the old-school guestbook archives
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expecting to fly... ~ August 28, 2006 - 11:29 p.m. that comair crash really shook me. my first thought was it's an RJ. RJ=regional jet, like what I flew when I was a flight attendant. slightly bigger, one of the canadairs, a 50-seater. three person crew, like ours-- captain, first officer, flight attendant. my second thought was I *know* pilots at comair. a lot of pilots I knew got hired on at comair after our airline's potential contract deal fell through. I had to dig through the news articles until I found the crewmember's names. I hadn't known any of them. still, though, the pictures in my head of what that must have been like for them are way too vivid. I can feel it in my body. once the flight deck door is closed, that single flight attendant is in charge of the cabin for the duration of the flight. she would have been strapped into her jumpseat, in a brace position. if their jumpseats are where ours were, she was at the front, facing the 47 passengers. a full boat, that rainy sunday morning flight. they were accelerating for takeoff, and she was braced, hopefully doing her mental review of emergency equipment and procedures like she'd been trained to. they were accelerating down the runway and then there was no more runway and they were crashing, and then burning. I wonder if she had time to yell RELEASE YOUR SEATBELTS AND GET OUT! I wonder if she was conscious when the fire began. I wonder if she even had time to know she was going to die. that they all were. they burned, all 47 passengers, and her, and the captain. the first officer, still in critical condition, survived only because a cop burned his arms reaching into the cracked cockpit to drag him out. I want to write that cop a note to thank him. no one knows quite how the pilots got confused, and wound up on the wrong runway. it was drizzling, it was early, they'd recently changed the taxiway. the pilots noticed there were no lights, but didn't mention it to ATC. they probably didn't even see the field hurtling towards them until they were right on top of it. expecting to fly, and burning instead. there's been a lot of airline troubles lately, and I feel them all, but this one I'm feeling just so deeply. I can see it all in my head. and the weird thing is, it makes me want to go back to being a flight attendant. because it reminds me of what it was about for me. about being of service, helping people, trying to save lives in a crisis. flight attendants know that disaster can happen at any time, and that the lives of all these people are in their hands if it does. I've been thinking about this lately. there's a flight attendant job I've been wanting to apply for. it's a big commitment, going back to such a consuming job, living that life again. I'm thinking about it, though. I'm thinking about it pretty hard. and in case you're wondering if I'm making a broad assumption when I call the flight attendant on comair flight 5191 she, let me tell you that I looked her up, I found her name. her name was Kelly.
(((rings))) |