January 19, 1997|By Harry S. Johnson
PREACHERS AND pundits. Philosophers and poets. Rappers and right-to-lifers. All talk about death as a concept, as an idea. The current debate about assisted suicide brings home the fact that as we live, we all will surely die. Our own mortality, however, is something that many of us do not think about until we're confronted with it.
Recently, death transformed itself from an abstraction to a near-certain reality while I traveled on a Southwest Airlines jet. Sure, I had thought about death when a friend or family member passed away or when there was a disaster, but like many people, it hadn't crossed by my mind on a daily basis. But sometimes events conspire to change the way we think.
On Thursday, Jan. 9, my friend Ron and I sought to escape the impending snow by making a golf trip to Sarasota, Fla. I let Ron make the reservations, and he obtained the airline tickets. As we prepared to return to Baltimore on Saturday, we congratulated ourselves on our good play and good fortune. The weather had been good, the courses challenging, and we had eaten too much. In all, a very satisfying getaway weekend.
About 9 p.m., one hour into the flight, the plane started to bounce. Having traveled quite a bit, I assumed that this was only air turbulence. A few seconds later, the plane tilted from left to right. Then the engines began to make a funny whining noise. I looked around, but no one seemed too worried. About one minute later, the pilot advised us that the plane had lost its hydraulics. He said that he could still fly the plane, but the crew was going to attempt to land as soon as possible. The flight attendants were to advise us on emergency landing procedures. Now, like most passengers, I pay very little attention to the flight instructions at the beginning of each flight. This time, my attention, and that of every other passenger on the plane, was directed to each word spoken by the flight attendants.
At first, I thought that the crew was just being cautious. I did not know the effect of a hydraulic failure on a plane, but I wasn't very worried because the pilot said he could still fly the plane. Likewise, Ron was very calm, talking it all in but not showing any nerves. As I watched the flight attendants talking to the passengers in the exit rows, I was struck by the change in their demeanor. On an airline where the flight attendants dress casually and sing songs, there was now a seriousness of purpose. Suddenly, it dawned on me that this was not a drill.
The flight attendants instructed us on how to brace ourselves for the landing. It seems that one of the things affected by the hydraulic failure was the plane's braking system. As I listened, I watched the faces of the people around me.
Next to Ron was a tobacco-chewing cowboy from Florida headed to Baltimore for his father's funeral. He said that he did not like to fly. Across the aisle were two young women and a biker. One woman was a high school student from Pennsylvania, the other a college student from Washington. The biker, who had talked to the high-schooler the entire first hour of the flight, now became strangely quiet.
A young woman, probably in her mid-30s, sat on the aisle of the exit row closest to me. I watched her face as she listened to the instructions. I don't know if she was afraid, but I do know that she gave her undivided attention to the flight attendant. For some reason, that had a calming effect on me.
We were told that about a minute before the landing we would hear the instruction, "Brace, brace, brace." Ron looked at me and asked if I was nervous. I told him that the situation was out of our control, so I really was not. He said he felt the same, but rolled up his fist and said, "Give it up for good luck."
After we bumped fists, Ron patted the very worried cowboy on the back and told him that it would be all right. The biker, on the aisle next to me, put his head down in prayer. Behind me, a gentleman leaned over and kissed his wife. I thought about my wife, Janet, and two children, probably asleep at home. I knew they were safe, and that they would take care of one another.
As we descended, the plane became very quiet. The instruction came to brace, and everyone complied. The flight attendants yelled "Stay down!" and repeated that instruction over and over, until the plane had come to a complete stop. The truth is that the landing was smoother than many that I have had on other flights. When the plane came to a rest on the runway, everyone broke into applause. Only then did we know that we had landed in Augusta, Ga., several states short of our destination.
We spent the next 90 minutes parked on the runway. The plane could not move. It could not be towed. You could see tension in some faces, relief in many. The gentleman behind me, who had kissed his wife, leaned forward to tell me that he knew everything would be all right.
