Chapter Two: The Bad Times…

The Last Ride?
By Victoria

There were a bunch of us in the Atlanta airport, all traveling home to different places after a weekend of live events. One of the conversations we had while we were sitting around the gate ready to go our separate ways was about hitting animals when driving. Al Snow joked about how he has the worst luck of anyone, and although it’s always an accident, he thinks animals are magnetically drawn to the car he’s driving.

The place to Louisville was ready to board, so Rob Conway, Rene Dupree, and I all got on. Rob was in front of me, Rene was a few rows up. We’re cruising along and all of a sudden there was a loud Boom!

Immediately, the place dipped so far to the right that I thought we were going to roll over. Everyone was silent… everyone, that is, except me.

I started screaming, “Omigosh! Should we call our families?” Rob stayed real calm even thought I was yelling right behind him, he reached back and grabbed my hand. Rene turned around and gave his solemn stare.

The captain broke the silence and came on the loudspeaker to say that a bird flew into the engine. We had to return to Atlanta.

Right away, I yelled out, “No way! I don’t think birds fly this high!” In retrospect, I wasn’t helping the situation at all, just freaking out everyone who could hear me. Then I felt the plane descending way to quick. I didn’t know what was going on.

Apparently, when the engine went out, and the plane leaned on its side, we had turned around to change direction back to Atlanta. I didn’t know that. So as we were descending, I’m screaming “Oh my God! They’re looking for somewhere to put the plane down! An emergency landing!”

I wanted to call my family, but I didn’t want to disrupt what I thought was the pilot’s attempt to safely crash-land this jumbo jet. In my mind I was getting ready to die.

It was the first and only time in my life that I ever went through that. I remember thinking that I was proud of the life I had led, and that I would be reunited with my grandparents in Heaven. I really made peace with the whole process.

But I didn’t need to. We landed safely back at the Atlanta airport in no time.

There were so many fire trucks and emergency crews on the runway, it seemed like a much bigger deal than it turned out to be. I got off the plane and called my family crying.

When I hung up with them, the first thought I had was, “I’m never flying again!” Well, it only took me a couple of hours to relax back into the airport before I was on another plane for Louisville. I’ll take a million more plane trips in my life, but this is one that I will never forget.