Emergency landings in a Bombardier CRJ-900

“We are about 20 minutes from the descent into Ronald Reagan airport, Washington, DC.”

I heard this over the sound of “The Name of the Wind” audiobook in my airpods.

“Cool” I thought. “I’ll finish this chapter and then get back to my “The Map of Consciousness Explained” book before it’s time to get off the plane.”

20 minutes later…

We were still in the sky.

And had made about 7-8 left hand turns.

We were circling DC.

Interesting…

Then, I saw the stewardess talking on the phone with the captain. For a long time. And, she looked worried.

A bad feeling started settling in my gut.

This wasn’t good.

A low murmur started to grow in volume as everyone else started to notice at the same time.

“Attention everyone” the stewardess’ voice came over the intercom.

Immediate silence.

“There is a problem with the steering mechanism… and we have to perform an emergency landing.”

Immediately, cries started going up: “this can’t be happening!”, “I have to call my family!”

The lady behind me started sobbing as the flight attendants jumped into a quick demonstration of an “impact position.”

Me, I said a quick prayer, typed out a quick message with shaking hands to my wife and daughter, and took the lock screen off my phone just in case anyone needed to get into it after the fact.

In the moment, there was a feeling of helplessness.

But a resignation. And peace. 

The thought, “I’ve had a good life” kept running through my mind.

I’ve done more in 32 years than a lot of people have done in 2x that time.

And I’ve taken none of it for granted.

So, oddly enough, while I definitely didn’t want to die, I felt more ready than I ever thought I would.

Right about that time, the pilot came over the intercom and let us know that we would NOT land in a field and instead, had made enough left hand turns to make it to Dulles airport in DC, 30 miles away.

Landing was surprisingly easy. And we landed with a full emergency crew waiting for us on the runway. Thankfully, they weren’t needed.

We were pulled to a terminal with a tug.

I was never more thankful to step onto dry ground.

I’ll leave you with this…

We never know when our time is up and we’ll have to buy the farm (as my grandpa would say).

Anything you can do to be at peace with that fact is a worthwhile endeavor. 

This incident has given me a new zeal for life. 

I’m going to hug my kids tight and for a really long time when I get home.

Life is short. I’m not going to waste any of it.

Anyway, that was a few hours ago. 

I get back on the same plane Wednesday morning to go back home.

Wish me luck.

Swanagan