Archive for August 16th, 2008

People do make the news – in this case, the pilot made the news in my heart. The story relates to problems with Barack Obama’s plane having mechanical problems last month. An evacuation slide inflated in the tail causing the pilot to lose control of the “up/down” of his plane.

I got goose bumps as I read the pilot’s response to ATC when asked how many were on board:
“Fifty one souls on board” – that touched me so deeply. Not “the senator and wife and 49 others” but 51 souls on board.

I’d like to meet this man and shake his hand.

Wayne flew (private) and had 2 incidents in all the years. One was at Calgary when ATC said to veer left immediately – it’s really freaky to hear your plane’s ID called out and in a split second know trouble was brewing. (In this case, we had been cleared for take off too soon, a large jet was landing too close to us.)

Another time, Wayne flew over the house to “say goodbye” to the boys and I – we always stood in the back yard and he’d make a circle over the house so we could wave “bye” to Daddy. One particular time. I saw a ribbon of color falling from plane toward earth. Fuel? No tower in our town so I called the RCMP who contacted the nearest ATC – turns out there was a pin hole leak. Took sometime finding the problem but thank goodness for “goodbyes”.