was insistent. I wanted him to tell me what the fuck the noise was or at least confirm that I wasn’t the only one that noticed the bang and the shimmy. At that point, he asked me to leave my seat because he didn’t want to alarm the other passengers. So, he took me to the back and once we had a little bit of privacy we had a discussion that went something like this:
Airwaiter – “What’s the problem sir.”
Me – “What the hell was that noise during takeoff?”
Airwaiter – “Sir, please keep your voice down. We don’t know what the noise was.”
Me – ” Well that’s fucking great. But you heard the bang and felt the shimmy, correct?”
Airwaiter – ” Yes.”
Me – “Sounded like tires exploding and then the pieces hitting the fuselage.”
Airwaiter – “You’re speculating. We can’t confirm that.”
Me – “Well, how are we going to confirm? I doubt we’re going to fly to Winnipeg and see if we can land on tire rims.”
Airwaiter – ” The pilot has been in touch with Calgary tower and they’re sending a crew out to look for debris on the runway.”
Me – “O.K. that’s good. Why the hell didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
Airwaiter – “It’s not in the best interest of maintaining calm for the crew to speculate about possible aircraft difficulties.”
Me – “Fair enough, now what?”
Airwaiter – “Once we’ve determined the debris source then we react according to flight protocols.”
Me – ” O.K. but in return for my silence you get to come and see me once you know.”
Airwaiter – ” Sir, I can’t divulge that information to the passengers. It would incite worry or maybe even panic and that’s not going to help us to a resolution.”
Me – “If you don’t come back and tell me what the fuck is happening then I’m going to incite worry and maybe panic among the passengers.”
Airwaiter – (eyes me critically trying to decide if I’m bluffing) I’ll inform the crew of your concern but for the moment I’m asking you to keep this to yourself.”
Me – ” No problem, but I’ll be expecting you soon.”
I then returned to my seat and the Airwaiter wandered off to the front of the plane. About ten minutes later the same steward came back to my area and surreptitiously signaled me to join him once more in relative seclusion at the back of the plane .
Me – ” Well?”
Airwaiter – “The debris suggests that it came from one or more of our tires.”
Me – ” And?”
Airwaiter – ” We’re going to fly to Winnipeg. Then we’ll jettison excess fuel and perform a low speed, low altitude fly by so we can lower our landing gear and have the damage verified by the tower.”
Me – “And?”
Airwaiter – “If there are undamaged tires we’ll land in Winnipeg but if all the tires are damaged then we’ll be diverted to a military strip at Portage. The military runway is longer and better suited for that type of landing.”
Me – ” Is that really the case or are we being relocated because a fireball of jet fuel and burning passengers would fuck up the rest of the airplane traffic in and out of Winnipeg?”
Airwaiter – (looks shocked and appalled) ” Sir, that’s a terrible thing to say.”
Me – ” I’m going to tell you my name so you can stop calling me sir. I feel like we’re about to have an adventure together and so from this point forward I’m going to call you the name on your name tag and you’re going to stop calling me sir. I will take my seat now and be quiet about our dilemma. In return you will provide any and all updates as soon as they become available. Is that a deal?
Jeremy – (that was his nametag designation) “Deal.”
So, I went back to my seat to silently contemplate life for the next two hours as we flew ominously toward the Prairie capitol. The silent part of my plan didn’t work out though because Tamara decided she wanted to talk. She was quiet for the first couple of minutes and so while I had my thoughts to myself I considered a couple of things. I was pretty certain that I had Jeremy in a poor bargaining position and so I considered having him bring me twenty miniature airplane rums. But, I rejected the idea in favor of being sober if we crashed and I had to participate in a smoke filled stampede panic for the emergency exits.
Then I debated smoking. But I knew that in order to pull that stunt off I was going to have to break my deal with Jeremy so I could explain to the other passengers why I had decided to light up in my seat. I also assumed that there would be at least one person who would object to me smoking even in the face of certain death from an airplane crash.
