I warned you. Okay, here goes.
Tonight we flew home from Salt Lake, and I have all these things to say about an absolutely wonderful trip and wonderful people and how glad I am that we got to go. I’ll get to it. But I have to get this out of my system first.
We were flying over the San Francisco Bay on our way towards landing tonight. Looking out the window, I saw flashing lights in the dark–in the middle of the Bay? Red. White. That made no sense. I was trying to remember, from all the times we’ve driven those two bridges we were flying past, what those could possibly be–except, we didn’t go past them. They kept being simply there. Weird. They got a little closer and a little clearer, a ghost and a shadow at first and then clearly and plain to see right there, a SECOND JET flying directly alongside us and underneath–we were seconds from impact. If not before landing, then we were going to land right on top of them. We were going to the same runway at the same time. Just at the point that I thought emphatically, God, You have to do something because this isn’t going to work, our pilot rammed our plane straight up and out of the way. My stars. I don’t know where air traffic control was, but I can tell you emphatically that it was not at our airport looking in our direction, that’s for sure.
Watching the airport passing below us was both a comfort and a now-what-are-we-going-to-do. We circled out over the ocean–with the pilot, I am sure, going, I hope you’re watching me THIS time, dudes!, and me wishing I had paid the least bit of attention to the over-water emergency instructions–and we headed back over the mountains, then the Bay, and gradually in for a landing again. I’m sure my eyes weren’t the only ones on my side of the plane absolutely glued to the windows. The Bay was mercifully clear and black as night the way it was meant to be this time. I’m also sure the people on the other side of the aisle had utterly no idea. The woman sitting directly behind me and I exclaimed over that other plane as we were getting up out of our seats at the end.
Sometimes, when you fly, the captain will greet the disembarking passengers with a ‘have a nice day,’ or a, ‘thank you for flying our airline.’ That seems to happen a whole lot less often than it used to, in these high-security days, at least in my experience. But our captain opened his door as soon as the first moment to do so presented itself, sprang out, and grimly nodded at each person getting off, greeting them without a trace of a smile, though his pleasantries showed that he was trying to for our sakes.
I was thinking that he looked about to give someone a huge piece of his angry mind, and richly deserved–but it suddenly struck me that he seemed to need someone else to know what we’d all just gone through. How close it had been. Not to be a bunch of oblivious travellers. And he needed to see the actual people he’d just gone through this for, for us to have faces. He needed someone to know what he’d done for us, some way of relieving the pressure of his emotions by giving some degree of voice to them before he exploded to the guilty entities.
I wanted to say “Thank you for saving our lives”: I am one who believes in directly acknowledging the heart of the matter. It’s part of who I am. Still, that seemed a little more than I quite thought I could say…but…
With the amount and weight of our overhead carry-ons, we waited for a break in the passengers, and there was suddenly a long one, so I had a moment to speak without getting in anyone’s way. I said as I got up to the captain, “That first approach was a little freaky with that other plane there–thank you.”
He looked me in the eye, hesitated, and simply quietly wished me a happy holiday in response. I looked straight back at him, and answered, “Thank you for making it so we’ll have one!”
The moment he and I both needed. It had been acknowledged. He knew I knew. He had done his job well when others had not, and he had delivered us to the ground safely. He is a hero. I do not know his name, but I will never forget him. To the pilot of Jetblue Flight 291, THANK YOU.