My buddy and I were on a 727 headed north off the Florida Atlantic coast some years back. 727 was a great plane, I am a big fan of it. I was sorry to see them go.
We were looking landwards, and beyond the thunderclouds all the way up the coast, the sun was getting ready to set. We could see lightning flashes all over the place. I was enjoying it.
We had just all been served drinks, and they announced they weren’t going to serve meals they just finished preparing because it would be unsafe. (I recall it was either turkey or salisbury steak)
So, my buddy and I have our trays down with our drinks on them (I had a Seven and Seven...I think) and the plane hit a couple of pockets. Not too bad. My drink, which was right near the brim began to spill, so I put my mouth down and drank a mouthful without lifting it. Almost none spilled.
I thought I was mighty clever, chuckled, then we hit another, deeper pocket.
This time, some sloshed out. I picked it up, took a big mouthful, swallowed it and turned to my buddy.
As I turned, I was looking at his sloshing drink and started to say “Hey, you better drink that, or you’ll be wearing it!”
But it never came out of my mouth.
As I turned and my eyes fixed on his drink, the plane plummeted.
I had that entire comment already perfectly formed in my head, and it was just up to my mouth to finish saying it but all I got out of that entire sentence above was: “Hey...”
What is burned into my memory is astonishing, at least to me. As my eyes fixed on his drink, the drink suddenly leaped into the air.
It was like watching a cartoon. The cup seemed to stay where it was, and the entire volume of his drink shot out of it in the perfectly formed shape of the cup. (I don’t think it really did, but I swear, it felt that way) I think it was only a minuscule fraction of a second, but my brain seemed to slow it right down to the “super slow motion bullet hitting the balloon filled with milk” speed.
Then everything sped right up to what seemed like hyper speed, and things began to happen really fast.
The plane plummeted far enough that my mind had time to completely form and process the thought: “I am not going to panic. Not yet. But if this plane keeps dropping...I just might.”
And then the plane settled out
One woman was injured in the bathroom, and another who was ejected from her seat into the overhead. I saw that only in the dark edge of my peripheral vision. I didn’t see it directly, but the speed and force at which she was ejected from her seat and violently smashed into the luggage bins above her was clearly evident in what my brain registered.
They made an emergency landing and carted them both off in stretchers.
One interesting side note was how people on the plane changed after that. All over the plane, people were talking to complete and total strangers as if they had known them their entire lives. It was amazing. The other detail is all the stuff that rained down on us for the remainder of that flight. All kinds of liquid, booze, beer, soda, brown gravy (from the galley) dripped down on us. There was a little river in the aisle area. It seemed like such a minor thing that at another time, people would have raised holy hell if one drop of gravy had fallen down to soil a shirt. But as everyone made their acquaintance with the strangers around them, nobody seemed to notice it.
While we drank our complimentary drinks, my buddy said to me that in that time as the plane fell, he also had time to process a thought (as I had) and when he hit the point where he might panic, he had a flash of a vision for a split second.
He said he envisioned himself in that split second, strapped into his seat in a section of fuselage at the bottom of the ocean with his hair swaying in the current, his eyes open. That was how he described it. Pretty gripping vision. Then, as if he had said too much, he made a deliberate and loud “Blub. Blub” sound as he gently moved his head side-to-side. We both cracked up and sucked down our complimentary drinks...:)
But I will say, he was dead serious as he initially described it. I think I saw it just as vividly as he did, but...of course, when I remember it now, it makes me grin rather than feel grim. When the memory pops into my mind now, before it has a chance to register as a corpse strapped in a watery grave, like someone who always screws up the punch line of a joke by skipping right to it, I always get to the face of my best friend with the “Blub. Blub.” that follows, and just cannot take it seriously!
Great story! Thanks.
I’ve it some good “air pocket” in all years aloft, but nothing like that.
I worked in Brazil and Argentina a bit in the 70s and remember those vivid sunrises over the Caribbean. I’ve never been there to enjoy them on a beach, but they sure were spectacular from 36,000 feet.
I remember when I was 18 taking my first commercial flight home (Philly) from St. Louis. I was just starting my Mechanical Engineering program and had a couple of frosh courses on strength of materials. The plane hit some good turbulence, the kind that really smacks you hard. I was looking out the window and watching the wing go up and down several feet like a bird flapping its wings. That REALLY gave me an appreciation for strong structures. Before I saw that, I figured the wings were rigid and had no flex in them. Boy, was I wrong!
About five years after that, I toured the Boeing 747 assembly plant in Everett, WA and they showed us the test rigs for strength testing aircraft wings to the failure point. We didn’t see an actual test, just a wing all prepared and instrumented for a test. But we saw a great video of the test and I remember thinking “that wing flex I saw in 1969 is NOTHING compared to this!” They must have moved that wing dip up and down 15 or 20 ft or more.
I sure hope today’s aircraft designers are that good!