Troubled Landing on December 12, 2008

How do you even describe a time in your life when you are faced with the reality of this may be your last few moments to live? I have flown on many airplanes and love the experience. My mother always shared her philosophy of flying with me, “I will never be as close to Heaven as I am in an airplane until it is my time to go.” That is what went through my head as we were preparing to land in Guayaquil (pronounced [waya-kil]), Ecuador enroot to Galapagos.
It was rather surreal hearing the panic in the pilot’s voice coming across the PA system stating “Pay Attention” in Spanish. You could tell he was upset. Then we saw a steward running up and down the aisle and the stewardess stop the service for drinks. Everyone appeared tense and nervous. The pilot declared that everything was under control but that we were going to prepare for an emergency landing. It was frustrating not being able to understand the words that were spoken in Spanish. I just knew the ‘vital’ information was probably being provided in the first statements in the native language and then the abbreviated version was provided in English! I doubt that was the case, however, I certainly felt a disadvantage to not being able to understand Spanish in the emergency situation.
The stewardess then demonstrated how we were to remove our shoes, eyeglasses and our watches, bend over and grab our ankles and brace ourselves to prepare for the emergency landing. We all did as we were told. I took out my cell phone and put it in one pocket with the logic that if I survived the landing, then I could perhaps call either my family or emergency services. In my other pocket, I added my passport. I did this so they could identify who I was if I did not survive the landing. Frightening thoughts but that is what went through my head at the time. After completing the tasks of preparing for the landing, there was nothing left to do but pray silently. I then thought of my family and realized they would know that at least I was doing what I really love doing; traveling and seeing new and wonderful places. I also have faith that they would continue on with their lives and know that I loved them very much.
The plane made the descent and we had no idea what the problem was. I figured that it had something to do with landing gears or something that happened after the pilots took the plane off auto pilot as they began their final descent and discovered there was a problem. I could tell the plane had made it to the airport and was landing on a tarmac. This was a great relief. We were not landing in the ocean or in some other remote area. The pilot set the plane down and did a series of three bumps.
We had landed safely! Everyone was hugging each other and laughing. It was a great day to be alive.

Myleene and I followed by all our wonderful traveling companions from the flight from AeroGal feeling blessed to be walking across the landing strip!

After we landed I learned a few things about our landing. I learned they asked us to remove our glasses, shoes and watches in case we had to exit the plane using the emergency shoots. They would be easy to rip from shoes and sharp objects. Here you can read about the landing and why they had to do a series of three bumps to determine if the landing gear was down and could lock into place and hold the plane. Read the article