Air Disasters
One of my favorite shows is called Air Disasters which is on the Smithsonian Channel every week. They do a full hour recreation of airline crashes where every body dies or really close misses where everybody is OK. They have all types of planes globally doing bad things on the show. The show also does a brilliant job of solving why the disaster occurred. Yesterday, Linda and I had a shot at a starring role!
We were flying from Nashville to Marquette, MI via a stop in Detroit on Delta. I know I have bitched about Delta in the past, but this was a great plan to save a lot of time and the tickets were frequent fliers points, so they were cheap. We flew on an MD 88 to Detroit and had a couple hours to get some lunch and stretch out a little. We worked our way to our gate and about 30 minutes prior to loading, the first excuse was offered. Crew is here, no plane. Over the next hour, no plane. It was an RJR jet that was still in the hangar. About an hour after scheduled departure, the plane pulls up and we finally get to load. We leave about 90 minutes late, which Delta does a lot on these regionals, for some reason they just don' t seem to care about a schedule.
It is very clear day and I got a window seat so the Delta drink cart does not take off an arm or leg as it goes down the isle. Let Linda be the daredevil... We are sight seeing and trying to catch some landmarks out the window and we are on final approach in about 35 minutes. A few minutes before we land we pick up some clouds and as we head in, the pilot makes a couple of quick turns and accelerates to abort the landing. I thought he was a little off course and was going to come around and try again. Nope. Linda was quite scared and I tried to know what I was talking about as I explained the deal, I watch the plane wreck show , you know. But after climbing up several housand feet, the pilot came on the radio to let us know, that fog has suddenly shut down the traffic in Marquette airport. We were going to reroute to Escanaba , which was where we would eventually go for our trip. Marquette Airport, aka. KI Sawyer Airport, is a closed defense base and has great radar and massive runways, so the visibility had to be bad to abort.
Escanaba was only about 10 minutes and we were on the ground safely, not a cloud to be seen. Whew! A couple things that makes the story a lot more fun. The airport was closed. Nobody was there... Nobody.. No TSA, no airlines people, no rental cars, nothing. They have a couple flights a day and it was between the last two scheduled flights, so they shut it down and leave and reopen later. So, we taxied up and waited. The pilot called a place called dispatch, and they figured out what they were going to do. Basically we were going to get off and have family get us and our luggage. A lot of the people would take a bus to Marquette, about a 75 minute ride, and the plane would refuel and return to Detroit. Getting the information was tough, but we finally figured it out by your deduction method. After an hour on the plane, one person got to the airport so we could deplane. The door to the building was locked. Then we had to move the plane 50 feet for some strange policy reason, and then deplaned down the RJR ladder into the very small terminal. The luggage was handled pretty quickly and we were off to eat fish fry--it was Friday you know...
Our hotel was in town, so that will be convenient. How about your rental car Jack? Oh yea. This airport would not rent cars that would be left at another airport, local only. Nice. We had planned to leave our rental in Milwaukee. I talked to National, where I had a reservation and cancelled that day's car in Marquette. Then with an incredibly baulkly internet hook up at the hotel, found a car to rent in Marquette with Hertz that we would pick up on Saturday. Linda's sister let us use her car to get all this done and without people close by, who knows how this could have ended.
As in the Air Disaster show, you have to find the root cause for the situation. This one is easy--be on time!! Get the plane to the gate on time, leave on time and none of this crap would have happened. The visibility would have been fine and even the other airport would have been still open. I fired Delta a couple of years ago over the performance of their regional jet fleets and in retrospect, I did the right thing. My policy going forward, no regional jets unless it is absolutely necessary, and then reluctantly.
I have fully recovered from the food poisoning fiasco. I have a meet in two weeks and I have been doing some speed and strength workouts. I should be ready. My weight is down a little and I will see if that can make me any faster. I am still going to concentrate on the 200 this meet.
We were flying from Nashville to Marquette, MI via a stop in Detroit on Delta. I know I have bitched about Delta in the past, but this was a great plan to save a lot of time and the tickets were frequent fliers points, so they were cheap. We flew on an MD 88 to Detroit and had a couple hours to get some lunch and stretch out a little. We worked our way to our gate and about 30 minutes prior to loading, the first excuse was offered. Crew is here, no plane. Over the next hour, no plane. It was an RJR jet that was still in the hangar. About an hour after scheduled departure, the plane pulls up and we finally get to load. We leave about 90 minutes late, which Delta does a lot on these regionals, for some reason they just don' t seem to care about a schedule.
It is very clear day and I got a window seat so the Delta drink cart does not take off an arm or leg as it goes down the isle. Let Linda be the daredevil... We are sight seeing and trying to catch some landmarks out the window and we are on final approach in about 35 minutes. A few minutes before we land we pick up some clouds and as we head in, the pilot makes a couple of quick turns and accelerates to abort the landing. I thought he was a little off course and was going to come around and try again. Nope. Linda was quite scared and I tried to know what I was talking about as I explained the deal, I watch the plane wreck show , you know. But after climbing up several housand feet, the pilot came on the radio to let us know, that fog has suddenly shut down the traffic in Marquette airport. We were going to reroute to Escanaba , which was where we would eventually go for our trip. Marquette Airport, aka. KI Sawyer Airport, is a closed defense base and has great radar and massive runways, so the visibility had to be bad to abort.
Escanaba was only about 10 minutes and we were on the ground safely, not a cloud to be seen. Whew! A couple things that makes the story a lot more fun. The airport was closed. Nobody was there... Nobody.. No TSA, no airlines people, no rental cars, nothing. They have a couple flights a day and it was between the last two scheduled flights, so they shut it down and leave and reopen later. So, we taxied up and waited. The pilot called a place called dispatch, and they figured out what they were going to do. Basically we were going to get off and have family get us and our luggage. A lot of the people would take a bus to Marquette, about a 75 minute ride, and the plane would refuel and return to Detroit. Getting the information was tough, but we finally figured it out by your deduction method. After an hour on the plane, one person got to the airport so we could deplane. The door to the building was locked. Then we had to move the plane 50 feet for some strange policy reason, and then deplaned down the RJR ladder into the very small terminal. The luggage was handled pretty quickly and we were off to eat fish fry--it was Friday you know...
Our hotel was in town, so that will be convenient. How about your rental car Jack? Oh yea. This airport would not rent cars that would be left at another airport, local only. Nice. We had planned to leave our rental in Milwaukee. I talked to National, where I had a reservation and cancelled that day's car in Marquette. Then with an incredibly baulkly internet hook up at the hotel, found a car to rent in Marquette with Hertz that we would pick up on Saturday. Linda's sister let us use her car to get all this done and without people close by, who knows how this could have ended.
As in the Air Disaster show, you have to find the root cause for the situation. This one is easy--be on time!! Get the plane to the gate on time, leave on time and none of this crap would have happened. The visibility would have been fine and even the other airport would have been still open. I fired Delta a couple of years ago over the performance of their regional jet fleets and in retrospect, I did the right thing. My policy going forward, no regional jets unless it is absolutely necessary, and then reluctantly.
I have fully recovered from the food poisoning fiasco. I have a meet in two weeks and I have been doing some speed and strength workouts. I should be ready. My weight is down a little and I will see if that can make me any faster. I am still going to concentrate on the 200 this meet.
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