Fasten Your Seatbelts: A Flight Attendant's Adventures 36,000 Feet and Below (28 page)

We all congregated in the first class area: the mechanics, cockpit and the flight attendants. We told the maintenance team exactly where we thought the smell originated. The mechanics opened several compartments and panels but couldn’t find anything. I climbed on the seat several times saying, “Here, smell this; its right here.” I climbed down. The pilots apparently enjoyed it because I hadn’t realized that every time my arms stretched towards the overhead bin, my dress also reached up. We joked around some more while the mechanics tried to figure out the origin of the odor.

Once again, I stepped on the side of the cushion and this time shouted, “I found it. There is a crackling noise above the overhead bin!”

Finally, the mystery was solved; it had to do something with the lights. The maintenance team took out the fluorescent light tube where the coupler attached was sizzling; smoke freely flowing in a spiral effect.

“Okay,” the mechanic said.

“Okay what?” I asked. “This plane is going out of service, right?”

“No, you can go,” he said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “I just saw smoke with my own eyes and you think it’s safe to take off? What if it affected the wiring or other parts of the aircraft?”

Our mechanics do a wonderful job and normally I wouldn’t question their judgment, but I asked Tim if he felt safe flying this airplane. “We’ll get the air turned on and see what happens.” After turning on the air circulation, the odor did seem to diminish. So we boarded the passengers on the same aircraft.

A dark-skinned female with beautiful curls dangling about her face boarded the airplane. “Don’t worry,” she told me. “I said some major prayers in the terminal and we’ll be fine,” That was actually quite comforting.

We had an 8-year-old unaccompanied minor named Heather traveling with us. The first time we boarded, her seat was in coach. She was visiting her dad for a couple of weeks.

I approached her with a smile, “Have you traveled before?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“My name is Chris, if you need anything, let me know.”

She seemed distant and non-emotional. We had an empty seat in first class, so I asked if she would like to sit there. Heather didn’t say a word but gathered all of her things and
acted like it was no big deal. I sat her down in 3F. I told her, “You know people pay a lot of money to sit up here.” She gave me a half smile, but still not a word.

After everyone boarded the airplane, we pushed away from the gate with another attempt to Nashville. As we were doing our safety demonstration, I thought I may have smelled the same odor again. I asked a few passengers in first class if they smelled anything, but they said no.

So, we took off. I was sitting on my jumpseat in the back of the aircraft. The phone chimed twice. It was the captain. “Do you guys smell anything?” At that moment, a beam of sunlight from the exit door window seemed rather thick right in front of me — like a thick cloud of dust. On closer inspection, I realized it looked like fog churning about. Then it dawned on me:
That’s not dust, that’s smoke
! Where my jumpseat was located, I turned around and peered into the cabin. Smoke was everywhere. I relayed the information to the captain. “We’re turning around,” he said briskly.

The airplane took a turn to the left. For some reason, Terry’s phone in the very back of the cabin didn’t work. She was trying to hand signal that she saw the smoke. Terry and I quickly went into our emergency training mode. “Terry, you grab the fire extinguishers, and I’ll try to find the source of the smoke.”

I quickly walked to the forward part of the cabin checking the overhead bins along the way for warmth from a fire. They
felt cold, so I opened up every bin to see if there might be visible smoke. I motioned Lorraine to turn off anything electrical; she said, “I already did.” We checked the lavatories for smoke but didn’t see anything.

It must have been pretty frightening for passengers to see the flight attendants walking around with fire extinguishers. Several women were screaming and crying. One of them was the person who said a prayer for us. Another was putting her fists to her head while tears streamed down her face. “We’re going to die, we’re going to die,” she cried out.

I looked out one of the windows and realized we were getting close to the ground, so I headed for my jumpseat. I assured the hysterical women the extinguishers were only for precaution.

We followed our training procedures to the letter. Unfortunately, one of our procedures states when there is smoke in the cabin you must evacuate. I pulled Terry aside and said, “Listen, the smoke has subsided; I don’t think we need to evacuate.”

She looked at me, shocked, with an expression like “evacu-what.” She said, “I haven’t even thought about that yet.” She agreed though that the smoke had diminished greatly.

Lorraine, being the number one flight attendant, had the most contact with the pilots in an emergency. I told her the same thing as Terry, “Tell the captain when he asks, the smoke
seems to have subsided.” She looked at me with the same expression as Terry only her mouth dropped open. This was the closest I had ever been to an evacuation. The thought wasn’t too appealing to me either.

I sat on my jumpseat with everyone staring and studying me. I tried to act calm and confident. I looked at my exit door. If I was to hear the right signal from the cockpit, I would jump up from my seat, look through the tiny exit door window and determine if there were any non-favorable conditions, such as smoke or fire. If all clear, I would turn the exit door handle and swing the door open. I’ve heard it is sometimes difficult to open the door, so you have to rock it to pop the slide. Sometimes the slide doesn’t open at all. In that case, you have to pull a handle on the bottom of the door to disengage the slide. If the slide opens, you need to tell two people to be your assistants. They will stay at the bottom of the slide and help the people off. If the slide doesn’t open, it is a blocked exit. You grab a person and tell them to stay there and guard the exit. Don’t let anyone jump. You then stand on a seat and redirect passengers to useable exits. If it is a useable slide to which you’ve assigned two assistants, then you have to start the evacuation by saying commands. This particular door is a single aisle door, so your commands are fairly easy. “Jump. Don’t take anything with you.”