Honestly. You could be in a death spiral and I’m pretty sure someone would find the time to be offended by the smell of cigarette smoke.
So, I didn’t drink or smoke. But I ended up talking to Tamara. It turned out she was coming home from Disneyland and her brother was also on the plane. They couldn’t get seats together and he was sitting nearer to the front. The thought occurred to me that Tamara might like to spend the last couple of hours of her existence with family and so I asked her if she wanted me to switch seats with her brother. She declined saying they had spent the entirety of the last week in each other’s company and the break wasn’t a bad thing. At that point I wanted to tell Tamara about the Winnipeg adventure that was coming but I decided to keep my deal with Jeremy.
So, for the better part of an hour I talked with Tamara. Tamara was in her early twenties. Tamara was attractive and had a police officer boyfriend. Tamara was a nurse at the St Boniface hospital and her brother was an R.C.M.P. officer stationed in Gimli. Gimli I thought. How ironic was it that Gimli had been front and center in another Air Canada incident where the fueling guys fucked up the conversion from metric to standard and the plane ran out of fuel over Red Lake. The Gimli glider legend was born out of that debacle.
I didn’t mention the coincidence to Tamara.
At one point Tamara’s brother came to the rear of the plane to relieve himself. He stopped to talk with his sister and I offered again to switch seats but he declined, laughed, and agreed when Tamara told him she had already decided they had spent enough time together at Disney.
So, Tamara and I shot the shit until the co-pilot came on the intercom about half an hour out of Winnipeg. The co-pilot then told the passengers about the tire and the fly by, fuel jettison plan. He ended by telling everyone to listen to every instruction from the flight crew regarding preparation for an emergency landing.
You could have heard a pin drop in that plane for a couple of seconds. Tamara turned to me and said, “You knew all along didn’t you?” I admitted that yes, I had known but telling her wasn’t going to alter the situation other than that she would have had to quietly worry with me. She thought about it for a split second and agreed that I’d made the right choice. She wasn’t mad.
Then the airplane got busy. The cabin crew started by replacing every person that was sitting in the emergency exits. They were replaced with Air Canada crew that were flying but not working, a fireman and Tamara’s brother. I didn’t hear anyone bitch about being relocated. Truth be told, I was relieved because some of the people that sit in the exit row looked like they might have trouble getting themselves out, never mind other passengers. The hugely fat fucker that wanted the extra leg room but was barely mobile as an example.
Then the flight crew started on luggage. Remember the in flight announcement that instructs passengers to place heavier articles and bags under the seats in front of them? The announcement that everyone including flightcrew ignore?
That rule couldn’t be ignored when there was a chance we were going to try and land with no tires. So, every overhead bin was opened and the air waiters and waitresses had to gauge the weight of the stuff in the overhead and decide if it needed to be moved. I’m going to say that ninety eight percent of the bags needed to be moved. By the time the task was completed the crew were pretty fucking pissed. But they limited their displeasure to dirty looks and an occasional terse exchange with the passenger who managed to stow a hundred pound carry on above everyone else’s heads.
Once the luggage was stowed and the exits suitable occupied we moved on to practicing our positioning for an emergency landing. I noticed they were careful to never say crash landing. Some word choices might push someone over the edge I guess. But everyone was actually pretty calm. No one freaked out and decided to get in a wank or a hummer before we pancaked into the runway. No one smoked or sobbed uncontrollably or started screaming that we were all going to die.
Everyone was pretty Canadian.
Anyway, it just so happened that Jeremy positioned himself in the aisle beside Tamara and I for our first practice session. He startled me. He startled me because he fucking yelled the head down, feet in, brace yourself instructions. No one was asking him to speak up is what I’m trying to say. He was operating at old folks home volume. I guess it’s in the protocol but holy fuck Jeremy. I thought we were on a first name basis so you could warn a fella.
So we practiced a couple of times and then the crew went around and made people remove pinned jewelry and glasses. They also made certain that phones and any other possession that could become a projectile was immobilised somewhere.
Then…………….we waited for Winnipeg.