He’d been an Air Force pilot who’d gone on to fly for Delta. We’d already shared several stories of our time in the service as well as crazy flights and crazier passengers in the few trips we’d taken together, but thankfully, he’d told me not much unexpected happened in this executive jet side of things. His wife, Brenda, who happened to be our flight attendant on this trip, agreed with him. It was quieter and more predictable.
And so far, it had been. Until about two and a half hours into this flight. It started with a sudden thump in the left engine. Alarms began sounding.
“What the hell was that?” Nate asked.
“Bird strike?” I asked. “That’s what it felt like, but aren’t we too high?”
We reacted quickly, assessing the situation and going through memory actions to extinguish the fire in the engine. Brenda called up to report a smoke smell in the cabin.
“Hang tight,” I told her. “Fire in port engine, but it’s out now. We’ll divert somewhere to take a look.” There was no way we’d risk crossing the ocean under these conditions.
Another several thumps and we were without our port side engine completely. Alarms for the starboard side engine flared as well, but they were only warnings so far. It all happened so fast. We went from effortlessly cruising north of Quebec City to deciding to divert to Goose Bay to suddenly wondering if we were even going to make it to an actual runway before having to bring the plane down in the middle of nowhere.
“Fuck,” Nate muttered, scrambling over the controls. We were both well trained for this, but a real-life crisis was very different than simulations.
Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. I kept reminding myself to prioritize according to everything I’d been taught.
As the plane tilted and bumped in our efforts to make it to the snowy Goose Bay airport, I couldn’t help but think about the sweet man I knew in the cabin of the jet and how he, Mr. Banks, and our flight attendant were counting on Nate and me to get us on the ground safely.
“Not going to be smooth,” Nate clipped over the headset. “Tell Brenda to prepare.”
I gave her the update, letting her know to prepare the passengers for a very bumpy landing. In addition to the difficulties in landing a plane on the one engine when the other was alarming too, we were also coming in much heavier than normal with so much fuel left in our tanks.
As the air traffic controller guided us in with a steady voice, we dropped through several air pockets which only served to ratchet up the tension and make controlling the plane that much more difficult. By the time we came screaming down the runway, we were both drenched in sweat and relying on everything we knew to keep the plane steady while we came to a stop.
While Nate worked to shut everything down as quickly as possible, I told Brenda to evacuate the passengers, taking care to grab any jackets and blankets on the way out. Then I radioed our request for medical and fire response just in case they were needed. The air traffic controller promised they were already working on it, and within moments, I saw a red pickup truck with a giant tank of what I could only assume was fire foam on the back racing across the tarmac toward us.
Nate and I grabbed the bare essentials and hustled out of the cockpit and into the frigid night air to meet up with the fire response unit. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I noticed Mr. Banks clutching his chest and struggling to breathe. Tee and Brenda were both helping him, but I could tell by the look on Tee’s face it could be more than a panic attack.
I raced over to the fire truck just as the driver was stepping out. “We need an ambulance quickly,” I shouted. “One of our passengers is having trouble breathing.”
He jumped back in the truck and reached for his radio, but I could already see the reflections of red lights blinking around the side of the building. Sure enough, an ambulance pulled directly onto the tarmac and headed toward us. After double-checking there wasn’t a fire danger from the plane, I waved the ambulance close.
The first responders helped assess the situation and quickly loaded Mr. Banks onto their gurney for transportation to the hospital. “It’s only a few minutes away,” one of the EMTs told me. “Simon can give you a ride when you’re ready.”
I didn’t know who Simon was, but it wasn’t important. For now, my job was to stay with the plane and try to protect Mr. Banks’s asset while he was hopefully in good hands at the hospital. I locked eyes with Tee.
“Are you going with him?” I asked hesitantly. It was strange to speak to him after so many hours of being together under a no-speaking rule.
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m his nurse.” His eyes were wide and worried, and his face was pale. I strangely wanted to pull him into my arms and tell him everything would be okay.
“I’m so sorry,” I said instead.
“For what?”
I gestured to the plane. “I don’t know what happened, but…”
His hand reached out to gently grip my upper arm. “No, I think his symptoms started earlier, and I didn’t catch them in time. You got us on the ground in one piece. You got an ambulance here before I even realized we’d need one.”
I put my hand over the one he had on my arm and squeezed lightly. “Will you be okay by yourself until I can get to the hospital?”
His face relaxed a little bit. “Of course. Yeah.”
The EMTs finished snapping the gurney in place, and I knew Tee needed to hop in so they could get going.
“I’m Jack Snyder,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Teo Parisi,” he replied, slipping his slender fingers into my grasp.
There wasn’t time to exchange phone numbers or linger over the feel of his skin against mine, so I pulled away. “I’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as I can. If you need me before then, call the airport and tell them to find me, okay?”
He moved toward the open bay door of the ambulance. “Okay.”
Nate and I spent the next several hours dealing with inspections and assessments before determining that it had been a bird strike. We were going to need mechanical help before any chance of taking the plane back up.
“Apparently they have a good crew here who can come check it out in the morning if the snowstorm they’re expecting holds off,” Nate said, blowing out a breath of frustration. “So I guess we just need to find a place to get some sleep until then. The Canadian TSB is going to send someone out too. Probably be here around ten, I’d imagine.”
The overnight airport manager was a man named Simon. He walked out to us from the airport building with two Styrofoam cups of coffee. “Brenda sent me out with these. She’s arranged hotel rooms for you, and I have a car you can borrow when you’re ready.”
The fact this man was willing to let us borrow a car was a testament to just how small this town was. With less than ten thousand residents, Goose Bay was just big enough for two Tim Hortons and a hospital. Instead of stopping at the hotel, I asked to be dropped off at the hospital.
The nice woman at the reception desk directed me to a room where Mr. Banks seemed to be sleeping peacefully despite the number of tubes and wires snaking out from under his gown. Teo, on the other hand was pacing around the room with one hand on his phone and the other raking through his hair.
“Hey,” I said softly. His head popped up and he stopped pacing. “How’s he doing?”