The Flight to Panama – 5/21/2013
May 23rd, 2013 by rallyadmin
I have a flight from Charlotte through Atlanta to Panama City. John is back on the east coast in New York. His flight is La Guardia to Dulles to Panama City. We are to arrive in Panama City within minutes of each other. Nothing like good planning.
But whoever thought that good planning actually ever made a difference. My flight to Alanta leaves Charlotte on time and arrives in Atlanta. So far, so good. We board the flight to Panama City on time and start the push back a few minutes late. (“We can’t start the push back until everyone is seated. Puhlease take your seats.”)
Finally, the initial roll that signals that the flight is actually starting is interrupted by a violent lurch of the plane quickly followed by another even more violent lurch. The second one is so violent that the a flight attendant is knocked over. I’m sure that we’ve hit something or been hit by something. The plane immediately stops halfway out into the taxiway.
In seconds, the pilot is on the intercomm telling us that we didn’t in fact hit anything. It sure had me fooled. The shear pin on the towlink that connects tug that moves the airplane backward to the nose gear of the airplane has broken and that caused the violent lurches. He sounds convincing but the fact that we’re not evacuating the plane does moree to calm the passengers than the casual sounding voice on the intercomm.
A few minutes later, the pilot is back on the speakers. There doesn’t appear to be any damage to the aircraft. We’re just waiting on a new tug and towlink. Blah, blah, blah. This happens occasionally. I’ve been flying for almost 50 years and I’ve never even heard of this problem let alone experienced it. Not to worry. Right…
About 30 minutes go by waiting for the towlink and a push back. But we’re finally on our way. The pilot gives one last calming talk. “I had a flight mechanic look at the nose gear and it’s fine. Noting to see. Let’s all move on.” We taxi out
We taxi out for takeoff now about 10th in line and a good 30 minutes late. We get to the end of the queue and then we’re rolling, straight I might add, down the runway for takeoff. The nose gear holds and then the plane lifts into the air. He was right: nothing to see here. We all breathe a collective sigh of relief (flight crew included, I’m sure) and settle in for the 3½ hour flight.
As we approach Panama City, the plane slows and we start to descend. Then suddenly we stop descending and the pilot comes on the intercomm. “Well, folks.” (It always seems that these pilots always seem to use the word “folks” when addressing the passengers.) “It looks like there’s a problem on the ground in Panama City. A plane, not our plane, has had an incident on the runway and the airport is closed.” An incident!? Not our plane? Well, duh!
“It looks like we’ll either hold here for a while or divert to another airport when we our fuel dictates.” Holding is just fine. Diverting, not so much. I start doing a mental run through what airports we might divert to. San Jose, Costa Rica comes to mind. But a diversion will take a long time, hours more than this flight probably. We won’t be the only flight diverting and all of us will want the same thing: fly to San Jose, land, fuel, take off, fly back to Panama City and finally land. And then, and only then get off the plane. This could be a very bad night.
After about 15 minutes of holding and pilots futzing about on the flight deck, they’re back on the intercomm, “Well, folks, they’ve apparently cleared the problem and we’re cleared to land. Flight attendants prepare the cabin for arrival.” Well, that’s a relief. Land, clear customs, find John, go to the hotel and call it a day.
Everything goes just as planned. We land, I clear customs, get my bag and head out of immigration. Hmmm… no John. It’s a small airport terminal so I trek up and down the arrivals area but no John. I finally have the presence of mind to check one of the flight monitors and there’s John’s flight with the dreaded “Delayed” after the flight number.
Of course. We got in because we were still in the airport area when they cleared the “incident”. But every other flight that came into the Panama City airspace before us had already been diverted.
And that explains why there are so many limo and taxi drivers around with name boards but not showing any interest in the few passengers that are now coming out of the immigration area. I ask one of them if he knew what happened and he tells me that a plane landed in the rainstorm that had inundated the airport earlier had run off the runway and was stuck in the mud. It wasn’t a serious incident but since it blocked the runway, the airport was closed until the plane could be moved and all flights were diverted.
I’m out of immigration at about 9:30 and I find a comfortable seat to hunker down and wait. While I’m waiting my mobile rings and it’s a Panamanian number. It’s Sr. Boris. “I have a car coming for you at 7AM. Is that okay?” “Sure. We’ll be ready. Thank you.” This could be a very good sign.
When sitting and waiting wears out, I walk around some but that doesn’t work lugging my bags around. Finally, I get into some conversations with the waiting limo drivers. “Where are you going?” “To California.” “To California?” “Yeah, by car.” “By car!?” “Yeah, we just shipped our car from Cartagena to Colon and we’re going to pick it up tomorrow. Then we driving to California. We’ve been driving it around the world.”
That last sentence always stops them in mid-thought and, being drivers, starts a flood of questions. Where have you been? How’d you get the car across the ocean? How long have you been traveling? John and I have had this conversation many times and the questions are always the same and the answers are well practiced. It’s fun and it passes the time.
Finally, at about 12:30, John’s flight lands and he appears in the immigration hall exit. “Been here long?” I tell him that my flight didn’t get diverted and that I’ve been here for going on 4 hours. John launches into the story of his flight but he doesn’t know where they were diverted to, they didn’t get off the plane and he suspected the worst when they landed, stopped the plane and immediately started handing out free drinks. That’s always a bad, the free drinks.
We get a taxi and head into Panama City. It’s farther than I thought but it’s gotten very late and we just want to get to the hotel and get to sleep. I notice that the taxi doesn’t have GPS and that he’s wandering around some. It’s a fixed price fare so he’s not ruining up the meter. (What meter?) He must be lost.
John asks him if he needs directions and gets a gruff “No!” in response. And in a few more turns he pulls into the hotel entrance. I guess he wasn’t lost after all.
No dinner. No drinks. Just a room and a couple of beds. Tomorrow morning will be here in a few hours. We’ll find out if Sr. Boris deserves his reputation.
Obi-wan