Flight 1438

First of all, I’m fine in Oslo. Nothing bad happened, technically. Just a scare where an abundance of caution took place. 

I had flown in from Seattle to Copenhagen this morning and was scheduled to take a flight from Copenhagen to Oslo. The plane took off, and when the landing gear pulled up, it made odd noises. Like, I’m not a pro when it comes to how an airplane should sound, but I’ve been on enough flights in my life to know that this rising of the landing gear was much longer and screechier than usual. 

After the gear went up, I conked out. I was exhausted from the international flight from Seattle. Plus there were two guys sitting next to me who I did not want to engage in conversation because I’m a judgmental snob. The guy next to me was sweating. Not a little. A lot. Like a sweating disorder kind of sweat. No one else on the plane was sweating. (There were also a couple of rednecky looking guys on the plane that I recognized from the Seattle flight who I also dodged.)

Halfway through the flight, the pilot comes on speaking some Scandinavian language and I understand “circling” and “holding pattern” and “Oslo.” I figured we were circling Oslo.

Nope.

The pilot came on in English and said one of three hydraulic systems were broken and we were circling Copenhagen, dumping fuel, preparing for an emergency landing.

That was not what I was expecting. 

I suddenly decided to be nice and chatting to the dudes next to me.

“You missed the flight attendants running to the cockpit earlier,” the sweaty guy said.

The flight attendants then gave us instructions on how to brace for an emergency landing. I saw the movie “Sully” where the flight attendants were yelling “Brace! Brace! Brace!” as that plane landed on the Hudson River.

“Prepare to brace,” the flight attendant said, “and prepare to evacuate. If we need to evacuate, we will yell ‘Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!’”  

I have flown a lot over my life—mostly for work—but I’ve never had an emergency landing because the plane was malfunctioning.  

The flight attendant was standing next to my row, and the sweaty guy and his friend (both chatty souls from Wisconsin, god bless them) asked the stewardess what to do. She pointed to the bracing image in the safety card.

She seemed calm, but her hand was shaking.

Oh shit, I thought. This could be rough. There are times in one’s life where all there is to do is pray. That was all I had power over.  

Then I realized I could put my passport, phone and wallet in my pocket so if I did need to evacuate the plane, I could call people, get a hotel, and get back home.

Then I prayed for the pilots to land the plane safely. I prayed for the flight attendants. I prayed for the other passengers, including the sweaty guy and his 23 friends from the Wisconsin Norway Historical Society. I prayed for the rednecks.

The plane landed fine. Firetrucks and safety crews were parked next to the runaway. They checked out the plane before they let it back in barn with the other planes to make sure it wasn’t going to burst into a ball of flames at the terminal with a bajillion gallons of jet fuel nearby.

Back in the day when my ex was a medical resident, he earned extra cash by going on medical flights. Once he was on a Lear jet that prepared for an emergency landing when they thought the landing gear was stuck. The plane landed fine, but the fire trucks were waiting on standby in case something bad happened. Jack initially wasn’t worried about the landing gear or thought he was in danger until he saw the firetrucks on standby.

Planes have redundant systems for these exact reasons, and the good thing is that they usually work. I have a friend whose grandfather was a Boeing engineer. Decades ago, someone wanted to put in five redundant wing operations systems. That idea was scrapped.

“If you are in a situation where you need to go to the fifth system,” the grandfather had told my friend Lance years ago, “you are going to have a way bigger problem.” Like the plane would be heading to the ground in a ball of flames or something.

Once we landed, then came the challenge of getting a full flight of people to Oslo. I was supposed to meet Claire-Adele there at 12:50 in the afternoon. That wasn’t going to happen. I called her to discuss the situation. She had been looking up my flight information, but couldn’t find anything. 

One of the challenges Claire-Adele and I faced was should I try to take a flight to Bodo directly the next day, or should I swing through Oslo. I waited for a while to get an answer. The answer was no. If I changed my Oslo flight to Bodo, my return trip to Seattle would be cancelled, which would not have been good.

After this experience, I can see why rich people have private jets.

Then I was hungry and then I went to get my boarding pass.

Claire-Adele suggested I get out of the airport and go it to Copenhagen. When I was planning this trip, I had no plans to visit Copenhagen and I had no idea where to start. I texted my friend from high school who has friends and relatives in Denmark and the Netherlands. 

By the time the dust settled, I would have had two hours to explore, but I was fried. Let me put it into context how tired I was: I missed the Wordle today, not because it was a hard word, but because my brain was firing on 20%. I didn’t feel confident navigating a new city on the fly and have to make it back to the airport in time. Plus I was seriously afraid I’d get on a train, fall asleep, and wake up three hours away from the airport. I needed to rest. But believe me, there was lots of inner conflict: should I rest and drink hot chocolate and work on an embroidery project at the airport or should I have an adventure? Rest won.

My HS friend understood. “If we were there together and we got stranded, at least we’d be stranded together.” Yeah.

At the Oslo airport baggage claim around 11:00 pm, I saw the rednecks from the Seattle and first Oslo flight. I said hello. They were three guys from Bend, Oregon on a dudes vacation. They showed me how to take the train into downtown Oslo, which I appreciated. I was going to take an Uber, but they said the train was safe, fast and clean.

“It’s Norway,” they said.

I asked if they went into Copenhagen.

“It was awesome,” one of the guys said. “The Ironman race was going through town. There were 100,000 people out and about.”

I need to be nicer to strangers while traveling, especially my fellow Americans, no matter how annoying they might be. I should have befriended strangers before and after this chaos. Who knew that sweaty guy was actually kind to flight attendants, and got us good information?Maybe I could have joined another group on an adventure into Copenhagen when I was afraid to go by myself.