Fear Times Three

 

By Elaine Viets

Recently, a three-foot hole was torn open in a Southwest Airlines plane – while it was flying. The plane landed safely. But the holey aircraft made me queasy. Especially since I was headed to St. Louis. On Southwest Airlines.

Then an Air France super jumbo jet clipped a Comair commuter plane. Again, nobody was hurt.

But this was serious. That second incident activated the Airplane Rule of Three. I needed another scary airplane incident fast.

My grandmother believed in the Rule of Three. She thought deaths – especially celebrity deaths – came in threes. I knew that was pure superstition. Grandma would simply notice that three famous people had died and then forget about the others.

The Airplane Rule of Three is a scientific fact. Airplane accidents happen in threes. There are three horrendous crashes and then the airways are safe again. There are near-misses, then smooth flying.

Before my trip last weekend, I watched the news, hoping the Rule of Three would be satisfied. I hate to fly, but I like Southwest. Their flight attendants make me laugh. I forget I'm hurtling through the air at six hundred miles an hour in an aluminum tube .

But I wasn't laughing when I boarded that flight last Friday. I was jittery as a junkie who needed a fix. The Rule of Three was short by one scary incident. It didn't help at takeoff when the woman next to me said, "Well, we got off the ground without any parts falling off."

Halfway through the flight, I joined the restroom line at the back of the plane.

"Can I get you something?" the flight attendant asked.

I glanced up at the "restroom occupied" sign and raised an eyebrow.

"To add to your problem," he finished, and grinned.

The man in line next to me asked the attendant about the holey plane.

"The planes were all checked and nobody was hurt," the flight attendant said.

"I'm surprised someone wasn't sucked out of the hole," I said.

"I'm sure that's an urban legend," the flight attendant said.

"No, it happened in 1988," I said. "A hole blew open in the fuselage and a flight attendant was sucked out."

Take that, I thought. You, too, could be an urban legend.

My fellow standee said, "She's right. It's true."

"I come from a long line of frightened flyers," I said. "My uncle Eddie carried a parachute with him on planes. He was a traveling salesman and hated to fly. He wouldn't get on a plane unless he had that parachute with him – not that it would have done him much good."

 

"If he'd been in a tall building like the Twin Towers, a parachute might work," the flight attendant said. "But not on a commercial aircraft."

The restroom door opened, ending our chat at 30,000 feet. I was grateful for the conversation. It distracted me for the rest of the flight. What would I do if I was trapped in a burning skyscraper and had a parachute?

Would I jump off the roof and save myself? Would I be up high enough so the parachute would open in time? Would I let friends cling to me when I jumped? If I did, would the extra weight make us all drop like rocks?

Or would I stay trapped in the burning skyscraper with my coworkers?

By the time the plane landed safely, I decided I wasn't noble enough to die with my colleagues. That was team player overkill.

Sunday, I took Southwest back home. The takeoff was delayed 30 minutes in St. Louis.

"Weather problem?" I asked a gate agent.

"Equipment," she said. "They're bringing in another plane."

Gulp. I waited with a Bissinger's chocolate bar and a Michael Connelly hardcover. I would die in style.

The plane made it safely to Fort Lauderdale.

I fly Southwest again April 28. Each day I check the news for one last scare to finish the Rule of Three. I want to fly fearlessly.

I'm two-thirds of the way there.