Near Death: Volume 2 - 1989

I was working on a radio project at Toledo Edison, and three of us (myself, Mark and Jim) went to Lynchburg, Virginia to visit the Motorola plant where the radio system was being engineered.

As long as I had known him, Jim had a fear of flying. We got to Lynchburg without incident, but he especially did not like flying on the puddle-jumper that took us from Baltimore to Lynchburg.

On the way back to Baltimore, we ran into a storm system, and after flying around Baltimore for a while, the pilot announced that we could not land there. Instead, we were going to a small airport at Salisbury, Maryland to wait the storm out. Our landing in Salisbury was awful, by far the worst I had ever experienced, but that's not the point of this story.

After about two hours on the ground, which gave us time to reschedule our flight from Baltimore to Detroit, we were cleared to go to Baltimore. This was one of those little planes with one row of seats down the port side and two rows on the starboard side. I sat in the front row, immediately behind the cockpit. I could easily see all of the instruments from where I sat.

We took off, and at about 2000 feet we were in clouds so thick I couldn't see a thing. At 6400 feet, something happened. The plane suddenly starting going down, and every loose item in the cabin was on the ceiling. The chart books in the cockpit were also floating, and the co-pilot kept pushing them down to keep them out of the way. The pilot and co-pilot were working frantically to regain control of the plane.

I turned around to see how Mark and Jim were doing. If you can imagine what sheer panic looks like, that is what I saw. Jim was holding onto the seat in front of him, his fingers digging in so deeply that I thought the material would rip. Mark's face had drained of all color. They probably didn't appreciate the huge grin on my face. I still don't know why I was grinning, but I guess I figured I might as well enjoy the ride.

I looked out the window while pushing down on the ceiling to try to stay in my seat. Nothing but clouds and rain. The men in the cockpit were not having much luck righting the plane, although occassionally the plane seemed to level off for a second or two, and then the descent continued.

I realized that I was going to die, and I waited for the ground to meet us. I wouldn't see it coming because of the weather, and I was sure it would be swift and painless. And I was okay with it.

As I was on my way to meet my Maker, I thought about my life. I've made a few mistakes, but on the whole I had led a good life and had been good to people. I thought about my daughters, who were 8 and 5 at the time, and I was sorry for them that they would grow up without Dad. And I had only one regret: I didn't have enough life insurance.

Suddenly, at 1800 feet, the plane slammed into a pocket of air, and as swiftly as we had gone down, we started going up. The force drove me back into my seat, and all of the objects that were floating came crashing to the floor. A few minutes later we were at altitude and flying smoothly through the sky.

When we landed in Baltimore, I waited for the pilot and co-pilot before walking to terminal. I had to know: were we as close as I thought? Yes, we were. The pilot explained that we had hit a wind shear, and he simply could not regain control. The only thing that saved us was the other side of the wind shear, where the current rushed up instead of down.

We immediately headed for the airport bar, where I ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey. I don't like whiskey, but I needed something stronger than beer to settle my nerves. Jim was absolutely beside himself, and asked Mark (our supervisor) if it would be alright to rent a car and drive back to Toledo. Mark denied Jim's request, and we eventually made it back to Detroit, where we got in the car and drove home. Jim swore he would never fly again.

Post script: the following day, I contacted our benefits department and increased my life insurance by a factor of four - a small price to pay for peace of mind while falling to your death.