Question – Why is this a renaissance plane?
Answer – Because it’s baroque
Bwahahahaha!
Flying Home
For some background - I scheduled our flights back to Raleigh for 1130. Plenty of time to get off the boat and to the airport.
Delta decided to cancel our flight and move us up to a 1030 flight.
Yikes - may not be enough time to get cleared through Customs and get to the airport. But what the hell. If we miss our flight - there's other's later.
So - we arrange with the cruise ship to be able to get off (carrying our luggage) first thing. Customs allows 150 people (out of 2,000) to get off early.
Awesome! We get off the boat at 0830. A short line (maybe 20 people) waiting for Taxi's. We're at the airport by 0900.
Clear airport security and are on the plane and ready for take off.
We're second in line - ready for power up to the runway for take off.
But - we don't go.
The plane behind us goes around and takes off.
We turn right and head back to the terminal.
Here's the Bottom Line
Some people are able to get onto the next direct flight to Raleigh.
Other's head to Atlanta to get connections to Raleigh.
We decide to wait it out. They let us off the plane right away and said they intend to fix the problem.
Later - it's announced that the plane will not be cleared for flight. But - there's a flight coming in from Atlanta and our pilot and flight crew will take that same plane and fly it to Raleigh.
Yaaaay.
So - we take off from Ft. Lauderdale at 1500. Land, at dusk, at RDU at 1700 (5 PM plus or minus).
Originally, we should have landed at Raleigh at noon.
Anyway - we're on our way.
25 passengers on the Jet.
We had been talking with the flight attendant a lot since the plane first started back for the terminal. We were OK with delays, we were happy, we were OK with some bumps in the road. And the flight attendant made it a point to tell us that she appreciated our positive attitude.
Anyway - on the flight back to Raleigh - the flight attendant started a conversation with me about Lion (Aslan). She was talking about how Aslan was "God" in the book. And maybe the fact that we had a stuffed lion named Aslan, along with other good providence was what helped us out.
Say What?
Turns out (and she made me promise not to say anything during the flight) - the airplane had a malfunction which caused an (the) engine(s) to shut off just as we were getting ready to take off.
Per the pilot - we were (and I quote secondhand) "20 seconds from a nose up attitude engine stall".
The stall / burp happened JUST as we were to pull onto the runway at throttle for take off.
Not to make too big of a deal out of it - the flight attendant and the pilot, both were shaken up / adrenalin pumped about the 'almost' bad deal. I think the flight attendant needed to 'talk it out' a little to shed pent up emotion.
Since she had talked with us earlier, we had a positive outlook, and throw Aslan into the mix - there was the opportunity for her to sit in the seat next to me and talk for a while. I think it helped.
A commuter jet can fly on one engine and land on one engine.
It cannot take off one engine.
We were 20 seconds from being on the Discovery Channel - Seconds From Disaster.
Luck? Aslan? Nuke?
It's great to be home.
Great vacation.
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