Sarasota to Providence by way of insanity
Perhaps you read about my recent flight in the news. A plane that started to lift off, the engines becoming the last resting place for a flock of ravens. A plane forced to do an emergency landing at precisely midnight.
What if I were to tell you that that was not even remotely the weirdest part of the travel experience of my recent return from Sarasota.
Let me take you back about 12 hours to give you the full picture.
The day I was set to travel, the middle of the country was experiencing wild thunderstorms and tornados. Flights had been diverted all morning, and routes were not going over the Carolinas due to the weather. My 5 PM flight was delayed to eight. I took the extra time to enjoy some downtown art galleries. For some reason that day my mindset was pretty done. That is unusual for me, I’m not known for being chill.
6 PM kicks around and my dad drops me at the airport. Giant signs bragged: Fastest growing airport in America! I thought, good for them. Security was 50 steps from drop-off, and within sight of the entire airport. I breezed through, found a seat by my gate, and cracked open my book.
Then: “Fight, fight, fight!”
The woman next to me leapt up, recording a brawl breaking out next to the coffee kiosk.
Two grown men were punching each other, threw themselves to the ground, and were mid wrestlemania. 30 feet from security, and maybe 50 feet from me.
One shouted, “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”
The elder security officer, who appeared to be the only person working on the security line, glanced over and then went back to doing his job.
“Girrrrl they’re going to get arrested, you don’t fight in an airport” the woman next to me started to yell.
On my other side, another grown woman proceeds to FaceTime someone and a live stream the fight to them.
Blood splattered, the elder security guard walks over hits one of the guys with the top of his boot and muttered “Break it up.” And then went back to work.
The two fighting men stand up.
One guy grabbed a wheelchair and boarded a plane to assist a passenger. The other returned to his job.
No police. No consequences. Just: back to work.
It gets weirder.
The second woman who was FaceTiming , gives the play-by-play and I hear the person on FaceTime ask her why she’s at an airport.
To which she replies
“ I can’t go back to jail. I just got out and they put out another warrant for me. If I’m not out of Florida by midnight I will get arrested again.”
She mentioned she had family in Providence and was hiding out with cousins. And that’s how I found out our flight was now delayed until 10. Because apparently she needed it to leave the state asap.
After witnessing the police presence, or lack of, at the brawl. I thought she was safe for now.
Then, a bleach-blonde woman in her 60s with the rasp of a lifelong smoker yelled, “This is what they do! Breeze always delays, then cancels, and you get stuck in this shithole!”
Now as a frequent flyer, I totally get the vibe. Airlines are brutal, unpredictable, uncomfortable, and getting on an airplane to me is a necessary evil at this point.
But now i have three certifiable lunatics who will be on my flight who all have mildly unpredictable behavior.
I turned back to my book, put on my headphones and waited for our boarding, which was now 11:30 PM.
We finally get on the airplane and I am seated next to none other than the prison escapee. And in the seats in front of me are a very old woman and a five year year-old child. The old woman and the child are conversing in another language.
We buckle in. Start down the runway lift in the air and hit something. Hard. The plane turns around does an emergency landing on the tarmac and we are surrounded by sirens.
A few minutes later: “We hit some birds after takeoff. We’ve got safety coming to check it out,” said the pilot.
Then, muttering to himself: “Can’t keep flying this one. Might be another plane here. I’ll check.”
The woman in front of me who doesn’t speak English gets on FaceTime with the person who I can assume is her daughter and starts crying and talking really fast, the five-year-old girl next to her then starts to have a meltdown. And the old woman starts to shove her phone in the stewardess’s face where I can hear the woman on the other end of the phone start to say.
“ that’s my baby on the plane, no one’s telling me what’s going on, what’s going on?”
And then the breeze text gets in:
Hi, it’s Breeze. We heard you experienced a bit of a bumpy takeoff. We’re taking some time to ensure everything is completely safe to continue. We’ll let you know if there are updates. Thanks for hanging in there with us as we keep safety our number one priority. Monitor flight updates here: flybreeze.com/my-trips
About 20 minutes later, a man in uniform arrived. I had a clear view of the engine. He pulled five dead black birds from it, laid them on the ground, and took photos.
The pilot stepped out, talked to the guy, came back, and said: “Some of the sensors don’t work now, but there’s no other plane—so we’re going to take this one to Providence. Don’t worry, this kind of thing happens all the time in the military. We did the right thing, it’s the right protocol to turn around.”
I am not afraid of flying. I’m a pretty rational person. It is after midnight and I was exhausted. That was the last straw for me and this flight.
I asked this flight attendant how I could get off the plane, I took my bag and I walked out .
I was lucky to get a ride home at 1 AM, booked another flight out of Tampa the next morning and took an Uber at 5 AM. Different airline.
I kid you not I get in line to board the flight and I am proceeded by a group of carnival entertainers. And the first thing that went through my head was the odds of this plane going down are pretty high.
I can see the headlines “plane full of clowns crashes no survivors.”
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