It’s the stuff of nightmares for any traveler…
…the fear that something may go wrong.
For many, any bump or irregularity in the steadfastness or direction of a bus, boat, or worse, a plane, can be absolutely nerve gripping, or at the least, uncomfortably unnerving.
But I (Larry) wasn’t one of them…
I NEVER had a fear of flying, not in the slightest. I used to be 100% excited to fly. Completely carefree.
But not anymore.
This is the open story of a time where I experienced what I had only ever imagined…was the impossible.
This is the story of the unexpected scenario of an unassuming flight home that included my plane free falling 5,000 feet out of the sky over the pacific ocean and having to make an emergency landing.
If you do have a severe fear of flying, to be honest, I’d advise against reading the remainder of this article because it’s DEFINITELY not going to help…
It started with a flight home
It was 2009 and I had just spent two weeks visiting and traveling Australia for a friend’s wedding.
It was a trip that was a dream come true but it was about to become a life-changing experience for all the wrong reasons…
I was set to fly home from Sydney, Australia to Vancouver, Canada for a layover before flying on home to Newfoundland.
My return flight had actually been rescheduled last minute to be pushed back a day.
It was going to be a standard long 15 hour flight to Vancouver. We flew out of Sydney during a bright sunny blue-sky morning.
I was sat in the third row of economy on the left side of the plane. I was in the middle seat, to my left at the window, a 13 year old boy flying on his own, to my right on the aisle, another guy about my age.
The flight was completely uneventful for the first 9 hours. Until, 150km south of Honolulu, we entered into a dry thunderstorm…
When things went wrong
Night had settled in. It was pitch black outside. The cabin lights were low spare a few seat reading lights on as the cabin of passengers had already settled into sleep for the evening. At the time, we were still flying over the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The boy next to me needed to go to the restroom so both myself and the guy in the aisle had gotten up and remained standing and chatting over wine while stretching our legs and waiting for the kid to return and we could sit down.
That’s when it happened…
Without any sort of warning, there was the most incredibly quick VIOLENT shake. To stay stable and standing we grabbed the seats around us. But it was only for a second before settling again.
This was followed by moments of the most eerie silence. All sounds and movement appeared to stop. Except for the sound of the rush of the 13 year old kid running out of the bathroom rushing by us and jumping into his seat and immediately putting his belt on.
The poor kid was absolutely terrified.
The flight attendant came running up the isle past us looking so worried calling out to the whole cabin to sit down and fasten their seatbelts as she ran to the front of the plane to do so herself.
But there just wasn’t enough time. In the shortest of moments as myself and the guy to my right frantically jumped into our seats and began grasping to secure our seat belts, the plane shook as violently as before making it harder to coordinate before…
…the plane abruptly proceeded to just fall out of the sky. And seemed to do so without the smallest bit of resistance.
But inside the cabin…it was absolute chaos.
At the moment the plane lost control and began to drop towards the ocean, everything in the plane that wasn’t secured, catapulted straight into the ceiling…
The following moments are so very unclear as it was all so surreal. My mind didn’t even know how to comprehend what was happening.
What I do remember is…
…my whole body flying up out of my seat and the crown of my head crashing into the overhead baggage compartment…
…the guy in the aisle flew right up into the ceiling…
…his glass of red wine flew into the air spitting all over us and everyone nearby…
…Oxygen masks ejecting down from ceiling across the cabin…
…falling back to my seat and immediately grabbing and securing and double-checking my seat-belt…
…throwing my arms down and tightly clenching them around under my legs and tucking my face into my knees for the brace position…
…the plane continued to fall, accompanied by the rush of adrenaline from speeding downwards…
…the cabin was filled with screaming, so much crying, noise of desperation…
…I don’t know…I was barely there anymore…
I don’t know how long the plane fell for. All I know is that the plane kept falling. It fell so long that I had time to think about it falling. About what was going to happen.
It fell so long that I had time to pray…
At some point, the pilot was able to gain control of the plane back.
The whole experience from start to finish probably lasted 30 seconds.
It’s a gap in my life that I can barely revisit emotionally. And to this day I still refuse to fully reconnect with how I felt in these terrifying moments. And are ones that I’ve never been able to fully share with anybody. I just don’t have any room in my life for them…
After probably another 30 seconds of stable movement people finally felt comfortable enough to start to look around.
The pilot announced that we had hit a dry thunderstorm…we would find out later that the plane had been hit by lightning and that plane had fallen more than 5,000 feet.
The aftermath
Flight attendants, crew and on-board doctors began surveying the cabin for injuries. The whole cabin was still in shock. Many passengers throughout continued to sob. So many people were injured.
At least one flight attendant had seemed to hit the ceiling with extreme force.
An older woman in the back of the plane close to her 70’s and crashed into the overhead compartment needing immediate attention. The blood from her injuries still evident on the ceiling.
In all, 11 passengers and 4 flight attendants were in need of immediate medical attention. So the plane made an emergency landing in Honolulu Airport in Hawaii just 30 minutes away.
The plane was evacuated. Anyone who was clearly hurt and anyone who had a potential injury, including myself, were taken off the plane and examined. The clearly injured 15, whose full extent of damage was still to be determined, were brought to the local hospital of which I was asked to join but after everything that had happened, I just wanted to get home.
I joined everyone else to get back on the same plane and continued our trip to Vancouver, albeit the flight was much more somber and tenser than when we originally took off from Sydney.
Once in Vancouver we were given a $15 lunch voucher for our troubles (Sounds generous I know haha). The airline tried very hard to get everyone to sign a waiver of responsibility, which I refused to sign. And while waiting to continue my flight home I watched the breaking news about the flight.
On the connecting flight home a flight attendant approached me who knew I had been on the terrible flight and wanted to know what happened. Because she knew one of the flight attendants that had been hurt, and apparently she had been paralyzed from the accident (But note, I have not seen this injury confirmed in the news).
Luckily I made it home in one piece. But still not the same carefree person when it comes to travel that I had been.
Don’t let it stop you
My injuries and the case continue to be monitored and progressed for ongoing review. Once a person who could never think anything bad could ever happen while mid-flight, who looked forward to flying, I can now only see flying as a necessary evil as part of something that I love to do, travel.
Since hearing this story Chris has actually become a much more nervous flyer than me, but we’re working on that 😊.
I don’t tell this story to scare people away from flying. It’s an absolute fact that flying is pretty much the safest form of travel. And incidents such as these are so incredibly incredibly rare, it’s simply not something that makes sense to even worry about more than being afraid of driving or walking on the sidewalk.
Maybe I’m telling this story to just remind people that even if something bad happens, you can’t let it hold you back, especially if it’s from something you love doing.
And to just move forward the best you can. And don’t look back.
Until next time
As a reminder, not everything we share on our blog is as depressing as this, haha. But we want to share all the good, the bad and the ugly of travel. Thankfully it’s mostly good stuff 😊.
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Cheers guys,
Larry and Chris
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