The Elitist Jerks' Sports Information Collective

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I went to grad school in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Getting there is no easy task. In fact, I learned there are only two locations in the US, where the US Postal Service does not guarantee overnight delivery. In the summer, you have to drive clear around Lake Michigan to get there (at least when coming from West Virginina). Either, you drive through Chicago, the worst drive in this country, or you drive through Michigan, but then across the UP.

The drive up there in the summer was great but in the winter, it was treacherous. I would usually try to fly in the winter because it was safer than driving through several feet of snow. The problem is that flying was expensive, so I only did it if I needed to get to my parents’ house quickly – like if I left right before Christmas rather than taking a long break.

Now, there is only one airline that services the area – Northwest, now Delta. I will say they’re one of the better airlines – not like United who I’d like to Donkey Punch. They give you free drinks – an entire coke on a flight over 2 hours. And most importantly they give you a snack. I flew United the other day and was in the air for 7 hours. No snacks. Not a bag of pretzels, not a couple of peanuts, nothing but a 5 ounce cup of ice with an ounce and a half of coke in it. So, after being on a god damned airplane all day, I calculated the number of calories I’d ingested at 30. I won’t fly them again.

But enough of that rant. Northwest has their flaws as well. You see, I flew back and forth between the UP and the DC area 15 times over a 4 year period. And remarkably, they misplaced my baggage 8 of those times. There was always a transfer from a jet to a smaller 33 seat DC-10 in Detroit or Minneapolis. And not surprisingly, 100% of the time I changed planes in Detroit, they lost my bag. But of course, I only learned this after I did an analysis of my problems.

But there was another event that took place on the short flight from Detroit to the UP. To this day, I don’t know if it’s an indictment of Northwest or an example of a real Sully Sulenberg moment.

So, at this point, I was unaware of the fact that my bags were not on the plane and that I’d get to spend the next few days up there without my luggage. At this point, all I was aware of was that I was going to land soon enough and be out drinking with my buddies within a few hours. In the winter, in the UP, the sun sets around 3:30 in the afternoon. It rises at 9am. There just isn’t much daylight. And it sucks attending an 8am class in the dark. It’s a real struggle to stay awake. But at this point in the air, it was about 6 in the afternoon and had been dark for a while. It didn’t help that there was a huge lake effect snow storm blocking out any moon or star light.

Being so dark, and surrounded by the big lake effect clouds, there was really no visibility. The best I got was the flashing of the lights on the wing, which would illuminate a small 2 or 3 foot diameter area around the light.

As we crossed over Lake Michigan, I could see the snow starting to fall harder and harder. It was getting to the point where I couldn’t see the light flashing anymore, I could just see a weak illumination off in the distance, blinking. The pilot turned on the “fasten seatbelts” sign and told us there was some turbulence upcoming. And it was nothing special – typical turbulence as the plane started tossing around.

But then things started getting worse. The plane was kicking around pretty wildly. And then we started hitting pockets of air and dropping 10 feet or so, then regaining altitude, rocking around, and then dropping again. I’m not a huge fan of flying, but at this point, things were getting tense for everyone. I was gripping the arm rest as tightly as I could. My legs were flexed, like I was trying to apply the brakes in my car. All the while, the plane is tossing from side to side. And I could barely make out the light at the end of the wings anymore. It was really snowing hard.

Suddenly, the cabin lights started to flicker. They’d cut out for a second or two, then come back on, flicker, cut off, and then back on. And we were still climbing and dropping while tossing side to side. At this point, every time the lights would cut off, some people would let out faint screams. When the plane would hit an air pocket and drop, the screams were louder. And we pressed on through the storm.

Then the lights cut out and didn’t come back on. We kept flying like that for another 15 or 20 seconds. It just seemed like the power inside the plane had cut off. And we hit a big air pocket. We probably dropped for three or four seconds – I figure 20 or 30 feet in a single air pocket. And with that people started screaming as loud as they could. My fingers had managed to grip the arm rest even tighter. I was sweating but sitting perfectly, tensely still. I could hear people vomiting and could smell the putrid stink in the air, but it really wasn’t affecting me at all because I was so concerned with the fact that it was really starting to seem like we were going to crash.

And the lights cut back on, which seemed to calm everyone down. My stomach was in knots and I was still looking out the window, trying to make out the wing of the plane, which was barely visible through the snow. I couldn’t tell if the lights were flashing anymore or if they were also having trouble with power. Then it happened. The plane just fell out of the sky.

We were in free fall. You could feel it. I lifted out of my seat and was caught by my seat belt. It didn’t feel like we were moving forward anymore, just falling in a flat dive. At that, most people on the plane were screaming. I remember some people actually standing up – I don’t know if it was because their seat belts were loose or if they actually had plans to go somewhere. And the lights cut off again. It was complete mayhem. There was more vomiting and screaming/yelling. I felt my fingers punch through the leather of the seat handle. I was flexing harder than I had ever in my life. Every muscle was tensed up. No question I was freaking out.

We continued to fall from the sky. It had been a while. People were screaming and taking breaths to scream again because we were still going down. If I had to guess, it was about 10 seconds maybe 15 seconds. It doesn’t sound like much maybe, but look at a stopwatch and imagine dropping in a state of freefall from 5 miles above the Earth’s surface in a metal ball of death. Suddenly, it felt being in a car driving 30 mph and hitting a telephone poll. There was a crash, the lights cut back on, everything was shaking, and it felt like the engines were working again and we were moving forward instead of down. When we bottomed out, everything was shaking inside the plane – it was a feeling that I really can’t describe. It really was surreal.

After the drop, the captain came on and told us that the storm was worse than they had thought it would be and they were going to have to turn around and fly east, then north through Canada and back down behind the storm, crossing Lake Superior. We had no more bad weather experiences after turning around. We got in to the UP about 2 hours late, but safe. When we landed, everyone on the plane clapped and cheered.

I really don’t know if the captain deserved congratulations, when it seems he made a mistake trying to navigate through that storm. But I am still alive. On the way off the plane, the captain said we were in freefall and had dropped 150 feet. When everything was done, my muscles hurt for 3 days. About as long as it took me to get my clothes back from Northwest.

Tags: airplane, bad storm, ice, Jose Kortez, lost baggage, near death, plane crash, UP of Michigan