The passenger next to my jumpseat wanted to have a chat session. As he was talking, his words became blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Seeing that he was able-bodied, little did he know, I was sizing him up as my potential assistant. I glanced at the exit one more time.

The plane seemed to be going too fast for landing. I put my hand on the aisle seat armrest to brace myself. With much relief, we landed. With even more relief, I heard no signal to evacuate. It took six minutes to turn the airplane around and land. In fact, we landed so quickly, the fire department didn’t have time to follow us in for landing, so we waited on the runway for the fire trucks to approach us to let us know our aircraft looked good from the outside.

At the gate, the passengers again gathered their belongings and deplaned. I saw the mechanic, who mistakenly said, “It’s okay to go.” I pointed my finger at him and sharply said, “I told you this plane should not have taken off.” I was ticked off. I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. “You have no idea what a nightmare we’ve been through,” I told the mechanic. “This is what happened…”

I walked into the terminal with our passengers, staring quietly. My attention was broken when I heard someone calling my name. “Chris! Chris!” The little unaccompanied minor grabbed my waist. She clung to my side as I put my arm
around her and touched my head to hers. We stood there silently. Heather didn’t seem afraid; in fact, she looked at the emergency situation as an adventure. So much for thinking she had no emotions.

A flight service supervisor was there to meet the flight attendants. She made sure we were okay and handed us the paperwork. We hate any kind of eventful situations because there is always the paperwork to fill out at the end.

After finding a new aircraft and hiking to the gate on the other side of the terminal, we boarded our flight once again to good ole Nashville, Tennessee. As the passengers came on, I tried to make light of the situation, “You again,” or “Okay, this is the last time I am going to take your jacket.” They seemed to appreciate the humor. One of the hysterical women looked a lot calmer. I put my arms out to give her a big hug. She hugged me with all of her might. I noticed later she was sprawled out in her seat sleeping with her mouth wide opened. The guy next to her said she took some Xanax.
No wonder!

After doing the safety demonstration and seatbelt checks, I sat down on my jumpseat exhausted and could feel the adrenalin drain from me. I was ready to call it a day. The last thing I wanted to do was go to Nashville and then fly back to D/FW. Because of the delay, we knew our Austin leg was cancelled, which meant our day would be done in D/FW.

For the third time, we taxied down the runway. After we took off, the captain called again.
Now what!
“Uhhh, there is some kind of smell in the cockpit and I need you to climb on my seat to see where it is coming from.” He was referring to my dress hiking up. After all that happened, we were still able to joke around with each other. “In all seriousness,” he said, “You guys did an awesome job. Had we taken off the first time with that smoking light who knows what would have happened? It could have been really serious.”

Later on, Tim made a PA announcement commending the flight attendants’ performance. Everyone applauded. I looked down in embarrassment. As we did the beverage service, several people thanked us for everything. While picking up cups, people clapped as I walked by. It brought tears to my eyes. It still does. A little recognition goes a long way.

After we landed, a male passenger grabbed hold of my arm. “I have to tell you there are some flight attendants you enjoy watching work,” he said. “You are one of them.” I smiled and thought; these moments are the flying highs.

he Federal Aviation Administration sets all the safety guidelines for every airline. In other words, they rule! Whatever they say, goes. Whether it is the aircraft specifications, the cabin regulations or the seat your child sits in, they have to be monitored and approved by the FAA. I certainly feel safer to fly, knowing they have established the best safety guidelines and procedures.

The pilots and flight attendants can get “check rides” from an FAA inspector to make sure we are doing our jobs correctly. If the inspector is checking the cabin crew, he first wants to see that our manuals are up to date. Our manuals are our flying “Bibles,” and we must have them with us at all times. Our company provides us with current revisions and bulletins that must be inserted by a certain date. If we are inspected and either a bulletin or revision is not in our manuals, we can get slapped with a personal fine. The inspector also checks to see
if we are doing our safety compliance when the seatbelt sign is turned on; taking our jumpseats when we are supposed to, checking the emergency equipment, briefing our exit row passengers in case of an emergency, and clearing the bulkhead and exit rows of any luggage on the floor. He or she can also test us of our knowledge in case of an emergency.

Virginia, a fellow flight attendant, told me her story. A male FAA inspector was on their 757 aircraft to give them a check ride. The inspector stood next to her behind the last row of first class for the boarding process. Two ladies were sitting on the left side (9BC) and two ladies were sitting on the right side of the exit row (9DE). As the women settled into their seats, Virginia saw they left some of their belongings in front of them. Virginia reminded them that they were in an exit row, and everything had to go in the overhead bin for takeoff and landing. She advised them to do so before the overhead bins were full.

The right row complied, but the ladies on the left side still had their purses lying on the floor. Once again, Virginia stated that everything needed to go in the overhead bin. All the passengers boarded, so Virginia closed the overhead compartments. The FAA inspector took his seat in the forward part of coach.