No Thank You, I’ll Walk

I’m sure everyone has seen the news. The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 had a whole panel fall out mid-flight. It’s insane to think about, in this day and age, that something like this could happen. But, as the photo above shows, life is stranger and scarier than fiction.

No one lost their life.

How no one died is a mystery and a miracle. Could you imagine being the person sitting in that seat as the whole wall beside you suddenly disappears?

Are you the type to wear your seat belt the whole trip or take it off as soon as you reach altitude? From now on, my seat belt will be tightly fastened.

It was a hidden door.

According to an analyst from CNN, the panel had been a door that was covered up to add more space for seating.

Losing a piece of the fuselage like this can lead to rapid decompression and can bring down a plane. There are recorded incidents of this happening. Let’s face it: the aircraft will not fly well with a massive hole in its side.

Woman partially pulled out of broken window

In 2018, Jenifer Riordan was fatally injured when the Boeing 737–700 she was on had an engine explosion. The window by her seat was broken, and she was partially sucked out the window.

The Safest way to travel.

Statistically, flying is still the safest way to travel. The problem is, when something goes wrong, it really goes wrong.

According to Airadvisor.com

To put it into perspective, out of a staggering 32.2 million flights in 2022, only five resulted in fatal accidents, which involved the loss of 158 lives, according to data from the International Air Transport Association. That’s approximately 0.000016%, reinforcing that flying on a plane is among the safest activities one can undertake.

So, it is probably one of the safest ways to travel, but even as a veteran traveller, I'm still nervous about getting on a plane today. To give you an idea of how long I’ve been flying, my first flight was back in 1998. Since then, I have flown both domestically and internationally dozens of times.

There have been some fantastic flights and some hair-raising ones. Most of them were mediocre and, frankly, dull. However, two sticks in my head as near misses!

The first was May 2000. I had just married, and we were on our way home. We were flying from Aberdeen to Wick in Scotland. It was one of those small planes. The ones you feel every bump and knock on. The weather was horrendous, and it was a heavy fog.

I honestly thought I was going to die!

Imagine the scene. All you can see is white outside your window. The plane is at what felt like a 45-degree angle. The cart took off down the aisle. Everything is shaking and vibrating around you. It's scary.

I grabbed my husband's hand, told him I loved him and began to pray. The funny thing is I didn't pray for us. In my head, we were already dead. I prayed for my mama and everyone else's families who were going to have to deal with the news that we had crashed.

Thankfully, the plane levelled out and began to rise again. Finally, the Captain’s voice came over the speakers. He said, “Well folks, I got as close to the ground as possible without hitting it, and all I can see is white. We will turn the plane around and head back to Aberdeen.”

It was the scariest roller coaster I had ever been on!

The second was coming back to the UK as well. Again, it was the landing that stuck. There was horrendous turbulence, and the plane shook and swayed coming in. Once we touched down, the whole plane shuddered and went sideways. This was not a small plane but a Boeing. We swerved for several seconds before finally smoothing out.

The whole cabin cheered!

It was one of those moments when we were so relieved to make it out alive that all the passengers began to cheer. The pure exhilaration of surviving was intoxicating. When the Captain came on, you could hear the nerves in his voice. His response was, “Well, guys, we made it.”

Ice Everywhere!

I've seen Final Destination. I didn't want to live it, but I thought it was possible when we flew back to the UK from Charlotte Douglas one year after Christmas.

I was in a window seat, watching as they sprayed down the wings in the middle of a snowstorm. One would think they would cancel the flight, but nope. After about two hours, they sent us down the runway. It was nearly a whiteout, and you could see the ice on the wings, but the pilot had some major mojo because he took off like it was a sunny afternoon.

I wanted to get off, but they frown upon you kicking off on a plane. I had to have a stiff upper lip and calmly prepare to meet my maker.

To conclude:

You probably shouldn't have read this article if you are a nervous flyer. I'm sorry? But if you are anything like me, you watch near misses on Discovery before hopping on a plane. Safe travels!