Hysterics on a Plane

I flew to Lima the night before last, and had a seven hour delay that really only needed to take about two… We flew into Houston by about two in the afternoon and had to board my flight to Lima at three pm. So far, so good, I got to my gate, ready and happy that I only had an hour layover. They called us to board and the plane, packed full due to tourist season combined with Peruvian Independence Day on the 28th.

Anyway, the plane pulled back a few yards from the gate and immediately the pilot noted a problem with a “whatchamacalit” in a motor feeding air into the back of the plane. Back to the gate for the maintenance guys to have a look. They fixed it up and we pulled out again.

Nope, still not working and now, the fuel pump acted up and the problem needed more attention. This time, they got us off the plane and into the terminal because they could not keep the plane temperature down. We hung around for an hour and a half while they sorted out the problem and then they loaded us back into the plane.

As soon as we were back in the plane one of the passengers decided that he felt sick and could not continue his trip to Peru. They offloaded him but here’s the trick, if you have booked into an international flight and get off, your luggage must exit with you so that people don’t leave bombs on board by getting conveniently sick etc. Anyway, we sat while they got the bag off, about an hour. By now we were delayed about four hours. The plane was uncomfortably hot and it turned out that one of the motors needed coaxing from some sort of a cart to start up and they had one that was too small, so said the captain. This produced a sweltering delay in the broiling plane. I admit to discomfort and sweating profusely myself. A number of passengers began to gripe vociferously about vague discomforts and their waning confidence in the plane itself.

About now a couple of women with babies began to be quite vocal that they were feeling bad and the plane was not cool enough and one in particular complained that since she had just had a caesarian three weeks before and her baby was new, she was afraid that the baby would become ill. One might ask why a woman would fly internationally just three weeks after a caesarian. With no warning, others chimed in with sympathy for the caesarian woman and her baby. Suddenly, the airline was going to kill the baby. The baby would die in the heat yet at no moment did the baby cry, whine or look particularly feeble, that I could see. Somehow then, the argument shifted to us and several chimed in that we all might die like so many chickens in a Quonset hut in southern Texas or something. Wait a minute, we were in southern Texas… On top of that, a third year mechanical engineering student, who I think exaggerated her qualifications insisted that, despite all assurances by the jet engine mechanics, our plane had become unfit to fly, further inciting the panic. Pretty quick we had a reasonably significant mutiny and a half dozen or so passengers opted to take the flight on the next date. Naturally, they did not check availability, and I happened to know that these flights were virtual sardine packs of Peruvians and tourists.

You have probably leapt to the conclusion that this reenactment of the Exodus cost us hours more in searching for stupid people’s luggage. In the end it took something on the order of three hours but did get me an upgrade. Instead of arriving in Lima at 10:30 pm, I got in at 5:30am having spent twelve hours on a plane instead of six and all because of a few hysterical and drastic Latinos.