Tuesday, January 16, 2007

"We Hope That Was Exciting"

We were in the pile of unlucky people flying into Austin while freezing rain and sleet fell from the sky. Initially, our flight was delayed ten minutes, and then thirty minutes, and then it was leaving three hours late. We kept thinking they would cancel the flight. I mean, really...if landing at 10:30 at night is dangerous, how is that going to get better three hours later, with no sunshine?

As we approached the Austin airport, the pilot came on the intercom and informed us that one of their indicator lights wasn't working, so they were going to replace some bulbs and see if that was all the problem was. At that point, one hundred fifty people sit in their seats all having the same thought: "And, what if it's not just the little bulbs?" When the pilot came back one he assured us that all was well, and we were ready to land. Again with the simultaneous thought balloons, this time saying, "Is everything really okay?"

Then came the actual landing, after which the pilot came back on, and said, "We hope that was as exciting for all of you as it was for us." Um, excuse me? I don't think we needed to know that.

Then, as we were deplaning, I overheard the pilot talking to another passenger that the light that wouldn't come on was for the left landing gear. It then became clear what I heard before the first announcement -- the landing gears being lowered, raised, and lowered again. I'm glad they got the landing gears open and checked out and were able to land properly. But does it make me a bad person that I kinda wished they hadn't? To have experienced the excitement of a belly landing on runway foam?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like boring, predictable flights myself.