We all have had them. Those scary moments or those surreal moments, times when we think our lives could be in jeopardy but maybe not enough so that we’re terrified. Or maybe we are. I don’t think I was. Maybe I was too young, at fifteen, to grasp fully what could be happening or maybe I just thought, like most teenagers, that nothing bad would happen to me.
Then again, it wasn’t that bad.
It was December, 1971. My parents and I were flying to Los Angeles to spend the holidays with my brother and his family. We boarded the American Airlines jet in Nashville, our flight scheduled to make a short stop in Memphis before continuing westward.
You should have seen how people dressed to fly back then. Men in their suits and ties. Women in their dresses. I was wearing a cute red and blue dress with boots. Very hip, or so I thought. Looking back now, not so much.
Nobody in jeans. Everyone in their Sunday best.
We’d been in the air about fifteen minutes when the pilot’s voice came over the PA system. I still remember his exact words. “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t wish to alarm you, but it is American Airlines’ policy to keep our passengers informed. We have received notification from the control tower that there is a sabotage threat on our plane. We will be arriving in Memphis in (I don’t remember the exact time) and will make an emergency landing there. Once again, please don’t be alarmed. This is a precautionary measure.”
Everyone in the cabin froze. Silence, then the buzz of conversation. My dad looked at me. “I’m sure glad I bought that flight insurance. Ronnie will get (can’t remember the thousands of dollars).”
Wow, Dad, funny, ha-ha.
My first thought was the movie “Airport,” which I had seen the previous year. Older folks remember it, the one with Dean Martin as the pilot. Some guy decided to commit suicide by blowing himself up in the bathroom of a plane, and of course, Dean had to get the plane on the ground and all the passengers to safety. Very exciting.
But this was no movie. I watched as some people prayed openly, some people downed their drinks, others stared straight ahead, and even the flight attendants exchanged worried looks. My mom was a statue of fear next tome, her face pale. “Wouldn’t you know it?” she said. It was her first time to fly, and she had been nervous about it anyway. My first time to fly too. Dad had flown several times and din’t seem worried in the least.
After what seemed like an eternity, (it was only about ten minutes), we touched ground. It was dark outside, and I couldn’t see anything through the window. The pilot came on once again. “Ladies and gentleman, leave all your belongings on board, go to the nearest emergency exit, then run, don’t walk, to the terminal.”
Hmmm. He told us not to be alarmed earlier, and now he was telling us to run from the plane.
The airports in Memphis and Nashville didn’t have the tube exits that exist everywhere today, so when we went to the exit at the rear of the plane, a rolling stairway was in place that we had to descend. We had landed at a deserted part of the airport, not the main terminal. Fire trucks and other vehicles were bearing down on us, sirens going and lights flashing. Very “Die Hard” type of scene.
When we got to the deserted terminal, we found seats while others milled about. Several soldiers were on our flight, looking handsome in their uniforms and drawing my fifteen-year-old attention. A couple of them were near us and talked at length. “All I could think of,” one of them said, “was that I had finished my tours of duty I Viet Nam only to come home and be killed on an American airplane.”
Over two hours later, we were told we could board the plane. As my dad passed the stewardess greeting us as we entered the plane, he asked, “Well, did they find anything?”
Her smile never broke. “If they did, it’s not there now.”
When we disembarked in L.A., the pilot was shaking hands. Dad asked him why the policy was to tell passengers about the threat since they couldn’t do anything about it. The man smiled and pointed upward. “In case anyone needed to make spiritual arrangements.”
We never did find out if there was an actual bomb on the plane. More than likely, it was a hoax. My guess is it was some sort of hoax, maybe even done by some silly teen or someone angry with someone on the plane because if that person had really wanted to blow cup the plane, he wouldn’t have called in a warning.
Some of my friends told me they wouldn’t have ever flown again, but I did. Several times, most of them by myself. It took a huge drop in an air pocket over the Rocky Mountains when landing in Denver to make me dislike flying. Not because I was afraid I was going to die on a plane. Just because of the drop. I don’t even like roller coasters.
Life As I know it 